Evidence of meeting #112 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was events.
A video is available from Parliament.
Noon
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Welcome back for the second hour of procedure and House affairs.
We are now meeting with the Parliamentary Protective Service. We have with us Mr. Mitch Monette, the director of PPS, who is accompanied by Matthew Ritchie, associate chief, operations.
Welcome to the procedure and House affairs committee. The floor is yours for your opening comments.
Noon
Chief Superintendent Mitch Monette Director, Parliamentary Service, Parliamentary Protective Service
Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable MPs.
My name is Michel Monette. I go by Mitch. I'm pleased to be with you today to testify before this committee for the first time since I was appointed director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, or PPS, last November.
While I will keep my remarks brief, I do want to take a moment to highlight a few things that I bring to this position.
For 31 years, I proudly served as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. I spent 23 of these 31 years specifically in protective operations. As a result, Parliament Hill and many members of its community are already quite familiar to me.
To date, my career has given me the opportunity to live and work in many parts of the country, from the Maritimes to Canada's Far North. That said, my roots are in Timmins, Ontario, and I call myself a proud Franco-Ontarian at every opportunity.
Ever since my appointment a few months ago, I've been committed to strengthening the PPS's solid relationships with its security partners, both on and off the Hill, and to building new ones. Collaboration, communication and consultation are at the heart of everything I do as director.
Given my personal commitment to client service, my love of history and my sincere respect for those who dedicate themselves to serving our democracy, I am thrilled to contribute my protective experience to supporting the PPS's privileged mandate. Strong and efficient relationships with both our internal security partners, such as the Sergeant-at-Arms and corporate security office, and our external law enforcement partners are pivotal to me, and I nurture and value these connections immensely.
Since my arrival at the PPS, I've thrown myself into the work, spending day after day on site to take the pulse of our community as a whole, from my employees to parliamentarians to Hill employees in general. My commitment to them and to all of you is that I will continue to be present and collaborative in advancing our shared goals with respect to safety and protection. I am always here and always at your disposal because I want to establish and strengthen collaborative relationships that lead to positive outcomes for our communities.
Finally, please trust that I am honoured and privileged to serve the parliamentary community in my role as director, and that the PPS remains very grateful for your continued support.
Madam Chair and honourable MPs, this concludes my opening remarks. I will be pleased, alongside my colleague Matt Ritchie, who has been around for a long time, to answer your questions.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you.
We will have six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Duncan, and followed by Mr. Duguid, Madame Gaudreau and Madam Mathyssen.
Mr. Duncan, you have six minutes, through the chair.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Eric Duncan Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you, Madame Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here with us this afternoon, and, most importantly, for the work you do to help protect us, our democracy, our staff and all the folks who work here within the parliamentary precinct.
I think the Parliamentary Protective Service and the role of security have evolved over the years, and are constantly changing. In your years of service, you've probably seen changes to the scope and range of protective services you need to provide not only in the vicinity of downtown Ottawa but also in terms of constituency security for members while they're in their ridings or at home.
Could I ask you to discuss that evolution? In your experience, how has that evolved in recent years? As part of that, maybe you could also discuss the staffing complement and the size of the team required to provide your services here, and the broad mandate you have to assist and protect us.
12:05 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
Let me answer that wearing two hats.
Of course, as a member of the RCMP and having worked extensively on the protective side with the Prime Minister's detail, with the VIP units and with the Governor General's detail, and having been involved in putting together several major events, as well as in my current role as director here, I can say that unless you've lived under a rock, the evolution and polarization of the population have grown significantly. Clearly, the people are right or left. Call it what you will. That's always existed, but now the temperature has changed. That has had a significant impact on security.
How do we do that, and how do we do that in a way that provides the people we serve—and, for that matter, the general public—whereby we find a balance?
The jobs our parliamentarians do, beyond the actual work they do every day, clearly represent something. They represent, of course, Canadian values, democracy and all of that.
How do we provide an adequate security posture that is commensurate to the threat, while leaving an impression—more than an impression, but the fact—of the proximity of the public to our parliamentarians?
I wish I could say there's an easy answer to that. There is no easy answer to that. In fact, we struggle with that on a regular basis. How do we do that?
As we're building the new Parliament in the LTVP context, the Centre Block and all of the projects, how do we find that balance of security, using modern technology—because technology is evolving greatly—while making sure that it doesn't look like a police state? We don't want to replicate that. We see that happening in other places on the planet, and that's not what Canadians want. It's not what this place represents.
We're constantly struggling. I wish there was an easy answer to that. All we can do is try to stay on top of the threats.
I think all police departments, law enforcement, the RCMP inside here and the Sergeant-at-Arms have all increased our intel capacity to try to get ahead of the threat and try to make the difference between what is an actual threat and what is a perceived threat. This is understanding that a person who is receiving negative comments or some kind of security threat, although it may not necessarily be something that's actionable, is going to be concerned. Of course, they won't be well. Of course, it may have an impact, if it's a parliamentarian, on how they do their job.
That's the crux of what this place represents—
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I'm going to pause quickly. I was trying to get the connection.
We had a really good first hour. We had a really rough Tuesday meeting. Today, we are here to speak about the incident in the gallery.
It's really exciting to have you here in your new role. We have not had you come and join us before, but I really hope we stay connected to why the committee is meeting.
Perhaps you didn't hear my opening comments, but I mentioned that we're meeting today for the committee to continue its study of the parliamentary protocol related to an incident in the Speaker's gallery on Friday, September 22, 2023.
I hope, Mr. Duncan and colleagues, that we can stay connected to why we are here, so that the analysts can do their good job in being able to provide us with something we can report back to the House.
12:10 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
Understood, Madam Chair.
I'm just putting it out there that I'd be more than happy to meet with the committee separately on this issue, or with members individually, to talk about this. I can talk about it all day long.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
It feels like it. Excellent.
Mr. Duncan, it's back to you on the study.
April 11th, 2024 / 12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Eric Duncan Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you.
When I asked the first question, I was getting to my second one to bring it to the topic, once again, that we're talking about here, which is the incident in the gallery. My point, and what you laid out well, is about the evolving nature of physical threats and cybersecurity, and the protection of the precinct and the work you do.
I think the issue, from what we heard from a lot of witnesses over the course of this study, is that for guest lists and vetting, you would have access to, or get for security purposes...to see if somebody has a history of being a physical threat to the precinct and what's going on.
The challenge we had with the individual we are speaking about and this incident, when things were recognized, was there wasn't further vetting. We had a witness earlier this week who said, “I wish we had done a simple Google search. Maybe this wouldn't have happened, to a certain extent.”
My question to this point is about your capacity and ability to deal with that. I think we've narrowed it down, and PPS does not do an online search of individuals for an issue such as the one that happened here. It's more about a physical nature and the physical threat that members of the precinct have to deal with.
I'll ask you to speak about the capacity. You do not have the capacity, I believe, within existing resources to go and do that extra layer, but please talk about it again and confirm that, and whether you would be the ones best suited to handle that.
12:10 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
First of all, it's not our mandate to do it. As you mentioned, our mandate is clearly physical security.
We receive the names of individuals who will be given access to the precinct. Other than that, to answer your specific question, we clearly don't have the capacity for a significant list. Again, we're not built for that.
As you mentioned, we have an intel unit that could definitely do those searches, but we would, respectfully, return them to the units responsible for that here.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to join my colleague in thanking you for your long service, both in the RCMP and in your new role—protecting us, protecting Parliament and protecting our democracy. Thank you for keeping us safe, and thank your staff on our behalf, as well.
We clearly highlighted that the vetting PPS does doesn't go beyond physical security threats. We talked about the evolution of the PPS. I'll refer to the word you used a number of times: collaboration.
Do you see PPS potentially playing a role in sharing information beyond the physical threat area?
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
I can speak about the strong collaborations we currently have from an intel perspective. I'm putting aside the fact of whether or not we would be given a list to check individuals. It's just, generally, the threat environment. We have a unit. We work very closely with the Sergeant-at-Arms' intel unit, the RCMP, the Ottawa police and the Senate's security.
I want to say that it's getting better and better all the time. As things evolve, we're getting better and better at it, as well.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Madam Chair, to be clear, would you screen invitees to the Speaker's gallery for security threats, like all guests?
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
That's correct.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Okay. The Speaker would not.... Well, I think you've answered the question.
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
I can add that there could be an exception to the screening, which happens regularly. If the Sergeant-at-Arms provides us with a note to exempt someone from screening, that implies they're vouching. Those individuals can proceed without an actual physical screening through the “mag and bag”, as we call it.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
That's our jargon for the magnetometer and checking bags. It's police talk.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Thank you. You've added to our vocabulary today, which is greatly appreciated.
Fundamentally, what this committee is trying to do is come up with recommendations so an unfortunate incident like this does not happen again. The country was embarrassed. This incident was used by Putin in Russia for propaganda purposes. We know it has had a very negative and dramatic effect.
Would you have recommendations for this committee on how to prevent this kind of incident from happening again, from the vantage point of vetting? I realize that you do the security threat analysis, but you might have advice for other arms of the government you work with.
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
I would say this is a protective principle at large: The more information we have about individuals the more it provides whoever is responsible...so they can do every part of it and have more time to do the checks that might be necessary. Clearly, we have to establish protocols for how we do it, and respect the protocols.
One thing we see sometimes in security is this: Things happen on paper. We agree on protocols. However, when the rubber hits the road, not all of those protocols are respected to the extent they were. A lot of thought is generally put into those protocols. Cutting those protocols clearly puts us at greater risk.
In this case, the establishment of protocols in terms of having the names early enough to provide the time to do it.... We don't bypass those protocols.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
You just said that the Sergeant-at-Arms can send a note to have somebody bypass security.
12:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mitch Monette
Yes.