Justice Committee on May 9th, 2006

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

So, there would be unfettered, full disclosure. I see. Okay.

[Shawn Scromeda]

There are privileges attached to disclosure, informer privilege, for example, that could relate to certain aspects of this, but there is no exception under our laws of disclosure for activities taken pursuant to section 25.1.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Thank you. I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Again, for the benefit of the committee, it indicates with the legislation here that there is an annual report filed. Is it possible to table that report or at least tell us where we can obtain the report?

[Shawn Scromeda]

We can ensure that you have copies of the annual reports filed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Where is it filed?

[Shawn Scromeda]

They have been filed in Parliament, at least the federal annual reports. The annual reports relate to each competent authority, so there have also been annual reports filed by provinces as well. The federal ones have been tabled in Parliament. Though there's not a direct requirement for tabling, the ones filed so far have been tabled.

Yes, we can ensure that you get those.

The responsibility for tabling those annual reports is for the competent minister who designates the officers, who.... Once again, at the federal level, as Minister of Public Safety, you may, of course, at your discretion, be hearing from public safety officials. They would be most appropriately placed to provide you information with respect to the annual reports.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

It would be advantageous, actually, to have the report before we meet with him.

[Shawn Scromeda]

Certainly. They are available on the website, but we can ensure that you get them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Very good.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I find it odd that we would be asking a witness to provide us with a copy of a report that the witness's organization has already tabled in Parliament.

We are Parliament, so could we not just obtain this from our journals?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

We wanted to know where they had it, Mr. Lee.

Your knowledge of where some of these reports are may be greater than that of the rest of us, but it would be certainly advantageous for the committee to all have access to it.

Now, Ms. Smith.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the presenters very much. As the mother of an RCMP officer, I can tell you that I like to hear some of these things. Also, I do have some questions I want to ask about this provision, and I don't at all have the background that you do, but I've just heard about and done some reading and pulled some things off the website.

There were a couple of things I wondered about. There was a question earlier about what police officers this jurisdiction would involve. I think it was Mr. Lee who asked that question. I pulled a report off the website we were just talking about. In that report, it referred only to the RCMP. So I did have a concern about extending that to joint forces units that were not in the RCMP, because when I read this I thought to myself that it is a relatively narrow jurisdiction. This wouldn't be the ordinary police officer; this would be the joint forces unit. This would be something that comes from senior management down. It's not something where a police officer would just say he is going to investigate a drug unit and he needs special consideration. A lot of process goes into place before this actually would occur.

I think it is so important to have, because it does protect our police officers who are under orders--and not only orders, but I know they want to do it too, because they get very involved in this--to protect our streets. I haven't read the whole Criminal Code, but has there been consideration in here for other police officers and for careful backup for them, so there can be no mistakes made? When you're on the ground and something happens, you might have to get this permission very quickly because you might have to be on the scene very quickly, or if there's a narc or somebody undercover. These things happen. Does it serve this need?

[Shawn Scromeda]

With respect, I think there was more than one question there.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Yes, there was. I have only five minutes.

[Shawn Scromeda]

I think the first question was maybe a concern about reading the annual report and seeing it referring only to RCMP officers, and that's true. That is the report that was issued by the Minister of Public Safety in respect of the RCMP. That is the minister responsible.

I would like to clarify that the law enforcement justification is available to other law enforcement officers across Canada, not just the RCMP. In fact, there have been designations of other law enforcement officers.

You brought up the specific example of joint forces operations. That would be an example of where the RCMP may be working with others. I would leave them to go into any details of this, but they often do work with other police forces if they are engaged in the complex sort of investigations to which you are referring. This is perhaps not a tool so much for the ordinary police officer on the street to use in just an ordinary patrol; it is for the complex investigations, ones that receive extensive pre-authorization, and concerning other police forces, you would see in other annual reports issued by ministers of public safety or solicitors general across Canada reference to their police officers and what has been done.

I think the last concern you had was what happens if, however, what you might refer to as a general police officer on the street comes across this situation and suddenly needs to be able to take advantage of these provisions. That's a fair question.

The provisions do have a requirement for designation, so an undesignated officer would not beforehand be able to take advantage of these provisions.

There is a provision for emergency designation of such an officer. Such an officer might suddenly find himself, even through an ordinary routine patrol, I suppose, in a situation where he might suddenly have an opportunity to go undercover the next day. I suppose there would be a possibility that he would receive that designation from a senior official without having to go the ministerial route, the ordinary method of designation.

But yes, it is normally a regime that applies for pre-designation of officers who are normally working in those circumstances where they would come across this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Smith.

Mr. Ignatieff.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

I had a question relating to the unfortunate circumstances in which citizens are killed by the police. It's a three-part question.

I'm just trying to understand what is implied here when it says “Nothing in the section justifies...the intentional...causing of death”. Does that leave the matter of prosecution discretionary in cases where a police officer causes the death of a civilian with his firearm? That would be question number one. I mean, what happens? Nothing in this section justifies the intentional causing of death, but does prosecution follow in these cases, or is it discretionary, and to what degree should it be discretionary?

The second question I have, and this relates to paragraph 25.1(8)(c), is whether the belief that a police officer's reaction was reasonable and proportional in the circumstances constitutes a defence or implies that it creates a defence in these unfortunate circumstances.

Third, relating to the public reporting requirements in sections 25.2, 25.3, and 25.4, what obligations by the police to report to the public and to public authorities are implied in these cases? There have been widespread concerns that the police take far too long to report to the public in cases where police officers shoot a civilian in the course of duty.

Let me make it perfectly clear to members that I make no presumption of guilt in the current cases that are discussed in the press. I have a strong disposition to support the police in these unfortunate cases. I have a strong understanding that they have to make second-by-second life choices here. I'm not trying to prejudge any of the investigations that are currently under way. I'm simply trying to understand what sense is implied by this section of the code in these cases where police officers kill a civilian in the line of duty.

[Erin McKey]

I will try to take your questions in order, and hopefully I've understood them correctly.

Subsection 25.1(11) excludes from this regime the intentional or criminally negligent causing death or bodily harm. It excludes that. If that happened, you don't get to look to section 25.1. You might look elsewhere. It may be that the officer has the use of force provisions in section 25 available to him, but this regime excludes that right off the top.

We discussed the three categories of conduct generally. That's the first category, conduct that's excluded. That's not to say other defences might not exist elsewhere, but section 25.1 just doesn't come into play.

I think that takes you through paragraph 25.1(8)(c), because again, once you get into the criminally negligent or intentional causing of death or bodily harm, you're not going to look to subsection 25.1(8). And you're not looking at the reporting requirements, because this is conduct that's simply outside the regime.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I just have one supplementary then.

What requirements are there with respect to reporting in these cases where the police shoot a civilian? There's a current case in B.C., and I don't want to prejudge or comment on the case or make any presumptions about what happened, but there is substantial public anger about how long it has taken for the RCMP to report on this case. I want to know what statutory requirements the RCMP has in such cases.

[Michael Zigayer]

I'll leave to my colleague Erin McKey the discussion of that matter from British Columbia.

I just want to complete an earlier response that she made when she referred to section 25 of the code. What they call it is protection of persons acting under authority. I'll just read that, as it's very short:

25. (1) Every one who is required or authorized by law to do anything in the administration or enforcement of the law (a) as a private citizen, (b) as a peace officer or public officer, (c) in aid of a peace officer or public officer, or (d) by virtue of his office, is, if he acts on reasonable grounds, justified in doing what he is required or authorized to do and in using as much force as is necessary for that purpose.

I'm not suggesting that this is self-defence.

Your question was very difficult because it pointed us to section 25. My colleague has suggested looking at section 25, which is basically the reasonable use of force in the carrying out of duties, but your question is somewhere else again, I think. It's a report on a shooting. It's not as though someone has hidden the fact that there was a shooting, but the completion of a police report or the laying of charges...? I'm not actually very clear what it is when you say it's taking a long time to make a police report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Ignatieff, if you'd like to clarify that point with them, then we'll move on to Mr. Brown.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

In the situation in question, upon which my question was based, a young man is killed as a result of an RCMP action in October. By May there is still no public report as to what happened. My question was whether there is any statutory obligation to simply report. Again, I make no presumption about what did or did not occur. I'm just asking if there's an obligation on the RCMP, or can they just roll it out as long as they want?

[Shawn Scromeda]

We will have to defer an answer to that question. This is a question outside of the section 25.1 regime. It's not a question that I'd want to give an off-the-cuff answer to right now.

I understand the question now, and we can undertake to provide you with something in writing on that issue.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Anything provided in writing will be circulated to the full committee, I take it, right?