Evidence of meeting #138 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was carbines.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Sylvain Ricard  Interim Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Brenda Lucki  Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Commissioner Brian Brennan  Deputy Commissioner, Contract and Indigenous Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Dennis Watters  Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Nicholas Swales  Principal, Office of the Auditor General

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

That isn't part of your report. That information doesn't appear in your report.

9:55 a.m.

Interim Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General

Sylvain Ricard

That is why adequate planning is so important. As managers, we know we have to contend with certain challenges and realities, so we have to plan accordingly. In the case of an isolated post, officers can't be pulled out to receive training elsewhere; otherwise, the area would have no officers. That's something every organization has to deal with. I want to thank the committee for always paying attention to information systems, information quality and proper planning. Those are key issues that, all too often, we flag in our audits.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Thank you.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you, Mr. Ayoub. Those were very good questions.

Mr. Christopherson.

9:55 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you, Chair.

I want to underscore that we're talking about a lot of data, a lot of detail, and getting in the weeds and that, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the subject matter is about officer safety and public safety. When these things go wrong that are just paperwork for us right now....

That's okay; it's just the House starting—

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Christopherson, when the RCMP sees flashing lights, they immediately stop.

9:55 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Exactly. You notice they didn't rush to protect us.

9:55 a.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

9:55 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I just wanted to underscore that this is not a good report. I thank my colleague for raising that. The conclusion was that you did not provide all your officers with access to body armour, carbines and the recertification training required to respond to active shooters. We've been kind of quiet and subdued here, but that's because we aren't dealing with dead citizens. We're dealing with policies meant to prevent that, and the policies are not where they should be, so it is still serious.

I want to go to page 8 again. It's been raised a couple of times and I noted it in paragraph 5.37. I had it down as sort of the good, the bad and the ugly. We found that part of the good is that the RCMP had met its target for the initial training of front-line officers on carbines. Congrats for that. That was the good. But 13% of those officers had not completed the annual recertification. We talked about that a bit and that was the bad. We also found that 13% of all officers who were required to carry pistols had not completed their annual pistol recertification, and that's the ugly part.

Paragraph 5.42 underscores that every officer required to carry a pistol on duty must complete the pistol recertification every year. Now that's RCMP policy. Mr. Brennan, I heard you giving kind of a defence of the 13%. But that's your number. It's the RCMP that said this needs to be done once a year. It's not someone from outside saying you have to do this irresponsible and unmanageable thing. These are your own numbers. Now, back in 2005, you were at 23%, and 14 years later you're at 13%. You're going the right way, but you're still in double digits.

What's the deal? Are you going to meet the darn standard or change it? Please don't keep coming back here failing to meet a standard that you set. Could I have your thoughts, please?

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Brennan.

10 a.m.

D/Commr Brian Brennan

Yes, it's the standard we set, and we set it to ensure that our members are proficient in the use of their weapons for their own protection and that of the citizens. My reply is not a defensive reply. It's the reality of our ability to train those members. For example, if I was to recertify today, and a year from now the training schedule for the unit I'm in was not scheduled until June, it would look like I failed to qualify within a year. That would be true. However, in the RCMP's ability to train we are restricted by our access to proper ranges. Usually we train in outdoor facilities. Our training in most of the country is between May and October. We train using a large number of outdoor ranges.

In that regard, our training is limited to about six months a year. We try to push through as many people as possible in that time period. Now, some of those people may not be working during that time. Some are off duty, sick, or on maternity or paternity leave. We haven't washed those numbers down to remove them from the 13%. We are extremely confident that an acceptable number of operational, deployable front-line personnel completes their requalification during that one-year period. It's the reality that we work with. If we could train in facilities 12 months a year, five days a week, we would do that.

10 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I hear you. I'm trying to be fair-minded about it, but again, it's your number, your system. If you need to put in factors that make a more realistic number, that's fine, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to create a measurement, consistently fail in that measurement, and then come up with excuses as to why. I'd rather see a number that's more accurate—maybe 7%—and would be easier to manage. I'm having a real difficulty when you set a standard and don't meet it and then come in and tell me why the number is not as effective as it looks on paper.

10 a.m.

Commr Brenda Lucki

I think you were right when you said it really is about officer safety. If somebody delays their qualification by a month, they're not vulnerable. The risk is not high that they will not be able to shoot their assailant.

10 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Fair enough, Commissioner. I'm hearing what you're saying, and I'm accepting some of that. As you well know, I have a bit of background in policing. I understand the management side of it, too, and I know how incredibly difficult it is.

That's why I'm perplexed by why you can insist on having a numbers system where you rate yourself, but you're not factoring in your own mitigating factors. If you don't factor them in, then you're creating a number that just causes confusion. On that 13%, I'm thinking, it's not horrible, but it's not good. It should 100%. That's what it's supposed to be.

If there are some variables, put them into the formula so that the number you're giving to the public and reporting to Parliament is an accurate reflection that takes these things into account.

I'm hearing you. I'm trying to be fair-minded and if what you're saying is true and that number is not as accurate because there are nuances, then find a way to factor in those nuances so that when we look at a number, it's a real number.

10:05 a.m.

Commr Brenda Lucki

We could easily say, for example, that we only require 75% to qualify, but we want everybody to qualify.

The reality is that, at any given time, the OAG could come in. We will never have 100%. That is the reality, and it's a reality for all police agencies because it's a snapshot in time.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Okay, I hear you.

To me, this just reinforces the need for a police services board. You're raising the point: Should it be 75% or should it be 100%? That's what a police services board would look at and would talk about.

We don't have that in our system. We didn't have it in Ontario. It needs to be fixed. It shouldn't just be one person, the solicitor general or Minister of Public Safety, who has all that responsibility for all this minutiae. There should be an accountability layer. I know the government is starting to bring that in, but it's a somewhat limited mandate from what I can see.

To me, you're arguing against yourself, not me. I'm just trying to find out what the number is. I look at the number the AG gives me, and then you say that number isn't really that number because there is this, this and this, and yet you're the one who created the number and the formula to determine whether you achieve that number or not.

That's all. It just leaves me a little confused. I've taken up most of my time on that. I hope I get another round, because I have one last area I'd like to pursue, if I could.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

I can give you my time.

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

You now have your next round.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you very much to my vice-chair colleague. I appreciate that.

On data, your policy on page 10 in paragraph 5.53 says:

RCMP policy states that pistols and carbines must be sent to the armoury for preventive maintenance every three years or after every 5,000 rounds fired, whichever comes first.

Then it turns out that you don't keep track of how many rounds are fired on each firearm. So what's the deal? Why do you maintain a policy that says, either this threshold or that threshold, but we only measure one threshold anyway? Why do you have a policy like that?

May 16th, 2019 / 10:05 a.m.

Commr Brenda Lucki

I'm going to refer that question to Mr. Watters.

10:05 a.m.

Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Dennis Watters

Initially, when we were having discussions with the OAG, we did mention to them that we will amend the policy and remove that 5,000 rounds. The 5,000 rounds criterion was there years ago because we had a lot of members who were doing competitive shooting and going to shows, but now our general duty members don't do that any more.

Essentially the 5,000 rounds issue is a moot point. We don't track the rounds anymore, but, as we told the Auditor General, we will change the policy to remove that because it is no longer relevant.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I should probably know this, but I confess I don't. Is there a deadline in your action plan to have that done?

10:05 a.m.

Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Dennis Watters

It will be done very shortly, I can tell you. We can do that. It won't take long for us to do that.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Just to reinforce—and I'll end here—the chair's message about data and data collection, it's also making sure we interpret it properly. When we see policy, especially for the RCMP.... You have to cut a little slack for some outfits that just don't have the means, but you do, so when we see some of the lack of planning and redundancy in policies like this.... I'm glad to hear that it's being caught, but I'm somewhat troubled that something like that would still be there at this stage and that it took the Auditor General's report to flush it out.

Luckily we have a system that does that, but to reinforce this—and I hope the next Parliament continues to make this a priority—we've been doing this for a number of decades now, collecting information. As Mr. Ferguson used to say, we've become very good at collecting information; we're just not very good at using it. That's why we're continuously pushing on this. It doesn't generate headlines. It's not very sexy politically, but it is the key and cornerstone to proper governance and management.

On balance, again, as a citizen, especially as I take leave of the public stage, I do offer again, as we always do, our thanks for the work of the police officers and everybody in the RCMP.

But this is not a good report, and you can do better. I know that going forward you will do better for Canadians. Hopefully, when there's a follow-up report in a few years, it will look a little better than the one that we're following up from 2005.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Auditor General.

Thank you, Chair.

10:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you all.

There are just a couple of quick little questions. I don't have anyone else on the speakers list.

The Auditor General's report says that in 2018 there were 18,000 RCMP officers. Today you have used the number 20,000. Is that indeed the number? That sounds good. We were worried about recruits and keeping up with the attrition rate. Are we at 20,000? What is the plan for the next few years? This is a little outside the parameters of the report, but just comment on that, please.