Public Accounts Committee on May 16th, 2019

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Those are great questions.

We're just over 20,000. I don't have the exact number. We are continuing to put through 40 troops per year at the RCMP academy, which translates into about 1,200 new graduates per year with the attrition.

We've been working hard at our vacancy rates, and we're pleased that in this fiscal year we'll be down to around a 1.5% vacancy rate. We are still exploring strategies to deal with soft vacancies such as members off duty sick, or on paternity leave or maternity leave, because that also is affecting us. It doesn't reflect in the vacancy numbers officially because the position has a body in it, but the body is just not at the office.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I live in a small rural community where a number of years ago, there was an RCMP shooting incident. Two RCMP officers were shot and injured. Luckily, they were not killed, although there was a fatality in the shooting.

We hear a lot about overtime in the RCMP. I think sometimes RCMP officers depend on overtime and look forward to those extra hours.

Does the lack of resources play into this audit at all? You've mentioned a number of times that people were off on maternity leave and others were off sick, and maybe some of the recertification didn't happen.

I can tell you that sergeants or commanding officers in some of these detachments fear maternity leave because it leaves the detachment short. Does that play into this as well, as far as the recertification is concerned, because we just couldn't send someone to be recertified?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

It affects the numbers when we count, as Deputy Commissioner Brennan alluded to, because they are operational members, but they're just not at work at that snapshot in time. That's one way it affects us, but obviously, there is a lot of planning that has to come into effect when you have the maternity leave and paternity leave options.

As I said, we have a short window for recertifications. For example, when I was in charge of northern Manitoba, we would have relief members so that the members we put up there could come down to do their training, because they shouldn't be missing training opportunities while they're up in the north.

Obviously, we do have...where we can bring people in on relief. We use overtime, but again, we have to be aware of the mental wellness of our members as well. We don't want everything to rely on the overtime solution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

This is the second or third time of leaving it in the committee's hands. The second or third time that I go into the final comments trying to summarize everything up and all of a sudden hands start shooting up and they want to come forward. I'm probably not going to today, but I do just want to finish this up by saying this committee takes very seriously the jobs that it's called to do. Sometimes it deals with straight data. Sometimes it deals with delivery of programs, money, accountability, transparency, cost saving.

Today we're dealing with lives typically and management practices. These have real consequences. For example, in the case that we're looking at today, I'm not sure if it was an Auditor General's report or an internal review that you did, but in 2011, the RCMP officers, in an analysis, recognized that they did not have the firearms they needed for proper safety and for delivery of public safety. That was in 2011. There were three deaths in 2014, and when the mandated review took place in December of that very same year, they found out that a lot of the reason was that the Moncton officers did not have the necessary body armour. Then later the court finds that the RCMP is guilty of not providing adequate equipment, including maybe the carbines. That's in 2019. Now the Auditor General says that we still don't have it where we would like to see it. That's why this committee is here.

This committee is here to make certain that proper process is followed. That's why Mr. Christopherson is drilling in on 13%. It could be 30%; it could be 3%. The Auditor General has been clear. It is process followed. Are the best management practices followed? That's what we care about.

Today we ask ourselves, should we believe that this time the RCMP brass will, in effect, heed the Auditor General's recommendation? We see in the action plan that they have, and indeed I see some timelines of April 2019. We've already met those, so we're encouraged by that. Again, we follow up on this and we want to be certain when we look at this next time that we have bettered our past numbers, and it's because of the Auditor General's report, it's because of the public accounts report, it's because of the RCMP brass taking this very seriously and following through.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Point of privilege.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

This is a strong committee and we have a lot of authority to put people through some pretty tough times. We ask our staff that if we're wronging anyone, to let us know. Earlier I put a lot of blame on Treasury Board not doing their challenge function. Dillan, our analyst, was good enough to point out to me that in this particular case, because of the process that was followed, it wouldn't have been in front of Treasury Board. So there was no Treasury Board challenge function to be had. So my criticizing it was completely wrong and I withdraw that and apologize. That was incorrect. They did nothing wrong in this regard.

I wanted to correct the record. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson. You won't be sanctioned with any loss of speaking time in the future.

We thank the Auditor General's office for appearing before us today as well as the RCMP.

Let me say to all parties, and to all members of this committee, thank you. I think today we had very good questions as we always do.

The meeting is adjourned.