Public Accounts Committee on April 30th, 2024

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I believe you might be discussing the TRC or another report, but the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women has a specific chapter dedicated to the RCMP. It has 10. Could you name one of them?

[Warren Brown]

Yes, I can name one of them.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Which one are you working on, please?

[Warren Brown]

Mr. Chair, for your confidence, I'm not confused with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where there are 96 recommendations. A springboard from that is a direct quote from Justice Murray Sinclair, “We have to turn that 150 years of negativity into generations of positivity.”

On that we have provided a guide for missing and murdered women, for victims of homicide, as well as a guidebook for missing women. We're presently having that translated into a number of different languages, including several indigenous languages across Canada. That's just one.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Public Safety said—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Desjarlais. That is the time. We will come back to you certainly.

We will turn to Mr. Nater for five minutes, please.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through you, thank you to our witnesses for joining us this afternoon.

I'm going to begin with questions for Public Safety Canada. If I have time, I may have a couple for the Auditor General and the RCMP.

Mr. Tupper, in the Auditor General's report, there were some fairly critical comments directed towards Public Safety Canada, specifically around documentation in justifying where things were spent. One of the quotes from section 3.22 was this:

The department did not know how much of the additional program funding it had allocated to the specific self-administered police service agreements and community tripartite agreements, and it did not know what amount of funding remained to be allocated.

That's a pretty critical comment that Public Safety Canada couldn't figure out where the money went. It was justified here that you didn't have modernized information technology system. An Excel spreadsheet could have probably done the same thing. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's fairly concerning.

It goes on in section 3.24 about the review, saying that, “According to Public Safety Canada, the department last performed a review in 2018-19”—five or six years ago—“of RCMP expenditures to ensure that funds were used for the program. However, the department could not provide documentation of this review.”

I want a comment from you on those two elements, to begin with.

First, comment on financial management and accountability. Where do these funds actually go? Can you give us any update on how Public Safety is tracking funds?

Second, have you found that review from 2018-19? Is there any documentation within the department of the 2018-19 review?

[Shawn Tupper]

With respect to your first question, I concede that our data system was and is inadequate in terms of our ability to produce accurate...and reports. Those are things that we have already started to undertake—and document our ability to track that money in a clearer way. Those are things that we will be able to invest in and start to build up.

I'm not going to make any excuse. I said earlier that I was in a different capacity within the department when the first review was done. I remember thinking, “How is it possible that we've gone since 1996 without updating the policy?” Now I'm shaking my head and saying, “How is it possible we went another 10 years and still haven't done it?”

That is work that we have under way now. That is work that we will resolve. That is work that I have as a challenge across my department, in terms of our ability to track data and make sure that we have the ability to access it and produce it in a timely way.

Chris, I don't know what the answer is in terms of whether we have now found the 2018 review.

[Chris Moran]

I cannot say that we have found it. We do know that it happened.

We know that we are taking the steps that emanated from that. Part of that is leading to better tracking, which paradoxically sometimes leads to greater surpluses because we know better what is happening on the ground.

[Shawn Tupper]

Mr. Chair, I will undertake to actually resolve the question once and for all. Whether or not I can find it....

We will go back and make a concerted effort to see if we can produce the report for the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. We'll look for that. I appreciate it.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Tupper, for that.

I do look forward to that and I do look forward to at some point getting some clear timelines on when these updates are going to happen within the department. It's concerning.

I've been on this committee for a relatively short period of time. The public safety portfolio—Public Safety Canada itself and also the CBSA—seems to have a real problem with documentation and tracking information. I'm not asking a question at this point. I'm just putting it out there that there is a real concern about where this portfolio is going in terms of documentation and justifying where things have happened.

I'm going to leave it there because I'm going to run out of time.

I want to turn to the RCMP.

There was a report from the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs from June 2021. The recommendation at the time was this:

That the Government of Canada recommend that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police conduct a thorough review of their hiring process and practices to recognize and address any systemic barriers that have had a negative impact on the hiring or selection of Indigenous officers. This review would also include recognizing and addressing any systemic barriers which have led to a greater number of Indigenous officers choosing to leave the force.

That was June 2021. We're nearly three years later. What is the status on that recommendation?

Has the RCMP undertaken that review? What has come out of that?

[Warren Brown]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The RCMP's management advisory board has also provided similar information, which we received in the fall of 2023.

We also have the RCMP-indigenous, co-development, collaboration and accountability unit that was launched in 2021 to address some of those internal barriers to ensure that the indigenous employees in the RCMP are provided fair and equitable opportunity, but external outreach as well.

As I mentioned earlier, we've now hired a senior executive in the RCMP to oversee the first nations, indigenous, Métis and Inuit recruiting strategy. That strategy was up and running as of January of this year. As mentioned, we've seen some positive results already. We've already seen an increased number of indigenous applicants. We've hired our very first Inuit applicant in over 10 years. We're seeing cohorts. We've gone into indigenous communities, and we've heard time and time again that indigenous employees do much better when they are with other indigenous cadets and employees. We're seeing a benefit from that, so I think we've come a long way.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I'll turn now to Ms. Yip.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, all, for coming. This is a difficult topic.

Mr. Tupper, could you please provide an update on engagement with Nunavut and Inuit communities regarding the program? Are there any conversations or negotiations happening to bring the program to these communities?

[Shawn Tupper]

Right now, the major part of our authorities are to focus on first nations communities—with specific regard to the development of the legislation—with the clear intent that we would follow up with Inuit communities to pursue a similar track with them.

In terms of the program development, I will turn to Ms. Moran to elaborate further.

[Chris Moran]

Thank you.

Nunavut has just acceded to the program for the first time since its inception, and we are in the midst of rolling out community tripartite agreements in collaboration with the territory, as well as with the communities there.

I will just note that the program itself works slightly differently in the territories due to the fact that communities are often integrated, so it does require a slightly different conversation.

The short answer to your question is that, yes, we are engaging now. We've been starting that conversation over the last few months. I would say that it will intensify probably in the next six months.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I understand that in Nunavut there are roughly 25 communities. Is that what you mean by saying that it's a little different?

[Chris Moran]

I mean that this program is designed to operate on reserve, so in the territories where you have communities that are integrated or are not specifically a reserve, the program does operate differently.

We have community tripartite agreements that serve cities where people are integrated, and we're ensuring that there is a culturally responsive complement of officers available for Inuit people who are living in the city. We will ensure that the reporting is made public as we roll those out.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Larkin, in your opening statement, you said, “The RCMP is committed to addressing systemic racism and discrimination while remaining dedicated to strengthening trust with...first nations...Inuit...and...Métis peoples...communities and...employees.”

How is this being addressed? It seems like there's a difficult balance there.

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

There are a number of activities that are ongoing across the organization. We've actually reconstructed and rebuilt our professional responsibility office, which oversees our values and ethics. We'll obviously continue to enhance our complaints system, as well as our accountability system. That's included and tied to modernizing our training at depot, which ensures more than 40 hours of culturally sensitive training specific to indigenous communities.

Assistant Commissioner Brown can provide more information. However, before a recruit leaves depot, if they're being assigned to a first nations community, there is a training guide, as well as an understanding of where they're heading within our vast country and the very unique communities that we provide service to.

Equally, on the other side, we've been focused on accountability through enhancing our character-based leadership, our supervisory training and our executive development program so that leaders who come through the organization ensure that we actually change the course.

Again, we do recognize our historical role in colonization, and as we look to the future, we, the RCMP, obviously need to continue the work that we're doing to build trust. We want to recognize that.

There is a series of individual pieces. Reform and accountability is a new directorate that is taking the last decade of numerous recommendations around the RCMP, around enhancing and supporting and delivering better policing services to the citizens of Canada.... It is also focusing on culturally sensitive work, addressing internal systemic barriers. As Assistant Commissioner Brown indicated, we've been revamping our recruitment process. There are numerous different pieces that are ongoing.

Warren, I don't know if you want to add anything to that response.

[Warren Brown]

Additionally, we have an anti-racism unit now embedded within our chief human resources office. Right now, we are looking at a pilot project nationally for race-based data collection. That's the perception of police officers when dealing with people they can encounter in the community.

We're hoping to learn from those experiences and become better.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is there any indigenous language training?

[Warren Brown]

That's a very good question, Mr. Chair.

Yes, we're looking at implementing recognition for those employees who endeavour to learn indigenous languages in communities. However, our tenure is often very short in some of the more remote locations.

We're looking to see if we can find a retention and attraction strategy for that. Certainly, it's what our indigenous communities want to see. We have some guidebooks with some plain language, some diagrams and whatnot.

We're looking at programs to fill that gap, but that's a recommendation we've also heard from the commissioner's indigenous advisory committees, so those programs are under way.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Beginning our third round is Mr. Desjarlais. I understand you're taking the official opposition's spot.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.