Public Safety Committee on Sept. 28th, 2006

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Are you going to formally request an apology from the United States and Syria for what they did to those four Canadians?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

There is now a protocol in place between Canada and the United States, the Monterey Protocol. The two countries have signed an agreement. If we want to send a citizen from the other country to a third country, it is mandatory to notify the other country.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

This is not what I asked you. I want to know if you are going to ask the United States and Syria to submit an apology to Mr. Arar.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Following Justice O'Connor's recommendations, we are going to take some steps concerning the United States. The Department for Foreign Affairs has said that they would take the necessary measures to make sure that the Americans understand that this is a tragedy, that we do not agree with what occurred and that we do not want it to ever happen again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We have less than a minute left.

Mr. Hawn, very briefly.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I have a quick question that goes back to the situation the RCMP found itself in.

Mr. Minister, I think it's safe to say the RCMP has been underfunded for the last decade or more. That leads to an undermanned situation, which leads to a person-overtasking situation, which leads to a situation where you perhaps cannot generate enough experience or get enough training to deal with a particular challenge that comes up.

What role might this have played in the mistakes that were made, and what are we doing to correct it?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

The new government of Canada has consistently and conspicuously increased resources to the RCMP. I won't take the committee's time to go through all of that. We recount those numbers regularly. I think it shows again the element of confidence, Mr. Chairman. People will use different things to try to misinterpret confidence in the RCMP. Sometimes it's the smallest things.

With respect to the memorial here on Parliament Hill, where a reporter for the Globe and Mail, Jeff Sallot, said that I didn't shake hands with a commissioner and therefore we didn't have confidence in him, when in fact it wasn't true.... I even tried to correct the record, actually, by sending a letter to the editor on that fact, and the Globe and Mail, uncharacteristically, wouldn't even allow me to publish it.

There are many signals that can go out that can serve to undermine the government's confidence in the RCMP. It can be small signals like that one or big ones like proper resourcing. That's why we've indicated we want to increase by 1,000 personnel the number of RCMP across the country. We've already, in our first budget, put $161 million to do that--$37 million to increase the training facilities at the RCMP National Training Academy Depot. We're taking a number of steps to show...whether it's small items, like shaking the hands of the brave men and women across this country who participate in what I believe is the finest federal police force in Canada, or large items, like making significant budgetary commitments to making sure the RCMP has all the resources it needs to do its job of keeping our country safe and secure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We have come to the end of our meeting. I'd like to thank the minister for appearing before the committee. I thank everyone here.

This meeting stands adjourned.