Public Safety Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[Chris D. Lewis]

I would assume that yes, it would be.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I will leave it at that.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Our final questioner is Mr. Lauzon.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for being here, Deputy Commissioner Lewis.

I can maybe add some personal touch to the conversation, because I represent the riding in which Cornwall is situated. I should start by thanking you for the good work that you performed while you were there, as well as for what IBET is doing currently.

Just for the benefit of the other members, I must tell you that, boy, this smuggling situation is a really serious problem. Everyone knows where Cornwall is, unfortunately, because of this terrible situation that we have there.

I was thinking, when Ms. Barnes mentioned a secure place to store these firearms, that I believe we have the only customs building that is bulletproof. The customs building on Cornwall Island is actually bulletproof, so that you can't fire bullets. When I speak about my riding, my situation, one of the best reasons for arming border guards—and I'm going to give you a few—is that everyone is intimidated, everybody in our city is intimidated, by these smugglers; the border guards are intimidated and the smugglers know that. They know that, and they let the border guards know that they have weapons, because the border guards don't have anything. To my mind, that's the best reason for arming the border guards.

It was in Cornwall where somebody ran the border on the American side, the police had been chasing them, so they phoned over to the Canadian border patrol and said, listen, you've got this crew coming through with machine guns, you'd better do something about that. Our border guards had pepper spray. Really, that's what they had. So what did they do? Obviously, they did the right thing; they left, thank God. I don't know if these people were ever apprehended.

The other thing is, when you mention the police chases in the cities, I got a call from a constituent trying to resolve the problem because he had a bullet hole through his picture window because of this very thing, a chase. He said, I've got an 8- and a 10-year-old daughter, and both daughters were playing in the living room probably two hours before that. So those are the kinds of things we live day to day.

Of course, the border guards and their wives come into my office and say, “You have to do something. I was just down at the Royal Bank, and Pinkerton's were down at the Royal Bank, and they'd been at Wal-Mart and picked up the cash that was there, and they had sidearms. My husband is dealing with crooks and he's not allowed to have a sidearm.” So I think there's a lot of things.

Can you see any reason, Deputy Commissioner—and you've lived the experience for two years, so I think you understand, probably better than anyone at these tables—why we wouldn't arm a border guard? I'm talking about the Cornwall border crossing, as an example, having lived that experience for two years.

[Chris D. Lewis]

Only if the officers couldn't pass the training. Personally, I can't see any other reason. If they can be trained and equipped adequately, then I cannot see a reason not to.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Okay. I'm convinced that when we get through the process and these people are properly armed, our smuggling is not going to go away, but I feel we are going to reduce our problem significantly. Would you agree with that?

[Chris D. Lewis]

I would agree with that, yes.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

As a matter of fact, our whole community is really behind this, Mr. Chair, 100%, so I would encourage everyone to support this move. And I'm sure the other communities must face the same problems.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Do you have any brief comments before we suspend for a moment?

[Chris D. Lewis]

No, I don't, sir. I certainly am quite willing to get some of this information back to you. I might have to deal with the clerk to make sure I've got the right information you require, and I'll get it back to you through the clerk. I assume we're—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I think some of the information that was requested here was actually supplied in a previous meeting, but if you have any other additional information, you can supply it. I know some of our witnesses were asking for things that were told to us previously, but go ahead and give us any other information you think would be helpful.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't know if the OPP provided the information I requested, which would be the cost to train per officer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

No, I'm not referring to that.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Okay. I'm hoping we can be provided with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes, that would be extremely valuable, absolutely.

Okay, thank you very much, sir.

We will suspend this meeting for a brief moment and reconvene to deal with some of the other issues. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Let's reconvene here.

I was given a notice of motion from Mr. Comartin, but while Mr. Comartin is coming to the table, I'll let you know that we have a couple of other things we can discuss, since we have a little bit of time here. Hopefully we don't have to go right until one o'clock.

We have proposed a budget for Bill C-286. You will have it front of you in a minute. If you have a problem with it, let me know. Let's think about it. We can approve that in just a matter of a few seconds, I believe. And we have had the analysts here suggest some additional witnesses for Bill C-286. When do you want to discuss those additional witnesses?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think it's fair to say from the government side that we are trying to develop something with respect to Bill C-286, and that at this point we may be wise to not proceed, to not use the committee's time or bring witnesses in. We haven't been able to bring that to fruition as quickly as we would have liked.

I would suggest at this point that we might be wise to just hold Bill C-286 in abeyance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We're not in camera, so I'm not going to proceed with this discussion much further. But do the rest of you tend to agree that we should suspend or not deal with Bill C-286? We're still going to have Mr. Blaney come. Would we—

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Bill C-286 is the witness protection that we've already agreed to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes. But some people had concerns about what's happening.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

So this is the royal prerogative problem?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

It's partly that, but there are some other issues that we think we can resolve with the sponsor of the bill and take care of the issues here in a different way. It's a private member's bill, from one of the government members and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Are you suggesting that next Tuesday we not proceed?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I would suggest that, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. Does the committee agree to that?