Public Safety Committee on March 18th, 2010

[Don Head]

Thank you for that question. An infusion of money is coming our way to help us provide more programs to offenders. As a result of the strategic review process that our department went through a couple of years ago, we are receiving reinvestment money that will peak at $48 million within the next two years.

The vast majority of that money is targeted toward programs for offenders. This includes violence prevention programming. It includes the community maintenance program, which has a very significant substance abuse addictions component to it, programs specifically for aboriginal offenders, and the aboriginal pathways units we're opening up. So we—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Is that new money, Mr. Head?

[Don Head]

That's new money, yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay. Second, our tour has revealed that there is at present no single, stand-alone psychiatric facility for women inmates in the federal corrections system. I've heard your comments about there being no prison construction. Is there any talk within the ministry of establishing a stand-alone, separate women's psychiatric facility?

[Don Head]

This is one of the issues we're looking at in terms of a long-term accommodation plan: how to best address the issues, particularly for women with mental health problems.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay. Mr. Sweeney, I think I have this right. The government announced in the last session that it would be closing single-member detachments in a number of rural communities. I know it has in British Columbia. I know that mayors from certain small towns have publicly criticized this and said they felt this would made their communities less safe because in some cases the RCMP officers would be up to an hour away.

I'm just wondering if you have any comment on that and whether you think there's any possibility of adding two officers to a single-member detachment, because I think we all agree that, for officer safety, we need to have multiple officers at a detachment. I'm just wondering if you doubt there would be a better way to approach the issue of rural policing.

[D/Commr William Sweeney]

The discussions with respect to the minimum standard of resources within detachments is occurring at the provincial and territorial levels, not at the federal level, where we are providing services under contract to various jurisdictions. There are a number of discussions ongoing right across the country.

Recent events and recent tragedies, when members of the RCMP have been working alone, have caused us to reconsider our operational readiness policies and the whole notion of backup. I have spent 11 of my years working in isolated and remote communities and can attest to the fact that the unfettered time off for RCMP members in these remote communities is obviously another concern that has to be taken into account.

In a modern policing system, I don't think one-person, two-person, or even three-person detachments are sustainable if we're serious about the health and well-being of our members and their safety.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I see.

I will turn to another matter. RCMP officers have been calling for the right to collectively bargain within an essential services restriction, like most police forces in the country. Can you comment on what the state of that movement is within the department? I think the government has indicated that it's resistant to this. Do you think the majority of your members would like to bargain their terms and conditions collectively, and if so, would that be a good thing?

[D/Commr William Sweeney]

It wouldn't be for me to pronounce an opinion with respect to the choices that members legitimately ought to make for themselves. I think one of the principles that the court in the MacDonnell decision recently articulated quite clearly is that members ought to be able to exercise free will with respect to their form of association and the form of bargaining, so it's not for a manager to offer an opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Time's up, Mr. Davies.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Head, I appreciate what your people do. It's interesting to note what different people see when they go through the prison system. I was also on that tour of Canadian prisons, and although I think there are opportunities for us to improve in most areas of everything we see in life, I saw a lot of good things being done in the Canadian prison system. I think my colleague said we're not doing enough, but I'm not sure we could ever do enough for everyone, where there are problems.

One of the areas that we all genuinely share is the issue about mental health in the prison systems and addiction. We recognize that likely 99% of the people who come into the prison system have the drug problem; they don't get it in the prison system.

I know that you're doing good things. We need to see more people there. But are there in fact all that many people out there whom you can recruit into the prison system, given that the prisons are frequently located geographically in areas that would be underserviced in many respects? Is that one of the major problems you face?

[Don Head]

Thank you for that question. That is one of the challenges we have, particularly in relation to the issue of mental health.

I am extremely proud of my staff. They do a tremendous job every single day in every institution in the communities across the country. But as you have pointed out and as this committee has seen in their travels, there are challenges, and one of them very clearly is locating and being able to recruit the types of professionals we need.

As some members in this committee who have institutions in their ridings know, in the more remote areas it is difficult to find psychologists, to find psychiatric nurses to come and to work in those communities and stay there, partly because there are greater opportunities and better-paying opportunities closer to larger cities. This is a challenge. It's one we're trying to tackle every single day, trying to come up with new strategies, new approaches, but as I've pointed out to this committee and a Senate committee, this is one of my largest challenges in terms of the mental health portfolio.

As I have pointed out before too, one of the things I really do not want to do in running a federal penitentiary service is become the default mental health system for this country. Although I have some legal obligations to meet in terms of the legislation, I don't want to become resourced to the point that I become the default system for all mental health issues.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

That's fair enough.

Mr. Rigby, I think some issues were brought up earlier, and maybe some misinformation, with respect to the cost of arming the border people. I'm not sure you got the opportunity to completely answer the question. Having been on the committee when this was addressed a long time ago, I'm aware that there was much more involved in the costs associated with the arming. I have to say that as a member of this side, I'm very pleased by what I see with the Canadian Border Services, their interdiction of firearms and so on at the border. There has to be a sense by the people there that they feel far more secure approaching vehicles knowing that they are armed. They don't know what's in the vehicles. We're starting to see larger numbers, I believe, of interdiction of firearms coming into the country.

Would you expand a little on what that money really purchased? It purchased a whole lot more than the arming of the officers, and I'm aware of that.

[Stephen Rigby]

The total amount that was budgeted for ten years basically represents the investment to convert an unarmed force to an armed force at the border. A lot of the costs that we have to incur, and we have incurred, go to building capacity to build clear policies and directions so that our officers can safely use the firearms appropriately. It's gone to the creation of a training capacity to make sure that we have good, qualified trainers, and we've worked with qualified forces around the country, including the RCMP.

It goes to making sure that we have range time for proper practice for our officers and it goes also to the modifications we make to our training or we are in the course of making to our training centre in Rigaud to make sure that we have a permanent capacity to run this program effectively so our officers are safe and the travelling public can be assured that they are qualified to use the firearms.

I think when you look at the cost of the program, a good barometer of what it costs to actually run it will be the permanent ongoing costs, which will be a little over $100 million a year. I appreciate it's not a small amount, but that will represent the true cost of having an armed force at the Canadian border.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll have to come back. You're out of time.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just continue on with that particular question.

Thank you for the correction. It's not $1 billion, it's $780 million, and I've noted here that it's for 4,800 of your officers to have revolvers. So the correct numbers would be $165,000 per revolver in the hand of every Canada Border Service agent. Is that an effective use of taxpayer dollars, $165,000 per revolver per officer?

[Stephen Rigby]

Well, I....

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

In the context, of course that you said that in the past ten years there has not been a single death. In fact, it appears that there weren't even any serious life-threatening situations that your officers have faced.

[Stephen Rigby]

What I said, Mr. Chair, was that there had not been a single death. I deferred on the question of whether or not there had been assaults on my officers, and I will be happy to get back on that.

In terms of the policy of the government to move forward on arming border officers, I would not in any circumstance want to see a situation where we actually had to wait for a death in order to react to it. I'm not sure if that is a valid barometer of whether this policy is effective or not.

I would also make a little question about whether the math that you're using of simply dividing the total cost by the number of officers is valid. I think over time the cost of the weapon, the cost of the training, the cost of the support that goes into maintaining an armed force will be quite comparable to any armed force in Canada, police forces and others.

I think at the end of the day this will be an effectively implemented program. And given the circumstances that my officers have faced where there have been 63 cases of weapons having been drawn since the deployment of the program, 63 cases have been checked and validated as having been appropriate action on the part of the officers. This demonstrates to me that there have been circumstances where border officers have been placed in situations where their health and safety was compromised and was at risk.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What I'm questioning is the actual cost of the program and the spiralling cost, because you had said $780 million but now you've added that there's an additional ongoing cost of $100 million per year, which we'll see going forward, and that is $20,000 per officer.

I'd like to turn to another subject, and my question is for Deputy Commissioner Sweeney. A number of years ago, but not that long ago, in June of 2007, during the public accounts committee investigation into the RCMP pension and insurance scandal, we had officers before the committee who talked about the access-to-information department within the RCMP. Some incredibly serious allegations emerged during that testimony. The committee was not seized with that particular issue. We were looking strictly at the pension insurance fund and not the ATIP--access to information--section, but there appeared to have been tremendous abuse taking place and continuing to go on in the ATIP section.

To refresh people's memories on some of the allegations, one allegation that was documented--and documents were provided to substantiate it--was that former Deputy Commissioner Gauvin, who resigned several days after these allegations emerged, had in fact called the ATIP officer into the former commissioner's boardroom and tried to do a switch of documents that were to be released. Allegations emerged that the ATIP computer system documents were not being entered onto the ATIP section, contrary to the rules and regulations, documents that perhaps might prove to be problematic or embarrassing. There were allegations that individuals out of deputy commissioners' offices talked to the officers in the ATIP section, telling them that they wanted a good--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

What's your question?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

--ATIP shop like the one that existed in National Defence or DFAIT, which worked hand in hand but not for the same purposes as the ATIP sections work.

Has the RCMP investigated those very serious allegations, and if so, what has been done to fix the ATIP within the RCMP?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're out of time, but we could have a brief response.

[D/Commr William Sweeney]

I believe all of those allegations were reviewed in the context of Mr. David Brown's review of the whole issue of pension administration and all of the improprieties that occurred and allegations that arose from that, but that's an assumption. I would have to confirm that.

And in terms of the ATIP branch, the commissioner of the RCMP appointed Sheila Bird, somebody who is not a member of the RCMP, into a very senior executive position. The ATIP branch falls under her jurisdiction, and she has made a number of reforms and changes, so it is my understanding that the ATIP branch has made significant improvements in how it administers the law.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Norlock, please.