Evidence of meeting #20 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
You mentioned the words “cumbersome process”. We've heard from a number of complainants that this process was way too long. Some of the complaints have been there for eight or nine years.
What steps are you taking to make sure these harassment complaints are resolved in a timely manner?
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I don't take issue with some of them being around for that long of a time, but let me distinguish between a disciplinary process on the back of a harassment complaint that's taking years to get resolved versus a harassment complaint that's unscreened for years and years.
I know that's a fairly delicate difference, but if you'll give me a second.... A harassment complaint is made and it gets screened as either a workplace conflict or harassment, which gives rise to a code of conduct that attracts the RCMP Act. Depending on what the behaviours are, that may attract a criminal investigation.
So if the code of conduct, say, is attracted by the conduct, then we have this very cumbersome disciplinary process, which seeks to provide all parties with a sense of the fundamental principles of justice, fairness, and so on. That has gotten away on us, I confess, and it is in dire need of an overhaul. It's something that we're doing actively.
NDP
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I don't know if I have them between.... I have them per division, and somewhere in this pile here is a separation between gender. But I'll say this. There's a fair representation in each category of women complaining against women, women complaining against men, men complaining against women, and men complaining against men. Not all of them are sexual, though. I think we need to separate that class of harassment. If we have sexual harassment, we have a whole different class of conduct, which immediately attracts....
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
Would you be able to forward those numbers to the committee at a later date?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Sandhu, for those questions.
We'll now move back to Mr. Norlock, please.
Mr. Norlock, you have seven minutes.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Commissioner, welcome to the committee. I know it's not new to you. Some people consider you to be in a hot seat; I consider it a warm seat. You should feel at home with this committee because we should be here to help you. And from time to time, of course, accountability comes through.
But I want to talk about pride. As you probably know, because you're a policeman and you've got to know who you're talking to, for 30 years I wore a uniform. It was a provincial police uniform. I know that we were always told that if you're going to have pride in what you do, you have to look good, and then portray that—from you comes the image.
Canadians do have pride. I heard “reinstitute pride, reinstitute confidence”. Quite frankly, Canadians do have pride and confidence in their national police force, as do we and as do I. But I'm just wondering if you have some new and innovative ideas to bring to the table to let the men and women know that Canadians support them, and what they can do to show appreciation of that support through how they work and what they look like.
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Thank you for that question.
That's what I've been engaged in over the last several weeks, since my appointment, frankly, when I can find the time. For example, last week I was in eastern Canada and I had occasion to get out with some of our officers and do a quick traffic enforcement. In P.E.I. they're having a particular problem with impaired drivers.
I went for a media availability event afterwards and I took two members with me. There was one officer who had gotten about 23 impaired drivers by himself within a prescribed period of time and another officer who, with his team, had solved a burglary in progress. While the reporter was very interested in understanding what I'd said or done at the lunch with the provincial and territorial ministers, I kept wheeling these officers out to try to talk about them. That's what I want to do. I want to showcase the incredible work we do. I know we have some challenges and we have some issues, but I tell you solemnly that our men and women are doing remarkable work day in, day out, for Canadians. And to the extent that we can figure out new and innovative ways of showcasing that without appearing to be trying to pat ourselves on the back, I think Canadians would be interested in some of the work we do.
What I've asked our communications people and my colleagues to do is to look for opportunities, innovative ways, because I think just sending out a press release and saying how smart we were or how Johnny-on-the-spot we were isn't cutting it. We need to be a little bit more aggressive in doing that, because I tell you, there is some amazing work being done in the federal business line, in the contract business line, internationally, everywhere.
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Great.
I'm just out for a comment from you. I don't mean to be too preachy, but I'm going to be somewhat suggestive.
Late in my career, sometime in my career, we were always told that if you want to incite confidence from the people you serve, you need to look the part. I just wanted to reiterate the fact that any time I've seen the RCMP—and not just on the Hill here in official capacity, in the red serge, but whenever I've been in other parts of Canada. I know we are proud of them. They do look good, they wear their uniform properly, etc.
I'm just wondering about some of the programs you might have internally to heighten the men's and women's attention to those types of necessities, and furthermore, to get their message out to the people they serve in the cities, towns, and villages.
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Thank you, again, for that question.
I can tell you that I recently brought along a corps sergeant major to be by my side, and that individual's responsibility is the deportment, in the broadest sense, of all our officers and NCOs. I've also reinvigorated our divisions, so that every commanding officer will have a sergeant major. We call it the warrant rank. In fact, I'm bringing the warrant rank in next week, I believe, to meet with all of our commanding officers and to reinvigorate the warrant rank.
I agree with you, I must say, that if you're paying attention to your uniform, you're paying attention to how you conduct yourself with Canadians and your engagement with Canadians. Deportment needs to be understood in the broadest of possible senses. I put it on our warrant ranks and my corps sergeant major to square that off. That's one aspect.
The other aspect that we're moving towards in a revamped conduct regime is to push down discipline. Discipline should be corrective and it should be developmental, ideally. Sometimes we get to what I described earlier in my new role as dark-hearted behaviour—those people have to be treated differently—but by and large discipline is intended to develop people and to fix mistakes. So we're going to be pushing down informal discipline, redefining our discipline scheme, and describing it as a conduct regime, so that NCOs, corporals, and sergeants have conduct of the lion's share of our day-to-day discipline.
One of the things the Brown task force talked about was the importance of the NCO ranks to the organization, and that is absolutely true. We need to have our NCOs empowered because they are, frankly, the backbone of the organization.
There are a number of other initiatives as well.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you, Commissioner.
One of the tools that I found was very effective in the interrelationship between management and the men and women who pound the beat was some form of participatory management, detachment planning, or that type of thing. Does the RCMP have any equivalent of that?
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, we do. Many detachments and units have an advisory group of employees, who get together and inform the detachment commander or the officer in charge of that particular unit. In fact in the federal context, I know that here at headquarters in our national security area, Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud brought in a whole new approach to how he manages that program. He has the very thing of which you speak—the employee committee advising him on issues, which can be seen by our junior officers and our senior NCOs to be circumventing, but it engages. I think we all agree that to the extent that we can have an engaged workforce, we'll have a productive and happy workforce, so it's a very targeted strategy for engaging our employees.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.
We'll now move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please, for seven minutes.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Welcome, Commissioner Paulson. We wholeheartedly support your appointment. We think it's an excellent appointment, and we wish you much success in discharging your duties.
I just want to follow up on a point that Mr. Sandhu raised, which is whether or not you need permission from the minister's office to meet different parliamentarians. I'm a little confused on that issue still. Do you need permission?
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No, but if I can elucidate—
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I think I can meet whoever I want, whenever I want. I think the practice is one in respect of parliamentarians or senators. If they want to meet with me, I advise the department and the minister's office and give them an opportunity to engage with their fellow parliamentarians to have an examination of what the issue is.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
But why should they have to route their request through the minister's office? Why can't they just contact you and leave it up to you to decide whether you should be meeting them? Then you would inform the minister's office, because they should know, rightfully, who you're meeting. But why do they have to route their request through the minister's office and give the minister the opportunity to maybe discourage that meeting request?
Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I think your emphasis on the word “route” is taken from an e-mail I wrote to the good senator. Just because I used the word “route” doesn't mean they have to route their request. I was trying to say, “Why don't you go and talk to your colleague, and then we'll reassess.”