Public Safety Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2012

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

That's very interesting. I look forward to hearing answers to the other questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

We'll now move back to Ms. Bergen, please.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, I would like you to expand a little further. Maybe for the sake of all the members of the committee, compare and contrast a current example of harassment. If someone's complaining of harassment, how would the current system deal with it? How would the new system deal with it under the new legislation? Then compare it to, let's say, another police organization, or really any other organization.

My point is that if you work in the private sector or the public sector, there are ways businesses and organizations handle complaints, and it's done within the company or organization. There are best practices and human resources management processes. I don't know of an example of a basic work complaint for which a company or organization would bring in an independent company and it would deal with it. Maybe I'm missing something.

Can you please explain the current method and compare and contrast that to what's coming forward?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Currently, if someone were to make a complaint of harassment, the person would do so to either his or her supervisor or to the alleged harasser's supervisor. A couple of streams of activity would engage.

If it's alleged harassment against a regular member or a police officer, there's a question as to whether that alleged conduct constitutes a violation of our code of conduct. If it does, we often embark on an investigative sort of crime and punishment approach to the problem. The complainant is left standing there looking at the process and wondering what's happening. Very little effort, in some cases, is put towards modifying or rectifying the conflict in the workplace. That's the code of conduct approach, which is confusing for the complainant. People often get entrenched and locked into positions, and there's no room to go back and resolve the underlying conflict.

Meanwhile, we have tried to apply the Treasury Board's rules and policies to workplace harassment. They call for early recognition and engagement of the complainant, keeping the complainant apprised of what's going, and having proactive systems in the workplace to do all of these things.

These two streams of activities collide, and as a result, the complainant is often left unsatisfied. That's why, in some of the literature, you will see people saying that they don't have confidence in the harassment complaint because it results in a big, protracted investigative effort to find evidence. There's more downside to it than what I just described.

In the new process, we intend to use a process. In fact, the legislation calls for me to deploy an early conflict management system in the workplace, as we are already beginning to do in some workplaces, to address instances of conflict immediately. Where there are complaints, we will apply an improved version of the Treasury Board guidelines to keep the complainant involved and keep the complainant apprised, and we will not allow the code of conduct to interfere with the proper management of the complaint.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Let's say in cases that are not serious incidents, but again are at the lowest level, there would be the opportunity, again, as in most organizations, to employ educational ways of dealing with it—mediation, mitigation, and those kinds of things. Right now, your human resource managers are not really able to use any tools. Even though they are supposed to be managing the members who are under them, they actually aren't able to. Is that correct? You now can use education and things like that.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, that's essentially correct. But I don't want to leave you with the impression that we are not actively trying to deploy means of rectifying conflict in the workplace early. The problem is that this enormously burdensome code of conduct investigative stream interferes with that. It's not as efficient as it needs to be.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Kennedy...or Mr. Stewart, I'm sorry. Welcome to the committee, Mr. Stewart. You have five minutes.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Even my mom gets my name mixed up, and she named me.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming today, Commissioner Paulson.

I have a lot of concern about sexual harassment. I have a very good close family friend who was in the RCMP, who did leave, and the stories she told were fairly outrageous, so this is something that I take very seriously.

I sense a bit of a paradox or a clash in the account of this. On one side you say that 99% of the force is absolutely fine and there are only a few bad apples who are perhaps the problem. On the other side you say there's a cultural problem that needs to be fixed. I'm unsure about which story this piece of legislation is trying to fix. Is it just a few bad apples, or is there a much larger cultural problem within the RCMP that needs addressing?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I think both. I think we have seen instances where we've had some spectacular stories of these few bad apples that have attracted, properly, the condemnation of Canadians, who are wondering what's going on in Canada's national police force. So that's true.

I think it's also true to say that the cultural problems of the RCMP have been fairly well researched and understood. If I may try to sort of synthesize what that is, it is trying to modernize this paramilitary organization, which has only just come through one sort of cycle of service for females. It has been about 37 years since females entered the force, and generally 35 years is a career in the RCMP. We haven't kept pace—we haven't kept pace with modern business practices, management practices, leadership principles, with respect to how we govern the workplace.

This is not to say that the place is in a shambles—it's not—but we do have to change that culture. We are doing a number of things, including some of the proposals in this legislation, which I think will go a long way to breaking down the notion that everything gets resolved through a protracted, adversarial sort of legal system that requires everybody to be right all the time, to a system where people sit down at the earliest possible opportunity and managers and supervisors come out of a meeting with a result that allows for a respectful workplace.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Would you expect an increase in sexual harassment claims to come forward, or complaints? Do you think people would come forward because previously they were deterred by the awkwardness of the system?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I haven't spent a lot of time considering that, but I can tell you that just in the last several months we've noticed an increase in harassment complaints. Right now we're at about 125 current harassment complaints. The last time I was before...I'm not sure if it was this committee or the other committee, but we were in the high 80s.

I want people to have confidence in the process to mediate and resolve their complaints. Hopefully, it doesn't result in complaints. Hopefully, it results in early resolution. But I think it's probably reasonable to expect an increase in complaints.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I appreciate your candour. Thank you very much.

I was wondering if the minister asked you to make the issue of sexual harassment a priority in your work.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

He didn't have to. I think I was appointed when the walls were falling down, so....

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Have there been any formal guidelines or anything set in place under which he would like to see you reporting back on how the culture is changing, or was it left quite wide open?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Well, I don't know out of those options that I have an A or a B. I think the minister shares my concern with what's going on in the force, and he has been very supportive in terms of trying to bring processes to bear on what the problem is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have half a minute, sir.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay.

You're confident, then, that going forward you have enough resources to actually tackle this cultural problem within the RCMP. In addition to this new piece of legislation, there are adequate resources provided for the government to fix this problem.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

As the minister mentioned, there is a projected cost, which was in our reform agenda, and there had been money set aside that we hadn't accessed. I think we're looking at almost $10 million—nine point something—in terms of costs, and that's our projected cost. That's what I estimate it will take to deliver on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move back to the government side.

Mr. Hiebert, you have five minutes.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Wex, for being with us.

To begin with, I want to dig down into the specifics of this civilian review and complaints commission. Can you give me some idea as to who would be on this commission? It's called civilian review and complaints, but are these current or former officers, or are these civilians who have had no exposure to the police force?

[Richard Wex]

I'll be happy to answer that question. In terms of who constitutes a member, the bill provides that information. No current or former member of the RCMP will qualify as a member of the commission. A member must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. The member would be appointed by Governor in Council for a term of up to five years. That individual could be reappointed.

So no current or former RCMP member will serve as a member on the new commission.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Okay. As I can tell, the civilian review and complaints commission deals with complaints, but there's this other category of serious incidents, injuries, or death.

Can you help me distinguish between those two? Where is the cut-off? What's a serious incident?

[Richard Wex]

Actually, it raises a very interesting question that causes a lot of confusion, and I've heard a little bit of it here this afternoon.

There are three things going on. You have a complaint from the public as a result of alleged misconduct or what have you—an incident that went a little south. An individual from the public who's not happy with how they were treated by an RCMP member can raise that with the RCMP. That's provided for in the old act. It's provided for in this new bill. If they're not happy, they can then bring that to the attention of the new civilian complaints body. That's for public complaints issues.

The other issue deals with internal discipline. Somebody conducts themself in such a way that's contrary to the RCMP's code of conduct. That's dealt with by the RCMP. It's an internal disciplinary matter, and there are checks and balances, as the commissioner and the minister spoke to, if people are not happy with how that discipline is dealt with, including the External Review Committee and, ultimately, judicial review. But that's discipline. That's conduct that gives rise to discipline. The first case was conduct that gives rise to a public complaint.

The third category is the one you just identified, which is conduct that's a serious incident. It could give rise to serious injury or death, or undermine the integrity of the RCMP, and could give rise to a criminal investigation. Again, this bill deals with the issue of who's investigating the police in the context of a criminal investigation.

Now, it is true you could have one incident that gives rise to a public complaint, that gives rise to an internal disciplinary matter, and that also gives rise to a criminal investigation. It is rare, but it is possible, and there are different streams and institutions to deal with all these things. This bill addresses all these issues.

To answer your question on a serious incident, a serious incident is defined as death, a serious injury that will be prescribed by regulation, but it includes both physical and psychological—someone can be shot or hospitalized. Or a serious incident could be something that the commissioner, the minister, or a provincial minister responsible for the RCMP in a contract jurisdiction considers something that attracts the public interest. It's a sensitive matter that undermines the integrity of the RCMP.

In all those cases, this bill imposes a statutory obligation that starts with the RCMP having an obligation to refer the matter to a civilian investigative body, if one exists, that's established in a province to investigate the RCMP. There are other requirements in the case where such a body does not exist.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Can you explain...?