Public Safety Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2012

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

That's really fast.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Maybe we'll just leave it—

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Yes, I will drop it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. We'll come back. We'll give you another opportunity.

We'll now move to the government again.

We'll move to Mr. Hawn, please.

Welcome to the committee.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be here.

Thank you, Minister and Mr. Wex.

Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for your service in both uniforms.

Overhauling a system like this is obviously not easy when it has been in place for decades.

Minister or Commissioner, did you start with a blank page or did you look at other forces' models of grievance systems in particular? The Canadian Forces is undergoing a similar kind of activity now called Bill C-15. Or did you look at the OPP or other large forces to base some of your lessons learned, best practices sort of thing...?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

The development of this bill was done with an understanding of what other major police forces were doing, so that did inform our discussion in that respect.

I became the public safety minister early in 2010. As I understood it, this preceded my taking of that office. Those consultations, with an examination of other provincial bodies, municipal bodies, to see how they did it, certainly left us with the overall impression—it certainly left me with the overall impression—that we could learn quite a few good lessons from that.

The one complicating area, which has been clarified as a result of core decisions, is the issue of unionization—how that works. We left that out because we simply could not wait in order to deal with some of these pressing issues.

Mr. Wex, I don't know if you could....

[Richard Wex]

Thank you, Minister.

The only thing I would add is that we had the benefit of a number of major reports, dating back seven or eight years now—from the Auditor General, in 2003; from Justice O'Connor, in 2006-07; from the Brown task force; and consultations with numerous stakeholders. That informed the development of a number of the elements of the bill, including the strengthened public complaints body and the serious incident investigation framework.

We certainly benefited from all of those, as well as our own assessment of various jurisdictions, including internationally.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you. I have a couple of quick questions.

The issue of gender-based audit came up, and the timing on that. Is there any forecast as to when that audit will be completed?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Well, all I can say is that it is a work in progress. I think it's a very important report because the objective of the assessment is to provide advice to the commissioner on whether the RCMP's recruitment and promotion policies are gender-neutral and whether their applications provide equal opportunity for female regular members. It is still a work in progress.

I'm certain that the commissioner is moving as quickly as he can on that matter, but it is a very important and complex issue.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Speaking of a work in progress, Minister, you mentioned that you can't resolve old grievances under a new system; you have to deal with those under the old system.

Do you have any idea of that work in progress—how many we're talking about and how long those might take?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Well, if we go on our record, it will take quite a long time.

We do have some stats here in terms of how many grievances are with the External Review Committee, and that's in the neighbourhood of about 70, I understand. On the public complaints, I've been working very hard to try to get rid of that backlog. I'm confident that within the next year and a half or so—I don't want to write cheques I can't cash—we'll be up to date. We've been processing a lot of those complaints.

We have broken down the backlog, and we're devoted to getting that done.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

Commissioner, you threw out some numbers. You said that about 3% of the 1,100 complaints were sexual harassment complaints—that raw number.

Do you have any idea how that compares with other similarly large organizations, like the CF, the OPP, and so on?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Not in terms of the numbers of sexual harassment complaints. My gut tells me it's on par with other organizations.

I can say, though, that in comparison to public service employees overall, with respect to harassment complaints generally, without breaking them down into the specific nature of the harassment.... In the RCMP, for example, we have 33% of female personnel who report having been the subject of harassing behaviours over the past two years. These are not complaints; this is a survey. In the public service, it's 31%.

In the RCMP, 26% of males report having been the subject of harassing behaviour. In the public service, it's about 25%.

I think our numerical comparisons are on par, but of course we're the national police force and we can't have that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thanks very much, Mr. Hawn. Your time is up.

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

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Toews, we've heard about the increased powers as a result of this bill, that the commissioner will have to dismiss members, and the necessity of that, given the cumbersome process as it is. This power could also be delegated by the commissioner to others, but all decisions then come back to the commissioner, and you, as the minister.

My question would be, how can the agents who are victims of any form of harassment, and ultimately Canadians, have confidence in a system where the discretionary power is given to an individual rather than to an independent and transparent outside process?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I think it's important that we not blend the response to harassment and the discipline. What this bill seeks to do in respect of conduct is to separate conduct that needs to be corrected and have it corrected by managers at the lowest possible level as soon as possible.

Those behaviours that attract the requirement to have people removed from the force will have all of the checks and balances that I think we can reasonably expect to have in the administrative disciplinary system. I think the members have to have absolute confidence that when a question around their removal from the force is raised, whether it be on the back of a harassment complaint or on the back of some other misconduct—which is the exception—they will have due process, and due process in terms of the External Review Committee reviewing the circumstances, having a conduct board weigh the circumstances, having me as the final authority offer a decision that can be taken to the Federal Court if they want it to go that far.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I appreciate that commitment.

It's almost a qualitative scenario, where somebody may feel deterred from going ahead with this process because it's not an independent process. We might not end up, as a result, dealing with these kinds of complaints because people don't feel safe to do so. That's the concern we're raising about this bill, and my colleague raised it earlier as well.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Well, I think we need to spend more time then. I don't think that's the result of this bill.

In a harassment situation people will understand very well the process, the reliability of the process, and the availability of a just result earlier on. Whether that's achieved through an independent arbiter or not can be debated, I suppose.

It shouldn't be understood that anything in this bill is proposing anything that would take away from the fair, expedient application of conflict resolution in the workplace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much. I see that our time is at 4:30. We're going to suspend.

We're going to come back to you, Ms. Ashton, because you have another minute and a half, and we're going to suspend for about one minute. We'll allow the minister to get to his next meeting, and then we will come back.

To the committee, don't leave, and if you're leaving, don't leave for long. We'll suspend just for a few moments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll call this meeting back to order. In our first hour we have heard from Minister Toews, the Minister of Public Safety and National Security, as well as from our Commissioner of the RCMP, Commissioner Paulson, as well as Deputy Minster Richard Wex.

The minister has had to leave. We were in the middle of Ms. Ashton's question to the commissioner, and we'll come back to her and give her the last minute and a half.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Paulson, for being here again. I know we had the chance to hear from you in the status of women committee, and very much connected to that discussion, you referenced the gender audit that's currently taking place.

When can we expect it to be public? And what do you intend to do with it?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

The gender audit, as the minister spoke of moments ago, is in its draft form. I've just received it. We are working through it. We're going to make some changes. I would expect that it would be a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, before we have a final copy, and I'm happy to share it with everyone.

What I propose to do with it is to take its findings and weave them into some of the strategies we've already deployed in respect of new policies governing workplace behaviours, and to amend our policies to the extent we can to address some of the observations that I think are being made in that audit in terms of how the RCMP has responded to gender issues in the force.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have half a minute.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

The question, just to recap, is this. Are we saying that two weeks to a month from now we can expect this document to come out?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes.