Public Safety Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2012

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Does Bill C-42 create that balance, in your opinion?

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

When Mr. Townsend, the staff relations representative, was here, he pointed to proposed section 36.2. We think that's a fairly significant advancement because it's stating the principles that will apply to sanctioning misconduct in the RCMP. That doesn't exist. Other jurisdictions will have statements about what is aggravating or mitigating. It's a pretty significant statement, because stakeholders will now know that it is not punishment necessarily, that it's remedial, corrective, and educative where appropriate. When you state that's Parliament's intention, I think it's pretty significant that you have to find a balance in where you are working it out. People are going to disagree about sanctioning and misconduct.

I think that's a fairly significant step. It gives some assurance to stakeholders that there will be a balanced approach because the staff relations program would be concerned about notions that immediately things should be moved into a formal process because they fall into a certain category.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Right. This will make a distinction: if it's this, it gets dealt with immediately in this way; or if it's that, it maybe goes to a different—

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

I don't anticipate mandatory minimums, but I could be wrong because it is a consultative process. We will look at things like that.

I think you do naturally, as in DND or the FBI where you can start looking at sanctions. We do it slightly differently. We don't have a fixed table but we informally do because we know, for example, that impaired driving is going to get you seven to 10 days but with aggravating and mitigating factors you can build in those things and create them so your managers know that in this circumstance—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Could they have been built in as a matter of an internal RCMP process, or do you always need enabling legislation with accompanying regulations to have that kind of clarity?

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

Right now it's enshrined in the act. If you want to give informal discipline, it's in the act and you can't change that. If you want to give formal discipline it's in the act.

What this permits, through a commissioner's standing order, is to have measures set out that are more flexible and adaptable. Do you necessarily have to have it set out specifically? No, because there are other regimes that don't have wide rules around it. There are cultures in policing that we've been discussing, particularly policing in relation to management and the employees. These are the two cultures of policing. I think part of what you heard from the SRRs, the staff relations reps, is our need to continue to have trust in them but ensuring that the members understand it's going to be a balanced and fair process for them as well as for Canadians who are going to be concerned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacMillan.

We will now move to Mr. Rousseau.

Mr. Rousseau, you have five minutes.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to start with Mr. MacMillan.

Should the amendments to the act proposed in Bill C-42 be adopted, are the provisions of the RCMP Code of Conduct sufficient to make the management of complaints more transparent?

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

Do you mean the future code of conduct?

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes.

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

There's an ability to create a code of conduct under a regulation. Its approach would be to ensure that conduct is being dealt with at the appropriate level, but it won't say that in the code of conduct. It's going to set out the standards of behaviour. We would propose and in consultations with the stakeholders that.... Right now I'm going to estimate it is 30 or 40 sections long. It's very legalistic. It's in a regulation. We would still have the measures in a CSO. We're going to have a code of conduct in regulation but it's going to look more like a code of ethics. It is a modernization move. Rather than saying “though shalt not” with a series of things you can't do, it's going to say that members will conduct themselves properly, that they will treat people with respect, that they will treat everyone equally.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

My next question is for Mr. Jolicoeur. Perhaps I will come back to you afterwards, Mr. MacMillan.

Mr. Jolicoeur, I would like to talk about gender equality within the RCMP, where harassment cases did in fact lead to the creation of Bill C-42. Tell me not only how this bill will correct the perception that people now have of the culture within the RCMP, but also how the work environment needs to change attitudes within that police force. At first blush, there is no incentive, for example, to have women promoted to higher levels. And yet, that could have had a direct impact on the culture. Once again, regarding promotions and things of that nature, all discretionary power is being left in the hands of the commissioner or Treasury Board

What is your opinion on that, Mr. Jolicoeur?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

The bill does not explicitly discuss one problem or another. It is a way of giving means and tools to management that will allow it to solve a whole series of problems, including the ones you just raised. No part of the bill covers one problem or another explicitly.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

But should it not do so? After all, it is in fact that issue that forced the drafting of Bill C-42. People want to change the culture, they want to establish some kind of ethics, a code of conduct thanks to which there will be fewer problems of that type in future.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

I agree with you. That was well-documented: there is an internal culture problem, and a big one, that needs to be changed. However, I don't see why it should explicitly be addressed in the bill itself. It might be relevant in a particular context, but here again, I don't see why we would do that. The important thing is that we are providing the organization with the necessary tools to solve those problems in a more convincing way.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I remain skeptical. When it comes to managing human resources, how will there be a balance between the discretionary power of the commissioner and that of Treasury Board? For instance, it says that “Treasury Board may determine categories of members in the exercise of its human resources management responsibilities”. As for the commissioner, “the commissioner shall establish an informal conflict management system and inform the members of its availability”.

Do all of these elements not conflict with one another?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

No, I don't think so. It depends how you define those categories.

We must remember that the federal public service employer is Treasury Board. We must also remember that some of the employees of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are employees of Treasury Board.

I am not sure I completely follow your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Monsieur Rousseau.

We'll now move to Mr. Leef, please.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again, Mr. MacMillan, for attending.

Mr. Jolicoeur, it's good to meet you.

I want to talk about Mr. Plecas' comments in respect to the discipline aspect. One great thing about being human is that we're fallible, but he didn't seem to extend that courtesy to the RCMP. I'm sure that at times we experience that ourselves as members of Parliament, in that we're expected to be beyond reproach and absolutely perfect.

I don't think anybody has been clearer than the commissioner about wanting to deal with challenges within the organization, about not tolerating breaches of conduct and breaches of the law, and about being able to deal with that in a fair and efficient manner. With his support, and certainly some positive comments that we did hear from staff relations about this, I think we're going in the right direction with this piece of legislation.

I think I mentioned this when the staff relations people were here testifying, but confidence in the legislation and in the disciplinary process goes two ways. We have that eternal debate between police and public safety, in that public safety is paramount to the police, but if the police aren't safe, then the public isn't safe, and therefore police safety is actually more important. You can go back and forth all day long on that topic.

In this body of legislation, it's imperative that members of the force have confidence in the discipline process that will be applied to them, just as the public would have confidence in the force applying that legislation. Would you agree, and Mr. Plecas said it himself, given that they hold the RCMP to a higher standard? He's not sure why the RCMP would look at remediation.

What I think he didn't point out, and maybe I can get your comments on this, is that in what we, as Canadians, ask of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in their service to Canadians, there's one thing that is a lot different from what we ask of any other law enforcement agency in this country. We ask them to serve in rural and remote regions in this country, often alone or in small detachments where they're serving for months on end. We ask them to deal with everything from very basic front line service delivery to the most extreme cases, whereas other places would have major crime units or other things to deal with it. That exposes them to a tremendous workload, a tremendous amount of community pressure, and a tremendous amount of stress. Their lives, at different times, become more of a bubble in those communities, in that there they are the living face of the RCMP.

From that point of view, given the reality that we ask more of them and expect more of them, do you think it's appropriate and sensible to have the commissioner at times being the decision-maker about discipline and being able to have a different view and a different level of input on the disciplinary process, which might be encumbered if we gave absolute and complete control to the complaints commission?

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

I agree with that comment from the perspective that I've worked in British Columbia as counsel representing municipal police officers, and they have the same issues that the RCMP has. I wouldn't have such a bright line to say that they respond to their internal cases much differently than the RCMP does, based on my experience in that context, which is a little dated. It's seven to eight years ago now, but I have functioned in that environment that we're talking about.

I think a fair argument can be made that having the commissioner or the CEO of a public agency in the context of policing, which is different from a pure public service model, does require a delicate balance, and you're going to have different viewpoints on where that should end. I have looked at police governance and accountability for a number of years. A theme you sometimes hear—and this is not to disparage the civilian review process—is that sometimes the civilians take a different perspective, and it's less strident than it would be from the police agency itself. Now, that's anecdotal, from talking with police agencies around North America when I was looking into that issue.

But we do have instances where, for example, the ERC, the external review committee, has made a recommendation to the commissioner on a conduct case and he has said, “No, I'm not going to accept your approach to it for this reason...”. An example I would give, just to try to help the committee a little, is a case we have in which a member discharged his weapon accidentally in the course of a pursuit outside of his vehicle; he got out and was in the middle of a storm. There was an agreed statement of facts. The board found in the early resolution process that it didn't meet the threshold for misconduct. It went to the ERC on appeal and the ERC supported that view.

The issue was about the reporting of a discharge of the weapon and whether it happened immediately or appropriately. The ERC was of the view that nobody really got hurt and there weren't any serious consequences, that there was some delay in reporting and that it was okay. The commissioner took the view that this is an operational environment and when you discharge your weapon, that needs to be reported immediately. The commissioner's view was that crime scenes need to be protected and there was no excuse in this context.

That is an example of where there can be disagreement, but ultimately, the commissioner is responsible for delivery of policing, as to whether force and other things are used. He is responsible to the minister and responsible through to Parliament. I think that in this context policing presents a slightly different problem in terms of who ultimately should be responsible for it. If you're going to ask the commissioner and you're going to ask your line officers to be accountable for the conduct they mete out, I think they should be accountable for it at the end of the day.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacMillan.

We'll now go to Mr. Rafferty.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you very much.

It's interesting. In your last comments, you were talking about municipal forces and so on, and in Ontario we've had a major harassment case where the punishment, if you will, ended up being a one-year demotion, one pay grade down. One thing that is missing from this bill is any kind of clear anti-harassment policy.

That's making the news right now. It has been in the news with the RCMP, and it continues to be. I think there was something the other night on CBC that was an update from 10 years ago.

I'm just wondering if both of you think it would have been useful and appropriate to have in this bill a very clear idea of specific standards, behaviour, or criteria.

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

It has probably become clear that I like the view that you build your framework and then you consult with your stakeholders and build the details. The code of conduct can have a very specific statement when it's developed to talk about harassment. There's no question it can deal with that beyond the general comments. You can build that into it.

The other component I see as important is that while Treasury Board has some responsibility over this as the employer, so does the RCMP. The ability to create rules to create a process to deal with harassment complaints is important. I've already had meetings since the last time I was here on fairly complicated, complex cases involving harassment. It's disheartening. You can't move them forward quickly, but you are entangled in a bit of a snare when you have the situation of the part IV, which says you have to do certain things. You're trying to resolve this, trying to get rid of the poisoned work environment, and you're not doing it in a timely way. Nine months or a year later, you're saying that the harassment one didn't turn out, and now you're into code of conduct. Then there is the view that we do a code of conduct investigation and then try to do harassment resolution.

I think there are two parts. The code of conduct can speak to it specifically. That can occur through consultation, with a statement on that. We now have a process to create rules to deal with harassment that allow us to comply with Treasury Board directives, which are important in this area, as the employer generally for the core public service.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

My sense from your comments is that the RCMP is moving forward on this particular issue.

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

Yes, I would say it's moving forward, and it's been trying to move forward for a number of years in terms of better workplace relations and having policies in place.

But policies aren't that meaningful—which would be the follow-up question—when nothing is seen to be happening about it in a fairly efficient and timely way. I think the bill provides us the ability to create that process where you can resolve, but if you have to investigate, you can, and provide a better resolution at a lower level without necessarily getting into formal proceedings.