Evidence of meeting #53 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.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
This will be done mainly by giving the commissioner greater powers. As Mr. Kennedy mentioned earlier, the commissioner may suspend inquiries. Witnesses told us last week that the internal commission could only issue recommendations and that the commissioner would be free to follow them or not, without necessarily taking any further action.
Do you not think that these minor details could stand in the way of restoring the confidence the RCMP deserves?
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Audit Committee, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Is the bill perfect? Will it solve all of the problems in the RCMP? No, I don't think so. However, I think it constitutes a major improvement.
With regard to the decision-making powers given to the commissioner, I have worked in the federal system for several years and I was able to compare the responsibilities of deputy ministers—I was in fact one myself for several years—to those of the commissioner. I also took part in creating agencies or separate employers such as the Canada Revenue Agency.
It seems to me that the balance being proposed here is easy enough to defend. In the context of the bill, the responsibilities of the commissioner seem to be close to the responsibilities and powers of deputy ministers and their counterparts in other organizations. So I am quite comfortable with that.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Jolicoeur.
We'll go back to Mr. Norlock again. I think you were part of the last round, but we'll give you a chance to question again.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for appearing.
Mr. Jolicoeur, if I could continue in the same vein as my friend across the way, you mentioned that one of your audit duties is to look at values and ethics. I gather that when you look at values and ethics, you look at the efficacy of the findings during hearings concerning the code of conduct. In other words, when there's a breach of the code of conduct, you would look at that, and you would evaluate whether it met the policy and procedure that's set out.
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Audit Committee, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
At a high level the audit committee would not involve itself in a transaction or a specific case, but it would want to ensure there were mechanisms in place to deal with each one of the problems.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Okay. You heard the opinion of Mr. Kennedy that some of the misconduct or some of the ethics breaches were dealt with—I don't want to use my own words—in a less than effective manner. Would part of the audit identify something like that?
4:50 p.m.
Chair, Audit Committee, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The audit is limited to ensuring that the laws, policies, and directives in place are abided by when these cases are resolved. One of the concerns raised in committee was that some components of that system of directives, regulations, etc. were such that it was very difficult. Some cases certainly on an anecdotal basis were not resolved as Canadians would have expected them to be resolved.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you.
Once your report is finished, would it go back to the RCMP, to the adjudicators, who would look at the findings with a view to being more in line with what you believe Canadians would expect?
4:50 p.m.
Chair, Audit Committee, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Our reports are made public. For us, the tool to ensure that the organization is moving forward in the right direction is transparency. We also make additional recommendations, as I said, on a yearly basis, to the commissioner and the comptroller genera, if we feel that there is a specific problem somewhere that doesn't appear to be getting resolved. We make that point. But we don't have any management responsibility or any decision-making responsibility. We judge the organization on its action plans and its implementation of those action plans for each of our concerns.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much.
Chief Superintendent, you've heard my line of questioning, and you heard Mr. Kennedy's opinion on breaches of ethics. As a director, how would you respond to Canadians as a result of that? If there were findings that inappropriate findings were occurring, would you sit with your fellow adjudicators, or, as you are director, direct them to be more in line with the expectations of Canadians? Has that taken place?
4:50 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I will answer your question in two parts.
There is some sensitivity around the role of adjudicator. As it's set up under the current act, it's a quasi-judicial role. Rolling in and saying that they have it all wrong, that they have to do everything differently from now on, and this is how they're going to judge those cases isn't quite how it unfolds.
What I currently do is read each formal decision that comes out—I'm only talking about formal decisions; I'm not talking about informal decisions—as part of examining the case and the direction in which it was going. A range of sanctions are usually available, so you can know whether it's within the expected range of sanctions.
We publish an annual report, which includes all the formal discipline cases that have been adjudicated and the sanctions that were imposed. We're in our fourth year. That's made available to the minister. It's available on our website, so it can be accessed by external parties.
That's part of the process we go through in showing what dispositions we've been imposing for certain sanctions.
There are going to be disagreements over certain cases. I can't speak to Mr. Plecas's report. I've read the report, but I don't have the substance of the specific cases he's talking about.
My general sense is that we don't have integrity cases that aren't being dealt with seriously. But if there's a structural issue why we're not seeing more cases in the formal process, it's probably for some of the reasons that were discussed. The minute you put it into that formal process, and as I stated before, you're talking months and years, there might be some inclination to try to deal with it, to get the member back to work. It's not a career-ending thing that's happened.
Bill C-42 would get rid of that bottleneck. Right now if it's more than a reprimand, you're into a formal hearing. Now your local line officer should be able to deal with it.
I understand the point about objectivity and independence of the local decision-making, but that's inconsistent with the trend in reforms and policing generally to try to have your appropriate managers deal with it. We will build in checks and balances so it isn't a matter of “my best friend” or “I don't like that guy or gal” that's going to be taking effect. We'll have checks in there to make sure Canadians know an appropriate sanction was considered or applied.
Another minor but important element is that in a public complaint context, Bill C-42 would permit the RCMP to disclose to the public complainant the measures or discipline that will have been opposed. That's a historical issue that has caused us some difficulty. Now they can be formally told this is what happened as a result of their complaint.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. MacMillan and Mr. Norlock.
We'll now move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please, for seven minutes.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
To follow up on that point, Mr. MacMillan, up until now, when somebody lodged a complaint and there was a follow-up and someone was sanctioned, we never knew where it went. Did it go down the rabbit hole?
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It evolved. Initially there wasn't an inclination to advise what the result was. It's moved to where now we say that measures or discipline have been imposed.
If it's a formal hearing that will be publicly known because it's a public process. If it's an informal measure, right now we will say something has been imposed but we won't say specifically what.
The bill would permit us to say what was imposed in relation to the specific complaint.
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It was a contest between private and personal information and the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act. The view was that you couldn't disclose that, but now we would be permitted to do that under the bill.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
You concurred with Mr. Plecas, who said that the sanctions meted out are just not adequate, that they're too soft. You agree that the process of internal discipline is extremely bureaucratic. Do you have any thoughts on how it came to be that way, or is that an inappropriate question to ask you in your position? Do you have any thoughts on that? How long have you been in the RCMP?
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Twenty-six years.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Was it always like that, from the day you got there, or did it more or less grow like a vine on the side of a building, and it just got bigger and bigger and more complex?
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I wouldn't say that I necessarily agreed with the findings of Mr. Plecas. I don't know the details of the cases he talked about, and he used some very strong descriptions of what he had found. I'm not going to disagree with what he said.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I definitely agree it's too cumbersome, but we're in that catch-22 where we want to have any serious integrity issue dealt with formally. When you start talking that language in our current process, it would just come to a halt. It's not moving that fast right now, but if you're saying every integrity issue has to go into a formal hearing....
Under Bill C-42 we have the ability to have increased levels of sanctions imposed at a lower level, so we should have more flexibility with that.
I have seen discipline ebb and flow to a certain degree. I'm no expert, but I would say that to some degree it's a reflection of social views as well.
For example, impaired driving or shoplifting at one time were considered to result in automatic firing. It's not considered to be that way anymore. There are mitigating factors. But in the case of shoplifting, I do see us moving back in the direction where it could result in termination.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Are you telling me that at the moment if an RCMP officer shoplifts it is not an automatic termination?
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
There are factors to be taken into account in the individual case but it's not necessarily automatic termination. It was when I started on the job, but medical evidence has become more and more predominant in the processes and in what happens.
We recently had a case of a senior NCO who was dismissed as a result of a shoplifting case. When you get into intent and what was evolving, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, there are factors coming in. As a profession, policing needs to do a better job in general on how we respond to misconduct. I was surprised when I looked into it. In one major department on the west coast, impaired driving can get you a reprimand. In another department, maybe in central Canada, it can get you suspended for 45 days, and it might get you demoted. In the RCMP it's going to average seven to 10 days' suspension without pay.
Policing in itself does not necessarily have an agreed-upon approach to specific types of sanctions.
One of the comments I would make is when you talk about integrity, assuming we have common ground on exactly what's captured by that term, yes, it's serious, and yes, it should be dealt with in a serious way, but whether that would necessarily mean a formal process in every instance, under Bill C-42 that would mean a dismissal case.
We would have everything available under dismissal, which we don't have now, to be dealt with at the most appropriate level. When I hear about independence and objectivity the difficulty is that you've got to balance those things. You can't have something completely independent, because when you introduce that, you're taking it way far away from where the person has personal knowledge and understanding. I get the objectivity component. You want to make sure there's a check there to make sure appropriate sanctions are being imposed.