Public Safety Committee on Oct. 24th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly.

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

By helping them change the internal culture, did you see progress?

[Yvonne Séguin]

Yes. We saw a lot of progress. What's more, it was their decision. There are internal investigations. Montreal firefighters will call Laval firefighters to do an investigation and if Laval firefighters have a problem, they call Montreal firefighters to investigate. In short, their cases do not drag on for three or four years.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to Mr. Leef, for seven minutes.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses today.

Ms. Séguin, we've talked a lot about legislative means that we can employ when a behaviour has occurred, and you've made some suggestions around how the act could or should deal with behaviour that has occurred. A significant part in the change in the culture starts right away with the training. In the RCMP it begins with a group of people going to the RCMP academy in Regina. They have an opportunity with one centre, which I think is a positive idea, where all the recruits go, get training, and move out from there.

Let me point something out and then I'll give you an opportunity to comment on whether or not you see this as a positive step in the legislation. I'd like to look at some of the things in the legislation that appear to me, as a former member of the RCMP, to be moving in the right direction.

Proposed section 20.2 would allow the commissioner to determine the learning, training and development requirements of members and fix the terms on which the learning, training and development may be carried out.

I see that as being translated in a framework fashion to the academy itself, to the recruitment structure, and the training structure. Could you comment on whether you see that as a positive remark in the legislation? What recommendations would you have in terms of guiding philosophies around training to start the preventive measures that are needed in the RCMP?

[Yvonne Séguin]

I don't have any personal knowledge of this, but I would say that this is a very good start. It should be at the training level that you start the education, but it's soon forgotten. Therefore, it's something that has to be repeated many times. Once a year could be fine. That's what my recommendation would be. It would be that there always be amendments made to the internal policy on sexual harassment or violence at work, whichever form that it wants to take, that there be a committee that works on it to see if it's working and that is watching, because people tend to forget.

We meet a lot of people who don't even know if their company has a policy. Usually when they are hired, they get a copy of it, but they're just so happy that they got the job, that it's filed away and they forget to look at it again.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Is there a component you think this should take in from your experience, working across a number of groups where you see this becoming an unfortunate part of an employment culture, not just within the RCMP but in other organizations?

There are some groups and organizations that will run a one-day harassment program, a two-hour harassment program, or an online harassment program. In your mind, what does it take at the initial stage, at the training stage, to ensure that it's meaningful, longer lasting, and resonates with the recruits who get in, respecting your recommendation that it continues throughout their career?

[Yvonne Séguin]

With the 32 years of experience that we have, what we have found is that it has to be a training session where the employees have to go to it. When we first started off in the eighties, employees could go to the session if they wanted to. Now employees have to go to it. It's a refresher course. It doesn't have to take all day. We work with small companies, so they don't want to lose the time of their employees in these training sessions. We're always available either before the shift starts, during the lunch hour, or after the shift ends. There are different mechanisms that can be put into place where it doesn't have to take a day and a half. We do a day-and-a-half training session when we are training people on how to investigate a sexual harassment complaint. If it's a refresher course for the employees, it can take a lot of different forms. It doesn't have to be that long. It's always in the minds of people. They know what the RCMP stands for, what they won't accept, and what they will accept. It just makes it clearer for everybody involved.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

It's probably like no other organization in the country. The RCMP has an opportunity here with a centralized recruitment group, in a centralized area, with a standardized length or period of time for their training, and a dedicated training day within a week where there isn't an option to attend or not attend. It's a competency-based program in every sense of the word and it could deliver that.

You said that the part of the section where the commissioner may direct the learning and training of the RCMP is a really positive step toward dealing with the prevention aspect of some of these challenges they're facing.

We move now to the comments you made around the continuing education aspect and maybe the growth of it, because challenges and reality change and so too must the training and awareness of this.

Do you see it as a positive step now that the legislation is different from the past, where these kinds of issues can be dealt with now at the first instance? In the past, if an issue of harassment, whether sexual, psychological, or any other form of harassment, occurred in the workplace, the past system engaged a very legal framework. A manager in his own detachment in rural and remote Canada, who would love to sit the member down and tell the member that what was done was inappropriate and it needed to be corrected couldn't do that because the legislation and the system didn't allow it. Now with the change in this bill, a detachment commander can sit down with the person involved and deal with it right away, at the very first instance.

Do you see that as a positive step to slowing the unfortunate growth of this kind of inappropriate conduct within the force?

[Yvonne Séguin]

I would say that it sounds good, but we would have to see it once it's applied to see if it works well. Again, while people will be given the possibility to do it, are they going to do it? And how are they going to do it?

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

It's a fair point. The proof is in the pudding and delivery, of course. Does it work well in the other organizations that do this?

[Yvonne Séguin]

With the 32 years of experience we have, we have found out that when companies do have a clear policy, when employees do know what is acceptable and not acceptable, it makes it much easier for management to deal with the problems. Not everybody is a harasser. A lot of times when you just clarify what it is for them, it stops. Sometimes they say that they were just joking around. Sometimes you have to define to them what is a joke. When I am giving training sessions mostly where there are men, men are usually scared of the fact that it means they can't flirt anymore. When I say that flirting is fine, that it's acceptable, but when someone says “no”, they have to stop, I see their shoulders go back up. They are okay with that now. We didn't change that culture. We're just saying they have to learn how to respect the other person's space.

It sounds good, but we have to see who these managers are, what kind of training they are getting to do this. The timeframe is very important. I can tell you in the eighties, at the provincial government, I saw specific case which took three years to investigate. That's not acceptable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move over to the Liberals for seven minutes, please.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On that last point, in talking about the timeframes on investigating, do you have any idea right now what the timeframes are? Do you think this legislation with shorten the timeframes? It is a good point to look at how long these cases take to get resolved.

[Yvonne Séguin]

I don't think I would be the expert on that. I think maybe Mr. Leef would be the expert on that. However, I can tell you that what we have found out is when a case is denounced immediately, it can take two to three weeks to resolve. If you let it get into the legal system, it can take five to six years to resolve.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Allmand, I'd like to get back to the conversation you were having about these joint reviews. You spoke about them near the end of your testimony, so you can add anything that you'd like to them. How do you see these joint reviews working? What kinds of powers do these reviewing bodies need to have in order to function properly? What information would they have to have to do the reviews?

[Warren Allmand]

I don't think this has been fully understood. When the RCMP acts in joint operations, such as the INSETs, with other security and intelligence groups, when they act jointly like that, and there's negligence and somebody is hurt, as Mr. Arar was hurt, to the extent that he was tortured for over a year in Syria and sent there based on inaccurate information, if you have one oversight body, such as the CPC that only focuses on the behaviour of the RCMP, they can't investigate the other partners in the joint operation. You need to have a system where you can look at the entire joint operation, and not just the commissioner for the Communications Security Establishment looking at one part. They have to get together.

Proposed section 45.75—and I'm thankful for that section—says that when an RCMP officer works at a joint operation, there can be a joint review between the CRCC and the review body of the other group, but it says in other jurisdictions, meaning, I guess, provincial jurisdiction or the United States. It doesn't say with the other federal security and intelligence bodies under the federal government. Justice O'Connor found out there were 24 of them. If this proposed section were amended to allow not only joint reviews with other jurisdictions, but with other intelligence and security oversight bodies within the federal government area, and provide one as well for the Canada Border Services Agency, which has none at all, and by the way, is providing a lot of information and doing a lot of investigative work with respect to enforcement and so on in border matters, then you'd have a very good section here.

I also asked about the interrelationship between proposed section 45.75, which talks about joint reviews both inside and outside of Canada, and then these other sections at the end of the bill, under part VII.2, proposed sections 45.88 and following, which talk about cross-border law enforcement operations and a review for them. There seems to be some contradiction. It's not clear at all what's covered. What you must be clear on is to make sure in the bill that the sorts of things that happened in joint operations to Arar, to El Maati, to Almalki, to Mr. Benatta, a lot of the people who were seriously hurt by negligence by the RCMP and others in joint operations, can be properly reviewed and those responsible are held accountable.

That's the point I'm making. I'm asking the committee to seek clarification on whether these sections do apply to joint operations between the RCMP, CSIS, CSE, CBSA, the Coast Guard, whatever, these other 24 groups that do security. Does it cover them or not? If it doesn't cover them, I think you should make an amendment to make it clear that the joint review will cover them. Otherwise, things will continue to fall between the cracks.

How should they work? They should work just like Judge O'Connor's commission. Judge O'Connor was able to get to the bottom of what happened to Arar because he wasn't just mandated to look at the RCMP alone. He looked at the RCMP, CSIS, all the organizations and ministries in Canada that were dealing with security and intelligence operations in law enforcement. Because he could look at all of them, look at all the agreements, he was able to find out what really happened, and he found out that Mr. Arar was completely falsely labelled. The government compensated him later on for the negligence that happened. But if it hadn't been for the powers given to O'Connor in that commission, we never would have known what had happened.

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is arguing that this new body, the CRCC, should have the powers to get to the bottom of a joint operations case to find out really what happened and who is responsible when somebody is hurt by a joint operation.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

When you talk about joint operations with the United States, how do we know that we'll be able to get to the reviewing bodies of those in their legislation as well? I'm no expert. I'm not familiar with this, but are you familiar with what they do on the other side of the border for these types of reviews, or do they not have any?

[Warren Allmand]

Part VII.2 attempts to deal with that. I only had a short while to deal with this very complicated bill. I read through this part several times. I was trying to find out exactly what you're asking me, and I couldn't really find out from reading these sections. The bill amends, as I point out, nine other statutes, so it's not an easy task to get to the bottom of and understand. That's why I recommend very strongly that you try to get the minister back, or the officials back, and ask them to explain. It says that there would be a review of integrated cross-border law enforcement operations, but how it will take place? From reading the articles, I don't get it, and it needs clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Before we go to Mr. Garrison, I'm just going to go to our analyst, because we have a former solicitor general who has some concerns about these two sections. Maybe we can get some clarification for you.

Then I'll go to Mr. Garrison. Mr. Andrews, your time was up, and you had good questions.

[Dominique Valiquet, Committee Researcher]

Yes, I can address your second issue, Mr. Allmand, on part VII.2, the review of integrated cross-border law enforcement operations. You mentioned proposed section 45.88 of the bill.

[Warren Allmand]

I'm following.

[Dominique Valiquet]

That part is a consequential amendment, so it's not really part of the bill. It's just modifying some wording, because Bill C-42 creates a new commission. That part, which is called the ship-rider part, was already adopted by Parliament in Bill C-38, so this is already law. Bill C-42 is just making some consequential amendments.

To address your second issue on joint investigation cross-border, maybe you can find your answer at section 45.95. I can read the first paragraph, “If a complaint concerns the conduct of a designated officer,” for example an RCMP officer who is working cross-border with the FBI, or DEA, or cross-border law enforcement—an American officer—the new commission created by Bill C-42 may “conduct an investigation, review or hearing of that complaint jointly with an authority that is responsible for investigations, reviews or hearings with respect to complaints from the public against law enforcement officers in any relevant jurisdiction, whether in or outside Canada.”

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Could I get that section again?