Public Safety Committee on May 7th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Minister. The time is up now.

We will go to Mr. Easter, please, for 10 minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister and officials.

First, Mr. Minister, while we agree with more money for the Security Intelligence Review Committee, I would strongly disagree with your statement that it is oversight. It is not. It's after-the-fact review. I think the government has failed the country miserably by not providing proper parliamentary oversight to the combination of security agencies that we have in this country, as all our Five Eyes partners have. I strenuously disagree with you on your point on SIRC. It's not oversight.

We're here to talk about the estimates, but one of the problems with the government budgets that we're seeing from this government is that even though you allocate moneys in your budget, and it passes this committee and Parliament, it doesn't mean it's real money if what happened last year is any indication. Last year, it seems to me—and Randall went through the lapses in the funding—there were lapses to the RCMP and there were lapses in terms of the spending with regard to CSIS, the Correctional Service of Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the list goes on.

This wording may be a little too strong, but I'll put the question to you this way. It seems to me that last year the minister quietly whispered in the ear of agency heads and asked them to kick back some money to the consolidated revenue fund. Is that going to happen again or is this real money?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I thank you for your question, Mr. Easter. While I recognize your support yesterday of the important anti-terrorism measures, I strongly disagree with your view of the state of our intelligence community.

In terms of review and oversight, let me take this opportunity to clearly state the difference between oversight and review. On the side of oversight, Mr. Easter, you may be well aware that CSIS itself has an oversight mechanism of its activities that are monitored and supervised by Public Safety. They are to have an oversight of their activity, as I am.

That being said, as you know, there are already existing provisions, but there are also provisions in the bill you supported which provide that every time the intelligence agency infringes on the rights of Canadians, they have to seek consent from the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and also seek a warrant from a judge. This is the robust mechanism we have in place for oversight. Let me remind you that, to my knowledge, we are the only country for which, in terms of disrupting threats, CSIS, our Canadian intelligence agency, will have to seek a warrant from a judge. This is not happening in other legislation. That is it for robust oversight.

In terms of review, you are right to say that the Security Intelligence Review Committee is doing its job. I would quote for you the director himself, who acknowledged that to have this distance from the ongoing activity gives them more latitude and enables them to do a better job of reviewing the activity of our intelligence agency. As you know, the Auditor General can do review activity at any time, as can the Privacy Commissioner. The Supreme Court itself—this is why I've been saying that SIRC is a Canadian model that is the envy of the world—is saying that SIRC is establishing this balance between procedural rights and privacy and also the national security issue.

Just to conclude, if I may, because this goes right to your question—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I think the minister is limited to the same amount of time that the question was, and I think he's over that time.

I do have a question to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have the right to interfere.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a question for Commissioner Paulson. I know that the commissioner is in a somewhat difficult position.

One, you're responsible to the rank and file in terms of their training and equipment and the force as a whole. Also, you have some responsibility to the government not to complain, I guess, that the government's not giving you enough money, but I believe that the responsibility to the rank and file is paramount.

You're aware no doubt, Commissioner, of the Global Television 16X9 documentary called “Under Fire”. It raised serious questions about proper training and about equipment being provided by the RCMP, etc. Answers haven't been forthcoming.

I can tell you that in my office we've received a lot of e-mails from the rank and file that worry me. One of them is that although the RCMP had indicated long ago that they would be rolling out the carbine program—we'll not get into the details of the Moncton incident—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Very briefly, to allow time for the answer.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Can you respond to that program in terms of training and equipment that rank-and-file RCMP members think you're short of?

Secondly, you indicated before the committee last time that you'd moved 600 resources to anti-terrorism from other areas of federal responsibility in terms of criminals. Has that situation been redressed now? Is there enough money in this budget to redress that situation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Very briefly, Mr. Paulson. I'm so sorry, but Mr. Easter has used up most of the time.

[Commissioner Bob Paulson, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Okay. Thank you for the time, Mr. Chair.

We still have the reallocation of resources to address the highest-priority most threatening files. We are managing that day to day. Nothing has changed from when I last spoke about that.

Let me go back to your previous question about the 16X9 program. You characterized a cascading series of responsibilities, and you left out Canadians in there. I view my primary responsibility as keeping Canadians safe, along with the rest of the employees, the “rank and file”, as you put it.

That story raised some issues around equipment and around training, sensationalized around the Moncton murders, which was offensive in some respects. It spoke of officers bringing their own weapons to work and so on. I'm not aware of any of those instances.

The carbine program is rolling out. We have over 2,200 weapons rolled out. It's rolled out on a purposefully risk-assessed framework that is being cautious around putting these—effectively—assault rifles into the hands of our police officers, recognizing that there's a need for our officers to have that kind of arming, but with conditions, policies, and guidelines around the use of that. That is progressing on schedule.

We've made commitments in respect of the MacNeil report on the Moncton case. We're meeting those commitments. Hard body armour has been deployed on a wide basis. Cars have hard body armour in them. Members need to know how to put it on. In the Moncton case, that was widely available.

We continue to work on our training and we continue to work on our equipment, but I am very concerned about the safety of Canadians, our members, and working with government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Commissioner Paulson.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses and the minister for being here today to answer our questions.

My first question is for the Minister of Public Safety, Mr. Blaney. It has to do with pardon applications.

Pardon applications have piled up over the past few years because the Parole Board of Canada, the PBC, doesn't have the resources needed to process them. You are probably aware of the issue. We're talking about thousands of applications that have accumulated, and the situation isn't changing. A PBC spokesperson mentioned that she wouldn't be able to allocate the resources required in 2015-16 to process all the pardon applications that have been pending for several years.

As you know, this has a real impact on our communities, and also on the efforts to socially reintegrate these individuals into our communities. Some of these people are being asked to withdraw the request and re-start the process whereas they have been waiting for an answer for years. Moreover, there are fees involved in applying for a pardon. There's no point in hiding it: often they are people with low incomes and their applications, which are fairly expensive, must be started over.

Does your government have a plan that would allow it to resolve the situation as quickly as possible? This situation doesn't affect just one riding. It's happening across the country.

Do you have a plan that would make it possible to grant resources to the Parole Board of Canada to resolve the situation, which is untenable for many individuals?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you for your question, Ms. Doré Lefebvre.

I am pleased to tell you this morning that the backlog of summary convictions has been completely eliminated. It's important to note that our government has, in a sense, modernized the criminal records suspension process and that the user-pay principle has been introduced.

That said, I must remind you of one thing.

I'm going to turn to Mr. Cenaiko, our director, but I just wanted to mention this.

At one point, there was a backlog of over 30,000 applications, which has been reduced by close to 25,000. Therefore, as we speak, what is left to liquidate are the pardon applications for indictable offences, since they are under the former system. There are a little over 5,000 left. Mr. Cenaiko and his team confirmed that they had the financial resources needed to continue to process this backlog and that they truly intend to achieve that goal.

I will turn to Mr. Cenaiko for additional comments.

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

Mr. Cenaiko, I will come back to you later because I would like to take advantage of the little time I have to pester the minister with my questions. I don't want to be impolite, but I have only a few minutes left. So I'll continue with you, Mr. Minister.

Thank you for your answer. I greatly appreciate it.

I know of another case involving Correctional Service of Canada programs, and I would like to talk about it before this committee. I will give you a brief overview.

There have been cuts to programs that are relatively important for the social reintegration of our inmates. Unfortunately, it was announced that these programs were going to be cut in the coming months. The ones I'm thinking of include ARCAD, which has been working with inmates for about 50 years, as well as support and responsibility circles. They are concerned for their funding in the coming years because it isn't recurring. They feel like they are always walking a tightrope when it comes to this funding.

What is the situation for those particular programs? Will their funding be renewed in the next few years? Cuts have been announced in this regard.

Can we give them some good news today and tell them that their funding won't be interrupted?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have 30 seconds.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Doré Lefebvre. I am always happy to answer your questions during committee meetings or during question period in the House.

Your questions have to do with agreements between the Correctional Service of Canada and non-profit organizations. The Correctional Service of Canada establishes a balance between the resources it already has internally to meet these needs and the services provided by the organizations. Given that I don't have much time, I will ask the commissioner to answer your question in the second hour of the meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I apologize to Mr. Cenaiko as well, but we're out of time on this. Perhaps on another round you can make a response.

We will now go to Ms. Ablonczy for five minutes.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to everyone for appearing.

Minister, we thank you for your leadership during these troubled times. I just read a recent article outlining jihadist training camps in the Mexican desert, so threats are close to us and very mobile, and I congratulate you on getting the new anti-terrorism bill through. I know that it was a delicate balancing act, because we are very determined to protect rights and freedoms in Canada but also to protect our security.

During the debate on the anti-terrorism bill, I heard some contradictory messages from the opposition. One was that this bill would allow our security forces to spy on all Canadians, especially peaceful protesters and so forth, but then also that our security forces are underfunded and unable to do their job under the bill. I wonder if you could comment on the enhanced funding for our security forces in these main estimates.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I thank you for your question, Ms. Ablonczy, and also for your keen interest in public safety.

Up front, I would like to reassure you. I've used the expression “so-called experts” when we've talked about our anti-terrorism measures. Why? Because anyone who dares to read the bill will see that there are many provisions where the bill is in full compliance with both the office and regulations regarding the privacy of Canadians, and with the Charter of Rights. There are a lot of checks and balances, as has been mentioned earlier, regarding seeking a warrant and the consent of the Attorney General. There also have been amendments to make it clear that in no possible or imaginary way could a protester be targeted by this bill.

There's one thing that we have to be reminded of. This year is the 30th anniversary of CSIS. The director can comment about it. One has to be well aware that intelligence officers are not law enforcement and don't have the capability of making arrests or detentions. It is in their genetic code. That being said, I want to highlight the fact that you have made me aware of those intricacies and links between organized crime, drug trafficking at the border, and terrorism. This, I would say, is certainly an explosive and dangerous cocktail. That is certainly a justification for ensuring that our police officers and the CBSA have the resources they need to keep our border safe and also to work with our partners.

As I've mentioned, there is a provision of $300 million in the budget. I feel that this is needed regarding the threat we are facing, and it's also making sure that we are not putting all our eggs in the same basket. I don't know if this is an English expression, but it certainly is one in French. That is why we need to keep an eye on all the public safety challenges, but once again, terrorism remains the national security priority.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Minister, you mentioned our border. We are aware that the jobs and incomes of many Canadians are impacted, either directly or indirectly, by the flow of goods and services across our border with the United States. You have just signed a preclearance agreement with the United States. It allows U.S. border officers to carry firearms on Canadian soil, and there have been concerns raised about that. I would like you to comment on this new agreement with the U.S. on preclearance.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I thank you for the question.

I can certainly reassure you. thanks to the excellent work of our negotiator. The principle of reciprocity is embedded in the agreement, which is in front of the House for in-depth examination. Whatever privilege or mechanism is put in place for U.S. border officers who would be in Canada is reciprocated for any Canadian border officer who would be operating in the United States.

We also built on the long experience we have with the preclearance mode at the airport, which I believe began in 1952. We updated it, built on it, and that's what is in front of us. It is a comprehensive agreement that includes rail, land, marine, and air modes and was received favourably on both sides of the border.

We are also going to work at making the border less of a barrier for trade, especially for what we call visas without.... We will allow Canadian truckers to go into the United States and get back into Canada to shorten their route without having to stop at the border. There is a pilot project. The truckers are really pleased with it. This is a demonstration of the CBSA working at making the border smoother and more fluid for people who legally are just doing trade and willing to increase our trade relationship with our U.S. partner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

We have now finished our first hour.

Minister, thank you very much for attending. We will start our second hour very shortly.

We will suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we are back. The chair would like to advise the committee that we have both some challenges and scheduling things that we have to deal with right away, in that the chair of course is aware, as we all are, that we have potential votes coming very shortly, which is going to mean that we do not have the time that is necessary and/or allocated for the rest of our witnesses.

There are some options on the floor. The chair will outline three options and wait for direction from the committee as to how it wishes to proceed.

Number one, according to Standing Order number 115(5), when the bells are sounded, we have the option of staying a little longer at the discretion of the committee. It would take unanimous consent of the committee to do so. Being as the votes are in Centre Block and we are in Centre Block, this is a possibility you could consider.

The second issue is on the actual votes themselves, on the estimates. There are 16 votes. They can be voted individually or they can all be grouped. It would take unanimous consent to group them. They do not have to be voted on today, but that is an option that is before you.

The other issue is that we have other legislation that is coming before the committee, and we said that we would set aside 10 minutes or so for committee business today to allow our schedule to move forward at the next meeting.

Those are the issues that are before the committee right now. The chair is asking for some direction as to which way you would wish to proceed.

First of all, let's take them point by point. The chair would like to know whether or not you wish to proceed a few minutes after the votes are called. I'm asking for direction on the first option.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, is it a half-hour bell? If it's a half-hour bell, there's no reason why we can't stay until we have five minutes left on the bell.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Yes. It's a half-hour bell.

Ms. James.