Public Safety Committee on May 28th, 2015

[Roch Lapensée]

We are getting there quickly.

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

You have a collective agreement, but RCMP officers do not have one, since they are not unionized.

Do you think this situation could lead to a dichotomy of sorts? Will there be a double standard between the RCMP employees and you?

[Roch Lapensée]

Once again, it's hard to say. It all depends on what organizational structure will be implemented. We shouldn't forget about the Senate, either. Senate Protective Service employees have a collective agreement that differs slightly from ours. We have one, the RCMP doesn't have one, and its working conditions are a bit different from ours. Merging the three may lead to a somewhat chaotic situation.

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

That's understandable. I did not even know that you and the Senate officers had two different collective agreements.

[Roch Lapensée]

Yes, we have two collective agreements and two different expiration dates.

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

That complicates things a bit.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Madam Doré Lefebvre.

Et maintenant, Mr. Norlock, you have the floor, sir.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

First of all, let me just tell you quite frankly, Mr. Lapensée, that I cannot think of a more professional organization than your organization. When I started this job about nine years ago, I felt totally safe, and I continue to feel totally safe and totally proud of the fact that I have a group of men and women who are there to make sure that my day goes well and that we are protected to the extent possible for any human being. Please don't take any of my questions as a slight to that statement, because that statement is the first one.

You were asked the question of how you compare with other legislative assemblies. We have, of course, 10 legislative assemblies in Canada. Because of my background with the Ontario Provincial Police for 30 years, I am familiar with the Ontario Government Protective Service, which oversees the protection of provincial members of Parliament in Ontario. Its umbrella organization or overseer is the Ontario Provincial Police.

I know of no instance where the Speaker of the legislative assembly saw a problem with the Ontario Provincial Police in their functioning with the Ontario Government Protective Service. You may have some information, and if you do, please give it to this committee. Are you aware of any instances where there have been problems with that type of organizational structure?

[Roch Lapensée]

I am not aware of the OPP and the Ontario legislative.... Do they have separate security forces? Has the OPP...? I have no idea.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I'm given to understand that the Ontario Provincial Police oversee, or are sort of the umbrella, but that the actual provision of the service is done by the OGPS, which is somewhat similar but not identical to what we're dealing with here today. I am not that familiar with it.

I also want to say, Mr. Lapensée, that in my experience policing is of course transitional. In the Ontario Provincial Police, we amalgamated with other police forces. Change is painful. I understand that. There are always questions in people's minds.

But what I have found with that type of change in professional organizations such as yours, where everyone knows his or her job function, is that given a healthy dialogue or exchange between your organization and management—which would be the Speaker of the House of Commons and then, of course, the Privy Council.... We've had witnesses from the Privy Council who have indicated that not all the nuts and bolts have been put together here, but the outline is here.

The Auditor General has made some statements, and I'm going to ask a couple of questions of him.

I guess the question for the Auditor General would be on the way I understand your job. As explained here, you don't look at the nuts and bolts. You say, “Okay, what is the job requirement?” What's the organizational structure? What are they supposed to be doing and are they actually doing it? Also, are they doing it with reasonable financial backing? Do they have sufficient money to do the job they're doing? Then you make recommendations.

If you find fault with what I've just said, would you correct me on that?

[Michael Ferguson]

I think it's essentially correct. Our job is not to dictate policy. Our job is to look at how policy is implemented: are they the right procedures and are there the right measures in place to implement whatever the policy direction is?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So you would look at an organizational chart from the view of whether it appears to be sufficiently efficient to do the job it's supposed to do.

[Michael Ferguson]

What we would do, I think, is look at whether there is the right structure behind it. Are the roles and responsibilities clear? Is what's expected clear? Is the funding clear? Do they know what their staffing model is? It's that type of thing. Again, it's very much a matter of looking at the administrative nuts and bolts of a particular program to make sure that the people delivering that program have the structure they need to know what they're supposed to do, and then to act within that.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Would you agree with me that having organizational structures consisting of several different silos but with communications between them would be less efficient than an organizational chart with clearly defined roles and an ability for people exercising their duties within that single organizational chart, as opposed to several organizational charts...? Do you agree that the flow of information, the efficiency and effectiveness of that single organizational chart would tend to be better than having several different organizational charts and several different organizations?

[Michael Ferguson]

If I look back over a number of audits, we've probably identified some issues in both cases. But when you are dealing with multiple organizations with different heads at the top who have their own priorities, we have found overall that in those situations it is particularly important to establish very clear roles, responsibilities, and priorities so that all of those organizations are on the same page. If there are multiple people with responsibility—and again it doesn't really matter how far apart those organizations are—the particular issue at hand may not be the same priority for all of them, which makes it very important to ensure that the roles and responsibilities and priorities are well established.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Norlock.

Mr. Easter, you now have the floor, sir.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the three witnesses for coming.

Mr. Lapensée, I also certainly want to compliment the professionalism of your organization. In all my time in Parliament—and at this table, probably Diane and I have been here the longest—I have never seen anything but professionalism from your folks and, indeed, friendship over time, with the recognition factor that's always there. I want to state that, because you don't see that in too many workplaces. Everybody has a bad day, even the chair does, from time to time, with some of the members on the committee, though not with me of course. But I've never seen anybody express their bad day.

In any event, I think part of the problem we have here with this new proposal is that the security issue, which is an extremely important issue, has taken precedence. There are really two issues at play here. One is the security issue in terms of the parliamentary precinct itself, and the other is the independence of Parliament. By the independence of Parliament, I mean the independence of Parliament from the executive branch of government, which is the Prime Minister, cabinet, etc.

It was interesting when we were doing our research into this issue. You have the Clerk and you have the Sergeant-at-Arms, and when they were here the other day, the Privy Council Office could not answer a question about the role of the Sergeant-at-Arms under this new arrangement. That's worrisome.

But it's interesting that when you actually go to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it says:

Prior to the creation of the House of Commons Security Services in 1920, security was the responsibility of the Dominion Police (which in 1920 was merged with the Royal North West Mounted Police to create a new national force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police).

In a certain fashion, we're going back to the arrangement that existed in 1920 and we're going back to the 1920 model. Is it for better or worse? I don't know. I will admit that I am concerned about the independence of Parliament from the executive branch because of the connection to the Minister of Public Safety and the Commissioner of the RCMP.

Does either of you, as a witness, know what the new role of the Sergeant-at-Arms will be, if any, and who that individual is ultimately responsible to? Earlier somebody else said that you couldn't have three bosses, and you can't. Under this new arrangement, who is that individual ultimately responsible to?

[Roch Lapensée]

I think that the role of the sergeant-at-arms will have to change tremendously. According to what I have been told, the role of the sergeant-at-arms will become mainly ceremonial rather than operational. Naturally, I cannot back that up 100%, but that is what I understood.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Do you have any comments, Mr. Ferguson? Do you know?

[Michael Ferguson]

In terms of the Sergeant-at-Arms, it's certainly not something I've looked into.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

One of the difficulties we're having here—and I brought this up at a previous meeting—is that although we're dealing to a great extent with the security side, we really don't have the benefit on this committee of making a decision on this in terms of a measure in the budget bill, and we have not had the benefit of a report on the incident of October 22. That's a problem in and of itself. We've read some media reports and we question what happened and who was negligent in terms of that happening. But we do know that at the end of the day, the Sergeant-at-Arms dealt with the issue.

You believe, Mr. Lapensée, that the Sergeant-at-Arms could be involved in just the ceremonial side.

[Roch Lapensée]

I cannot confirm this 100%, but what we've been hearing on the floor right now is that the new Sergeant-at-Arms will have more of a ceremonial role than the operational role he used to have.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The way Parliament works now, there's the clerk, the Speaker, and a number of parliamentary officers, the Sergeant-at-arms being one. Can anybody tell me the flow of authority as it relates to the clerk of the House of Commons in this new arrangement?

There's no question in my mind that on the security side I agree with the Auditor General's report. Having been Solicitor general at one point in time, I would agree that there needs to be better coordination on the security side of the operation. All those things I agree with 100%. I'm looking at the parliamentary privilege side, and the implications of that for these new security measures and the independence of Parliament from the executive branch. The clerk is independent of the executive branch. Does anybody know the flow of authority from the new person in charge, through the clerk to the Speaker?

My point, Mr. Chair, is that there are too many unknown implications of this decision that we're making here relative to this new set-up in Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

A response, Mr. Lapensée?

[Roch Lapensée]

I am not an expert on parliamentary structure, and I am not familiar with all the levels. For example, to avoid mixing legislative and executive powers, consideration may have been given to appointing a director of the new service who is not an active member of the RCMP. Actually, a retired member or a member of another department could have been appointed to head the service. So there would be no risk of mixing executive power with legislative power.