Public Safety Committee on May 7th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's on the record.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes, it's on the record—my ex-husband, soon to be.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Politicians could use a lesson.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No, I honestly didn't think you could teach empathy, but that exercise taught me the opposite of that, through having to physically sit and stand on blankets and get the history and get to know what happened and gaining that understanding. It cannot do us wrong. You can't undo that kind of training. It sits with you. I think about it now and I think about how powerful it was. Watching the cadets go through that was really a powerful experience. We plan to roll that out across the nation, of course, but it does take time.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much for the time, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Congratulations, Ms. Lucki. It's great to be with you, and thank you for your service.

I want to ask you about the RCMP's very important international work.

Along with my colleague Mr. Gerretsen, I serve on the Standing Committee on National Defence, and we're actually at this very moment doing a study on UN peacekeeping. You earned peacekeeping medals in 1993 and 1994 from the UN and from Canada in 2000, and you had a distinction from the force commander in 1993. This is difficult work, in Yugoslavia and Haiti. Can you tell us what that work is like, how important it is to use the skill set of building trust and also how we can motivate women and men to not only join the RCMP but also sign up for these challenging international missions that are so crucial to international peace and stability?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We actually have never had issues or problems having people sign up for international missions, but it's about ensuring that we get the right person to do that. From my time on international missions, coming from a democratic society and going into a society that is not so democratic, I know that teaching policing in those non-democratic nations is important. Actually at the time I went overseas, I was the only woman out of all the countries to be operational. Other countries sent women but in administrative roles. I think it's very, very important, when you want to teach democracy and teach policing in a modern society, that you include women, and you must include diversity. When I say diversity, I don't always mean the colour of your skin. I mean diversity of experience, diversity of background, diversity of what you've gone through in the police, and your expertise.

I think we do very well internationally and I think we need to continue doing that.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's just about, but not quite. Thank you, Mr. Spengemann.

Speaking of time, I have 23 minutes' worth of questions to fit into 15 minutes.

I am going to take some prerogatives as the chair, and extend to the end of Mr. Dubé's round so that we'll get the 23 minutes in regardless.

Mr. Motz.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Congratulations, Commissioner.

The last time we spoke, briefly, was at the investiture at the Governor General's ceremony in 2013 for the Order of Merit of the Police Forces. We were in the same group. I do recall us shaking hands, and you escorting your husband out of the room so the group of us could be part of that.

Congratulations. I guess we've both kind of jumped from the fire into the frying pan, so to speak. Good for you. I look forward to your leadership in this organization.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Thank you.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I have a couple of questions.

Where I come from in southern Alberta, and throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan, rural crime has escalated beyond those communities' capacity to handle it in some circumstances. I appreciate that your resources have been redeployed and depleted to deal with other competing interests across the country—national security, illegal border crossings, etc.

Keeping that in mind, I know from speaking with quite a number of detachment commanders that they have points of frustration, and that their communities are expressing points of frustration, with the limited number of resources that they have to actually respond to rural crime.

I'm just curious to know your plans on, specifically, how to deal with that.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

That is a difficult question.

I see a co-responsibility in the sense that, from the RCMP perspective, we have to ensure that we have the right numbers at each detachment, and we have to start looking at other ways of doing business because there's a lot of time spent that's not on the road.

We have to look at creative ways of increasing the visibility in that community while still ensuring that we have the accountability on the paperwork side with regard to all the various reports that we have to do. Look at how complex things are. I look at an impaired driving investigation in 1994 and an impaired driving investigation today. It's apples and rocks. It's not even in the same fruit family.

It's very complicated and very long, and as things have evolved, I think the numbers haven't evolved. The other thing that I see when I say it's “co-responsibility”—and I'm not at all putting the responsibility on the residents—is that when we deal with rural crime, often things are moving into rural areas and we don't even see it coming. The people in the community still have the mentality of not locking their doors or not locking their vehicles.

I know, myself, because I was a victim in Grande Prairie. I was devastated. My nephew's car was broken into. It was a crime of opportunity because he didn't lock his car. He thought that since he was in rural Alberta, he didn't need to lock his car. He lost everything inside his car. I was really mad and felt vulnerable, so I can only imagine what the people in the communities feel. However, I think we have to work together. There are rural crime watches that work very well in certain communities, so I think that approach of working together might help, as well as looking at numbers to make sure we have adequate resources in those places.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

In your response to Mr. Picard's question, you said that we need “to ensure we have the right person doing the right job”.

In response to that, I'm kind of curious about your philosophy on recruitment, on equality, and on quotas. Do you believe that recruitment quotas and targets are important to encourage diversity in the force? Is that still going to make sure that we have the brightest and the best? What's your approach, moving forward, to ensure that we keep a balance?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We can't reduce our standards in the RCMP, absolutely not. We have a certain type of person, a quality of applicant, that we take. I'm sure that the minister will agree, having been to the RCMP training academy often. If you watch the troops marching around the parade square, they're very diverse. There are a lot of different makes and models of Mounties out there, and if for some reason we aren't getting the diversity, then we need to actually, if we have to, look at quotas. We need to reflect the society that we are policing and be a reflection of that community.

However, I'm very proud to say, having just left Depot, that there is quite a bit of diversity, especially diversity of experience. During my time, we had a 54-year-old brain surgeon, a neurosurgeon, graduate from the RCMP training academy. That's just one example. We've had people from all walks of life, so that diversity is there and so are the visible minorities.

Obviously, we want more women. Recently, we had the first two applicants who have gone through the RCMP wearing the hijab during their training in the academy. I think we're doing well, but we can always do better.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz. I think I've heard that phrase somewhere.

Ms. Dabrusin, you have five minutes, please.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

It's good to have you here, Commissioner. I want to welcome you to our committee and congratulate you.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Thank you.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It's good to see you. I saw you on the front page of the newspaper the first thing in the morning, and now I get to see you in person.

The reason I raise it is that I was looking at The Globe and Mail and there was a series in that paper by Robyn Doolittle which touched on sexual assault cases that were found to be unfounded. I know the last federal budget included some funding for the RCMP to look into those cases.

I am wondering if you could tell me about your plans, not only on the the looking backwards review with those cases, but the going forward training and improvements that can be done when looking at these types of sexual assault complaints.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I just happen to have somebody behind me who intimately knows that, who is leading up the review team. That would be Commissioner Brosseau.

Maybe he would like to comment.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

He comes with his nameplate too. That's wonderful.

[Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brosseau, Deputy Commissioner, Contract and Aboriginal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

She told me not to wear it on my head.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[D/Commr Kevin Brosseau]

Good afternoon, and thank you for that question.

[Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brosseau, Deputy Commissioner, Contract and Aboriginal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Mr. Chair, the series of reports on unfounded cases by Ms. Doolittle was very impactful for our organization, as with many policing organizations around the country.

In advance of that report being released, we started the review. With regard to the retrospective review of historical cases, as you mentioned, it was to see what went wrong, what happened. We reviewed thousands of cases to determine where the gaps were. Was it a training issue? Was it a supervision issue? What was it that was going on?

In fact, we found that it was elements of each. We've produced a report, which I'm happy to make available to the committee, that identifies the pathway forward: enhanced training, including trauma-informed training for our employees, and making that available for all members, no matter where they are, and making it relatively easy for them to access it. Given the geography of our organization, sometimes that's difficult to do. As well, there is the oversight, making sure there's proper governance and oversight across the board, and supervisors, etc., to ensure that if a sexual assault complaint comes in, how that in fact will be handled.

The other part I thought was interesting was the third party reporting and partnering with sexual assault victim advocates or centres, to give victims of sexual assault another opportunity to report. They're not ready, but they can come to the police when in fact they're ready. There's still that opportunity to have someone hear what happened to them.

We know that sexual assaults are under-reported, dramatically under-reported around the country. We were looking for ways to ensure—and it goes back to the commissioner's points around increasing and enhancing trust; it's the trust issue—that when a victim of sexual assault comes to the police, they'll be treated seriously, taken seriously, and their investigation will be handled appropriately and thoroughly.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned about having people who have experience working with people who are survivors of that kind of violence. I was looking at one of the articles that referred to a Philadelphia model. The RCMP was listed as one of 15 services that are considering having reviews going forward with advocates who work in that field.

I am wondering if that was what you were referring to there.