Public Safety Committee on May 7th, 2018

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Do your officers find that this is a situation that should stop, or are they simply doing the work they are being told to do?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Pardon me?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Are the officers on the ground there until other decisions are made? This is not a normal situation.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We're talking with the government to ensure that we have enough resources to do the work. If the situation persists, we will have to readjust our plan.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Mr. Dubé, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Madam Commissioner, congratulations on your appointment. Like the minister, I am delighted that this is the first time in the history of the RCMP that a woman will occupy this position on a permanent basis.

I have a few questions, some of which have been already touched on.

You've received accolades for this particular issue in the past, so I'm curious to hear more on reconciliation with first nations. A lot of the work police do is based on trust. It's safe to say when we see things like the tragic circumstances around young Colten Boushie and others, some trust has been lost.

Given the RCMP's role in many remote and rural communities in Canada, what work do you see needs to be done to regain that trust, and making sure that you're collaborating in a robust way with first nations communities and indigenous people?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

There are many families who have come forward with the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls inquiry to tell their story and that tragedy. That cannot be easy, and it lays the foundation for some work we have ahead of ourselves.

Like many Canadians, I was moved by their testimony. We need to take that, and learn from it. There cannot be one life lost in vain. If we don't learn from that, then shame on us. We need to look at that, and build trust and reconciliation.

It's never too late to do the right thing, so we need to build those relationships. In many of the communities—and we often don't tell that story—we do have very positive relationships. When something does go sideways, often it's fixed in the first instance. Sometimes in our history, we haven't done that, and when we don't, we need to work better at that.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

The point you raise is fair. It's not an institutional issue, but the trust aspect is really important. I appreciate all the sentiments you just expressed. Is there anything more that needs to be done specifically to regain some of that trust that's been lost as we move forward on this particular issue?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I think most things boil down to communication: a lack of communication, not timely communication, inaccurate communication. We need to ensure when something goes sideways or when a tragedy strikes a community, whether it's a personal tragedy or an emergency in the community, a flood or fire, that we're respectful in our communications, and that they're timely. I think that will go a long way to build bridges with our indigenous people.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

I don't want to put you on the spot; I know it's your first time before this committee as commissioner. Would you be open to considering some kind of role that could be filled by someone who can liaise with indigenous people and first nation communities? Obviously, there's the complaints commission and such, but in the event that a particular issue or a specific case comes up, in the spirit of trying to fix things, perhaps that individual could fill that communications side and also maybe look at what went wrong.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We know that does work because we have a liaison officer with the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry who works tirelessly with the inquiry. Any of their requests go through the liaison, Assistant Commissioner Shirley Cuillierrier, and her team.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Would that be appropriate to consider on a larger scale?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes and no. I think we do have great communication in the smaller communities. I don't know if that would be redundant, but globally we have an aboriginal first nations advisory group for me as the commissioner. I look forward to tapping into their ideas as well as seeing some of the recommendations from the inquiry.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you very much.

My next question is on police work, which has changed and evolved a lot in recent years. Consider, for example, the need to access cellphone data, access without a warrant, or even the use of technology such as the Stingray cellphone tracking equipment. The debate has already been partly opened, and will continue in the years to come.

What future and what role do you see for the RCMP? What are your needs? How will you contribute to the debate so that you can continue doing your work, while guaranteeing to protect Canadians' privacy and rights?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I do not want to talk specifically about the technology we use, but I know that many people in the RCMP are working to make sure that our technology is up to speed with the devices used by criminals, which isn't always the case. Therefore, we will keep working hard to be sure that our technology is up to date, and that we are ready for the future.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Great, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You still have a minute and a bit.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

For my last minute, I would like to ask you about working conditions and unionization. I think we have already broached the topic.

As you know, this is a current issue, and the appropriate legislation has yet to be passed. What is your take on the presence of a union in the RCMP, and how will you work with your members to ensure that their working conditions match the work they have to do.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I believe that the union is good thing for our agency. Often, RCMP members' rights and obligations aren't well defined. There are many grey areas. The union will give us the opportunity to work with our members.

We can speak with members more freely through a union.

I think that this is very important. We do not view the union as an adversary. We aren't used to this at the RCMP, because our former system didn't work like that. I've realized that my team wants to work with the union, and not ignore it, to ensure that our members are properly represented.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Merci, Mr. Dubé.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to both of you for being here today. Congratulations again, Commissioner.

I want to ask you about mental health. The mandate letter clearly says that a priority ought to be placed on confronting mental health challenges faced by RCMP members. In your statement you were very clear that the force will continue to roll out mental readiness training, peer support networks, employee assistance services. Disability management is important, as is the accommodation program to support injured members' recovery, all of which is extremely encouraging.

I do want to ask your thoughts on stigma in the first instance because the Auditor General's report of 2017 did say that members are often scared of being ridiculed and isolated if they seek help. With that in mind, I wonder if you could speak to the importance of addressing the stigma around mental health challenges.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I think members have had some great advocates in the RCMP who have come forward, and I think it assists in our way forward to see that members who represent our organization are not afraid to come forward. They're good examples for everybody.

The government will be giving us some great funding over the next five years so that we can roll out our mental health strategy, but if members are suffering in silence, that money is not good for anybody. We need to get the message out. I know that in the divisions I've been in, we have been working with various other campaigns like Bell's Let's Talk.

I believe there's still a stigma, not just in the RCMP, and I think we have a bigger mountain to climb, because it's often looked at as a rough and tough kind of organization. We deal with the mental health issues of everybody else, and God forbid we should have mental health issues ourselves. Given what we do day in, day out, it's a pretty hard go for some members. But I think if we get the right people saying the right things and leadership from the top and we take that stigma away, that will go miles, along with the money we got for our mental health strategy for mental health practitioners and for reaching out to the membership. I know we have programs now so that if a member is involved in a tragic event, we're very quick to have critical incident debriefings so that people know that it's okay to come forward and tell their story.

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

Thank you very much.

I have one more question and then I'll turn it over to my colleague Mr. Spengemann. It's about workplace culture and harassment in particular.

You focused on the importance of diversity training. I remember reading a comment shortly after you were chosen for the position, in which you talked about the importance of integrating—as has been the case in training at Depot, for example—diversity training so that young cadets could be exposed to those teachings and the importance of them and so you could make sure that they take those teachings and apply them to their everyday work.

Obviously it doesn't come down to one answer, one solution here, but what does diversity training look like, and what does it entail? There's evidently a suite of approaches one could take to dealing with these issues, but tell me about diversity training and how it's been employed.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

At the training academy, there's no one program. We try to integrate it throughout the program in every facet of their training. One program we recently introduced is the Kairos blanket exercise, which I participated in at the training academy. That was phenomenal. I didn't actually think you could teach empathy. My husband said that. Sorry, he's going to kill me.