Evidence of meeting #113 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
—of $173 million more. Part of that is reflected in these estimates. There's more to come, but this is the beginning.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
That's perfect. So with regard to public security, this issue has generated costs of $173 million.
I would also like to talk about the problems related to Bill C-45 and to Bill C-46, which concerns impaired driving.
Yesterday, your colleague Mr. Blair said that Bill C-45 could come into effect even if Bill C-46 is not ready.
As Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, do you accept that marijuana will become legal while there will be no law governing drivers in this regard?
The RCMP Commissioner is with us today. Mr. Blair can say one thing but as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, do you agree with the fact that regardless of whether Bill C-46 is ready or not, marijuana will be legalized?
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Mr. Paul-Hus, the problem with impaired driving, whether it's drug-impaired of alcohol-impaired, exists today. It's already here. That's why, in Bill C-46, we have created new offences. We have provided for new funding and new technology to better deal with all forms of impaired driving, whether it's cannabis or anything else. The sooner Parliament can deal with Bill C-46, the better. It's not contingent on Bill C-45, because the problem already exists.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
That is not what you said. When you tabled Bill C-45 in the House last year, you said that Bill C-45 and C-46 were twins that they went together and could not be separated.
Today, because of the legislative process, Bill C-46 is delayed. However, the Prime Minister absolutely wants to legalize cannabis. In fact, I don't know why this is so urgent. So, you accept that Bill C-46 is not ready but that C-45 will come into effect.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
We're anxious to see both pieces of legislation proceed. Bill C-45 corrects a problem that has existed for almost 100 years. The law with respect to cannabis in Canada has been long-standing, and for those 100 years it has been an abject failure. It has not kept marijuana out of the hands of our kids, and it has not kept the proceeds out of the hands of organized crime. Obviously, the existing law is not working. We need to change the approach. Bill C-45 changes the approach.
Bill C-46 deals with the larger and different problem of all forms of impaired driving, whether it's drug-impaired or alcohol-impaired, creating new offences, new technologies, and new techniques to keep our roads safer, and it needs to be passed promptly, too.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Minister.
To conclude, I'd like to go back to the budget cuts. You are maintaining your position and repeating what you answer every day in the House of Commons, which is that the Conservatives reduced the CBSA budget by $300 million, despite a report from the Library of Parliament, which was just made public and is still warm, which states the opposite.
Are you maintaining your position?
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
I maintain that position. I would be glad to see the library's opinion.
The fact of the matter is that over the last five years, the previous government cut very close to $400 million from CBSA, and very close to $500 million from the RCMP.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you very much, Mr. Paul-Hus.
We started a little late. Mr. Picard, you can finish off with the final five minutes, please.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
I would like to address the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The departmental plan intends to correct some issues concerning money laundering and the whole question of financial crime.
I would like you to tell us what the issues are that we are facing currently, and what recommendations you will make to improve the situation to fight money laundering and financial crime.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Monsieur Picard, these organizations are very sophisticated in the way they organize themselves, the way they hide their activities, and the way they launder their proceeds. They're constantly changing and morphing into different forms and shapes, and different types of activities.
The RCMP and all the agencies it works with need to be just as sophisticated, just as nimble and agile, to detect and collect the evidence, and to prosecute the offences that are committed. That requires inter-agency co-operation. You are very expert yourself in the type of integrated teams that need to be drawn together to deal with money laundering and the activities of organized crime.
We also need to make sure we have first-rate technology, because the criminals use it and we need to have that degree of sophistication in law enforcement. We need the coordination and collaboration, and we need the sophisticated technology. We also need a new generation of police officer, who may not have the style or the aptitude that is traditional in law enforcement but does have a skill set in relation to financial crime, forensic accounting, the use of the digital economy, and so forth. That implies a recruitment effort by the RCMP that goes beyond the conventional.
If I could, I'll stop here and ask Commissioner Lucki to address that matter particularly. She was the commander of the training division in Regina, Depot Division, and she has some very important ideas on the recruitment of civilian resources that have the particular expertise the force will need in order to deal with these sophisticated crime organizations.
Commissioner Brenda Lucki Royal Canadian Mounted Police
As mentioned at the committee earlier this week, we are looking at innovative ways of attracting the civilian aspect with the specialized resources, both in commercial crime and money laundering, as an example. At the training academy, we get an overview of the background of each cadet. If they have a background in any of those areas, we have a specific staffing officer who deals with a federal-type mandate, and they review that. If there's an opportunity to streamline that person into that area, we take every opportunity to do that.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Because of the complexity of financial transactions and the enterprises that take part in these illegal transactions, the training provided to the RCMP is not sufficient to acquire the expertise needed in finance, brokering or business in general. On the one hand, we must recruit civilian experts from the outside. On the other, there is a salary constraint; we have to make sure that we can attract those experts and keep them in the RCMP.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
On behalf of the committee, Minister, I appreciate your appearance.
With that, we will suspend for a couple of minutes and allow the minister to leave.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
The meeting is back in order.
Colleagues, I don't particularly enjoy cutting off answers or questions, so take a look at the chair from time to time, just so you have some feel for the time on the clock.
I'm assuming there are no further opening statements, Mr. Brown.
I'll just go to Ms. Damoff for the first round of seven minutes.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I think Mr. Picard is in the second round. We're going to switch. He can continue on, and then I'll take his seven minutes.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Thank you.
Let's keep talking about my favourite subject, money laundering.
When our exchange was interrupted, I was asking a question about the difficulty of recruiting expertise from the outside.
We have to go beyond the training that is available at Depot Division. We need practical expertise and knowledge that cannot be provided there.
I read in a recent article that thanks to the Toronto model, we are slowly starting to develop a recruitment system that is more open to outside expertise. This allows us to provide to organizations such as the Integrated Market Enforcement Teams, in the case of financial crimes, equivalent expertise to counter organizations that have no problem hiring experts and finding the necessary knowledge, human resources and technology.
Commr Brenda Lucki
To add to what I was saying earlier, we do recruit specialized civilian resources. We have been successful in both Vancouver and Toronto with specific crown prosecutors, for example, who are trained to deal with those specific crimes. We bring them in specifically for that. We also work closely in partnership with financial institutions when we need certain specialties. We definitely need to recruit continually in those specialized areas for exactly those laws.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
The arrival of the Integrated Market Enforcement Teams was the right response to the challenge; the integration concept allowed different organizations, both provincial and federal, to work together and reach better results in specific investigations, as well as a better distribution of the tasks to be accomplished.
This still remains work that is done in relative isolation, in that there are many more agencies involved in investigating financial crime, including money laundering. I'm thinking, in particular, of the Canada Revenue Agency, the Department of Industry, and the Competition Bureau.
In fact, for each file, there would be reason to work on greater integration. This could possibly allow a more practical distribution of duties, mandates and investigations. The various parts of an investigation could also be distributed among the various agencies.
With regard to financial crimes and money laundering, aside from hiring extremely expensive resources, how is the RCMP developing its work model to improve things, be more effective and integrate better with other agencies and federal and provincial departments?
Commr Brenda Lucki
I can't speak to the specific working model, but what I can say is that there is integration with other government departments that have such specialties, as well as other police agencies. We have an integrated approach, so if they have some specialized resource that we can draw upon, we will. With that integration, we try to reduce the redundancies.
We have an ongoing working group at the federal level to develop and establish exactly that best approach that you're speaking about.