Evidence of meeting #169 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 rcmp.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Evan Travers  Acting Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Brian Sauvé  Co-Chair, National Police Federation
Michelaine Lahaie  Chairperson, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Jacques Talbot  Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Justice

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Okay.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

—and they will be able to explain their workload, but on your basic point, Monsieur Paul-Hus, clearly the new agency is going to have more work to do. Therefore, it will need more resources, but we will be more cost-effective in applying those resources if we build on the platform the CRCC already has rather than building a brand new stand-alone agency for CBSA.

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Okay.

If a person is removed by the Canada Border Services Agency for any reason, could they file a complaint regarding their forced removal in order to delay their removal?

4 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

That's a question that may fall a bit in the grey area between a complaint about the behaviour of an officer, such as “was I treated roughly or rudely”, compared to “was I put out of the country for good and valid reasons”. If you have a dispute about the reason for which you are being removed from the country, there are legal appeal mechanisms available to you to contest the rationale for it.

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Have we looked at whether people could use the complaint process to avoid being removed while the commission conducts an investigation?

4 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

No. The decision on removal or not, depending on which section of the act you're dealing with, is a decision made by either the Minister of Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety. It's not an administrative decision.

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Who worked on Bill C-98? Was it just Public Safety Canada? Did the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency also participate?

4 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

I'll ask Mr. Travers, who assisted with the policy preparation and the drafting, to comment on that.

4 p.m.

Evan Travers Acting Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Thank you, Minister.

Public Safety consulted, within the strictures of cabinet confidence obviously, with the CBSA and with the RCMP in the development of the draft legislation.

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Okay.

Is there a reason why the union wasn't consulted?

4 p.m.

Acting Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Evan Travers

The consultation with respect to the union was handled through the CBSA. My understanding is that the CBSA engaged with the union after the tabling of the bill.

4 p.m.

Conservative

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

Yet the union seems to be saying that it wasn't consulted at all on this issue.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

The policy decision, Mr. Paul-Hus, was clearly made by the government based on all of the public representations that had been received that this was a gap that needed to be filled.

In terms of the structure or the method of filling the gap, we settled on that in the discussions between the public safety department, the CBSA and the RCMP. Once that policy decision was made and the legislation was in the public domain, the CBSA, as I understand it, talked further with their union.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

You're pretty well out of time, Mr. Paul-Hus. You have 10 seconds.

Mr. Dubé, you have seven minutes.

4 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here.

I want to go back to the question Ms. Dabrusin was asking in terms of the time that this took. The fact is, there was a Senate report prior to the last election in 2015, legislation by Senator Segal in the previous Parliament and a recommendation from this committee in 2017.

Also, for anyone who wants to take a minute to google it, you can find articles from at least the last three years with you promising this legislation—it's coming, it's coming. Also, most of the bills you enumerated in responding to my colleague, if not all, were tabled in 2016 or 2017.

I'm wondering about this mechanism. You called it simple and straightforward, faster and cost-effective and said it builds on existing infrastructure. I'm having a hard time with this, especially in knowing that the legislation is only going to come into effect in 2020, if I'm understanding correctly, with regard to the ability of Canadians to make complaints.

I'm still not quite understanding why, with all those pieces on the table and at the very least two or three years in the lead-up.... To me, it doesn't seem to wash that you sort of dropped your arms and said, “Oh well, the senator's proposal won't work in Bill C-59.” That seemed to be what you were implying in response to the question.

I want to ask again why it took so long when there continue to be incidents with work relations for those who work at CBSA—allegations of harassment and things of that nature—and obviously, of course, the issues that some Canadians face in the way they are treated at the border.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

Well, as I said, Monsieur Dubé, we have had an enormous volume of work to get through, as has this committee, as has Parliament, generally. The work program has advanced as rapidly as we could make it. It takes time and effort to put it all together. I'm glad we're at this stage, and I hope the parliamentary machinery will work well enough this week that we can get it across the finish line.

It has been a very significant agenda, when you consider there has been Bill C-7, Bill C-21, Bill C-22, Bill C-23, Bill C-37, Bill C-46, Bill C-66, Bill C-71, Bill C-59, Bill C-97, Bill C-83, Bill C-93 and Bill C-98. It's a big agenda and we have to get it all through the same relatively small parliamentary funnel.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

I think maybe three of those bills were tabled after 2017 or early 2018. I mean, for the C-20s and the single digits, we're talking days after your government was sworn in. I think there needs to be some accountability, because you've been on the record strongly saying that this needed to be done, and so I don't want to leave it being said that.... For example, with Bill C-59, why not make the change then?

I just want to understand, because my concern, Minister, is that I want to make sure there's no, for example, resistance internally to this issue. I can't understand, if this is a simple and straightforward mechanism in Bill C-98, why it took years to come to the conclusion that this was the way to go.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

There is no internal resistance at all. In fact, the organization, CBSA, recognizes that this is a gap in the architecture and that it needs to be filled.

Part of it was filled by Bill C-22 with the committee of parliamentarians, as far as national security is concerned. Part of it was filled by Bill C-59 and the creation of the new NSIRA, again with respect to national security.

This legislation fills in the last piece.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

I want to follow up on the questions asked by my colleague, Mr. Paul-Hus. I'm troubled by the fact that the union wasn't consulted in this case. One role of this mechanism is to protect workers in the event of allegations. The media sometimes reports on harassment allegations and things of that nature.

Mr. Travers, you can probably answer my question. You explained that the agency carried out the consultation. However, the workers are the ones who may be directly affected by the results of the complaints. Sometimes, they may be the ones who file complaints. Given the nature of the bill, why didn't you take the time to consult the union, which represents the workers?

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

Monsieur Dubé, the issue was thoroughly debated within the government department and within CBSA. It's up to CBSA to have that interface with their employees. They conducted those conversations at what they considered to be the appropriate time.

The point is that the legislation is now ready to go. You'll have the opportunity to examine it in detail to ensure, through the democratic process in Parliament, that it's properly addressing the needs of the workers.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Well, you'll forgive me, Minister. We support the bill and will be happy to see it get adopted, but that's just the issue. We don't have the time, because it took so long that now we have to do this quickly. I'm okay to do that, but I think we do have to qualify those comments.

Did you receive any kind of report from CBSA about the specifics of what the union had to say, or was it kind of like—not to be simplistic about it—just saying that you spoke to them and it's fine, and then moving on?

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

There were no negative issues reported to me from any part of the consultation.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Thank you.

I have one last question for you.

I gather that the mechanism will be implemented in 2020. People who wish to file a complaint can do so from that point on. Are any further clarifications needed or can we expect that, if the bill is passed, people will be able to file complaints under the proposed mechanism starting next year?

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK

That would be the goal, Mr. Dubé. We're obviously working on the development of an expanded agency. We may run into administrative issues that we hadn't anticipated, but the objective is to get this in place as quickly as possible. The mechanism we're choosing will let us move more quickly than we could if we were creating an agency from the ground up.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

But, Minister—I have just 20 seconds left—