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.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
—if we get the bill through Parliament, will it be done, if it's adopted?
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister Goodale, as you know, I started my career as a customs officer. The threshold for tolerance or interpretation when it comes to people entering Canada varies depending on whether the people are visitors or residents returning to Canada.
My colleague Mr. Dubé talked about protecting employees. Of course, you need an external perspective to determine the merits of a complaint filed by someone who believes that their rights have been violated. It seems that the bill contains measures that enable the commission to accept or reject a complaint based on its content.
Liberal
Acting Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I don't. I may have missed something in the translation.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
People coming back into Canada, residents and visitors, don't have the same threshold for how they'd like to be treated, considering the nature of their complaints. The committee can analyze the grounds of those complaints and whether they make sense or not. With regard to protecting the officers, as Mr. Dubé said, this bill also looks at something to protect officers and employees from frivolous complaints.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
The whole objective, Monsieur Picard, is to have fairness both ways. When someone is travelling, they deserve to expect an efficient professional experience at the border. The public servants who are administering border services should also expect to be able to function in a safe and respectful work environment. It works both ways.
I suspect that once a certain file of complaints has been received and heard, we'll be developing a pool of experience and expertise that will improve the border experience both ways.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Chances are that the committee will come to a conclusion that might not be accepted by the agency itself. Who has the final decision on the conclusion provided by the committee should it go against the interpretation of the agency?
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
I'll ask either Mr. Travers or Mr. Talbot to comment on the ultimate authority, but in response to your last question, Mr. Picard, I'd refer to proposed subsection 32(2) in the act, which deals with how you handle trivial, frivolous or vexatious complaints or complaints made in bad faith, which is, I think, what you are concerned about.
Mr. Talbot or Mr. Travers, can you comment on the ultimate decision-making authority if there's an argument between the review body and the agency?
Acting Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The first body to investigate any complaint would be the CBSA, in most cases. They would be able to look at that, make findings and then give those findings back to the complainant. There are provisions throughout that require the subject employee to be notified and kept informed of the progress of the investigation. If after receiving that report from the CBSA the complainant is not satisfied with the contents of the report, they could refer it to the commission. The commission would take its own look at the complaint. The commission could either agree with the CBSA's conclusions or conduct its own investigation or ask the CBSA to conduct a further investigation of the complaint. Once the commission looked at the complaint, it would send that file back to the CBSA, and the CBSA could add comments to it.
There is a process by which differences of opinions and views can come out, but the commission's report will be the commission's report, at the end of the day. They will come to that with a full understanding and appreciation of the facts, and they will be able to go and get the facts they need to get that. In terms of the results of that, it is a final decision from the commission. It is not reviewable by a federal court or by another body, because the recommendations that come out of it aren't binding on the CBSA.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Are you saying that if an individual is not satisfied with the end result, after the commission has reviewed the issue he doesn't have any more legal recourse to sue anyone?
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
The discipline here, Monsieur Picard, is the process of having a formal investigation. If the review body comes to a very clear conclusion that the individual's rights have been infringed upon—they have been treated badly; there's something wrong in the way they were handled, and that's the very clear conclusion from the review body—and the agency fails to address that in a meaningful way, then the agency, I think, will have a very big policy and administrative problem on its hands. The issue will have been exposed publicly by an independent authority that will say you were either right or wrong. There will be a very strong obligation on the part of the agency to respond to that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We've reached the end of our seven-minute round. Is there still an appetite to ask questions until 4:30 p.m.?
Okay. Then we'll run until 4:30 p.m. and that will be it.
Go ahead, Mr. Motz. You have five minutes.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Minister, I've heard the term “oversight body” used here a couple of times today. I think that's a misnomer. As you have said before, we need to make sure it's a review body, a civilian complaints review commission, and not oversight of the CBSA. I want to make sure everybody understands that.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay. Thank you.
To go back to the earlier comments from Ms. Dabrusin, Pierre Paul-Hus and Mr. Dubé about the timing, I'm led to believe, sir, that the previous government and officials in the public safety division, if you will, were already drafting some bill similar to this about this issue to get oversight...sorry, to get civilian review for CBSA.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
It took us until the last few hours of this session to get this here, but it was sort of being worked on before. This could have been in place years ago, and it wasn't. I support it, and I believe it's something we need, but again, I just echo the concerns that have been raised already. I just want to put on record that I'm concerned that it took this long.
My question is on the mechanism. Everything boils down to the mechanism, to how this is going to work. We know that the current RCMP complaints commission has six members, and I believe this legislation is going to maybe reduce that number to five. As Mr. Travers explained with regard to Mr. Picard's question, the CBSA will do the initial investigation of a complaint that comes to it from a civilian about the handling of whatever it might be. If that individual, the member of the public, is not satisfied with the disposition of that complaint, he or she can go to the complaints review commission and have that investigation reviewed again, if you will.
I don't understand the mechanism with regard to how the complaint commission does that. Does it do a paper review? If there's a complaint that the investigation wasn't done thoroughly, does it have its own investigative body that can interview witnesses and get more detail? How will that actually play out in the operations of this?
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Again, I'll ask Mr. Travers to comment on the mechanical details.
The portion of the new commission that will be dealing with CBSA would function in a very similar way to how the existing commission does with respect to the RCMP.
Conservative
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
No, but there will be two streams of activity within the same commission.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
So, it's the same people hearing the same complaints. People on the RCMP side will hear RCMP matters, and the same people will also hear CBSA matters. Is that correct?