Public Safety Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

With respect to human resource talent, do you think we have the pool of Canadians to do the things you need them to do, or should we be enhancing what educational processes we require in this country?

[David Vigneault]

I am extremely privileged to be leading an organization like CSIS. The men and women of CSIS are talented. They work extremely hard at protecting Canada's national interests and defending Canadians. I'm always amazed to see the quality of the people we have.

Recruiting people is always going to be.... In an organization such as CSIS, which has to resort to the ingenuity of our people to defeat the tactics of our adversaries, we work very closely with universities, especially in terms of the scientific skills, which we need more and more. It's not that all of our employees need to have those specific skills, but they need to understand the overall environment they operate in, and the technological aspect of the threat is becoming more complex.

For us, then, it is always trying to find the best people, with languages and technological skills, but Canadian universities and the talent that is coming across the turnstiles every morning are phenomenal, and the number of people who are knocking at the door to join CSIS is also very high. I think it's more a question of our ability to ingest them than one of the quality of the candidates.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The other questions I have are with regard to the Canada Border Services Agency and its appropriations of $12.4 million. I was wondering if we could receive more details with regard to the $6.5 million for the temporary foreign worker program, the $3 million for implementing and administrating the federal framework on cannabis, in particular as I asked the minister questions before, the $1.7 million with respect to the administration component, and in addition to that, the capital expenditure of $70,000, which seems like a bit of an odd add-on to the expenditure list, since the others seem to have some very specific budget issues, and then there's $70,000 of capital expense. I'm just asking what that might be for.

[Peter Hill]

With respect to the temporary foreign worker program, the agency is requesting $6.5 million essentially to continue to investigate fraud and other offences, such as misrepresentation, to protect the integrity of the temporary foreign worker program and the international mobility program.

The funding is essentially for hiring criminal investigators. Criminal investigators will undertake investigations of complex cases of fraud. That kind of investigation would relate to an employer who is abusing employees or is employing them in ways that are not consistent with their work permit. Those are the kinds of investigations that take place.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Hill, unfortunately, we have no time for the balance of your response. You can respond in whatever way you choose to afterwards.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My friends on the other side have raised cannabis today a number of times.

Mr. Brown, I wonder if you could give this committee your thoughts on the strict public policy rationale to move towards regulating, restricting, and taxing cannabis. We heard the minister during his testimony say that Canada has the highest youth use rates of cannabis in the entire industrialized world. I think that's a good place to start, but we also know that the distribution of cannabis is controlled by organized crime. Could you go into this? I think there's a great deal of, with all due respect, fearmongering going on, and Canadians—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Let's just hear the facts of the bill.

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

Well, let's hear the facts, so if you could go into—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Those are the facts of the bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Let me intervene at this point. Officials are to fulfill the mandate of their minister. I am concerned about officials expressing opinions about these things; nevertheless, I'm going to allow the question within those parameters.

[Malcolm Brown]

Thank you, Chair. That's a very helpful reminder.

I can lay out for you what is described as the policy rationale for the approach. You're absolutely right. It's well documented that the use of cannabis among youth in Canada is the highest or among the highest in the world. That trend has existed for a while and continues to...I guess the word would be “deteriorate”.

It's also true that the distribution system is dominated by organized crime. The knock-on effects of the funding stream, if I can put it that way, of that business model are well documented in terms of funding other activities of organized crime. There are links to money laundering, human trafficking, and prostitution, and there's an interplay between cannabis and other kinds of drugs.

The perspective of the government is that a structured, very deliberate regime of distribution—legalizing access to people the age of majority or higher—is an important part of allowing resources to be shifted to police and other organizations to combat the illegal network, as well as ensuring there is focus on the criminal networks that are associated with distribution.

It's probably not appropriate for me to use my “mowing somebody else's front lawn” analogy again. My colleague, the deputy minister of Health, is better placed to talk about the regulatory structure and regime they will be responsible for developing, but it will cover everything in terms of distribution and access. We've seen every provincial and territorial jurisdiction beginning to take steps in terms of their constitutional roles within a legalized framework. I can assure the committee that every step that can be taken is being taken by officials at federal, provincial, and territorial levels to ensure that everything that needs to be done is done when July of next year comes.

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

Thank you very much for that.

Ms. Kelly, the question about mental health supports has been asked, but I wonder if you could go into specific examples of programming that exists, especially for the vulnerable inmate population. We heard at the outset numbers quoted about the very difficult circumstances many of these inmates have experienced. Considering that challenge and that challenging circumstance, I want to know if you can touch on specific programs to which the funding that exists here will be allocated.

[Anne Kelly]

In terms of the funding being allocated, again it's to expand our mental health supports to offenders. Obviously, for some offenders who have some challenging behaviours and who may otherwise sometimes end up in administrative segregation, having intermediate mental health care present is going to help.

We have a suite of programs. We have what we call the integrated correctional program model, and it's actually adapted for offenders who present challenges.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being with us this morning. I apologize for the discord that we had earlier, but this is a place of battle.

Many of us feel that Bill C-45 is the most destructive piece of legislation that's ever been introduced in this House. We all have children. We all have grandchildren. I was pleased this morning to hear of the arrival of my 36th grandchild. You heard that right, the 36th.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thirty-six? Wow.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I want to tell you, too, that I have three sons who are policemen, and I have great respect for our law enforcement. I know we all do.

Without getting into the weeds too much, Mr. Michaud, I would like you to comment on whether there are sufficient funds and your forces are ready for what you can expect to happen when marijuana is made available—or legal—for consumption by 18-year-olds and up. Can you just give us a comment on that?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

From our perspective, more time would be better, because the more time we have, the more ready we'll be.

That being said, we are working towards being in a position to be able to deliver our services the best way we can whenever this new act comes before us. As you've seen, part of the supplementary estimates (B) that we have right now set aside funding to start the training that will be required for our front-line police officers to engage with some of the stakeholders who will be involved in the business. For us, it's really working with what we have to make sure we can deliver the best service and continue to protect the Canadian public.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Do you have any idea what kind of increase you're going to have? Have there been any studies done as far as, say, the complexities of identifying a new type of driver go? I mean, it's not completely new, but have there been any studies done to see just how many more impaired drivers we're going to see on the road?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

I cannot comment. I would have to go back to see if there's been a study done around the impaired driving piece, because it's not in my field of expertise. I'm on the federal side of the business, but I could go back and come back with an answer on that one.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Wonderful.

Ms. Kelly, Peter asked you a question, and I'd like to follow up on that.

Last week, we were talking about your area of expertise and what you lead at Correctional Services.

We had the MOMS here. I forget what it stands for, but basically it's moms who have children in institutions. How do you feel about allowing inmates to smoke marijuana, if marijuana is legal?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

With the greatest respect to that question, I think that you are entitled to your opinion as a private citizen, but as an official and in this context, I'm not sure you need to answer the question directly. However, I allowed Mr. Fragiskatos' question, so I don't see why I wouldn't allow the question of Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Anne Kelly]

What I'll say is that we don't allow offenders to drink. We don't allow offenders to use drugs, although we have drugs that come into the institution. It's not consistent with working towards their correctional plan. That's our focus. Our focus is for them to participate in programs and interventions that we offer, and basically, what's paramount is the safety of the public. We want to motivate them to participate in the programs, have a safe and successful release into the community, and ensure that they don't return.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.

In order to be respect our time and deal with the votes, Mr. Spengemann, go ahead for three minutes please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I think that's exactly the time I need to ask the question I'm about to ask.

It's a follow-up question to the minister's testimony regarding the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. I made reference earlier to the tragedies in Quebec City, Sainte-Foy, and in Sutherland Springs.

My question relates to the connection between counter-radicalization work and mental health. The Canadian and American public are reeling from these events. We're asking questions. What would possibly motivate somebody to do this? In some cases there's a clear connection to particular faiths, but in other scenarios it's simply the fact that people are meeting in a place of worship, and there's a large number of people who are then subject to potential targeting. Can you comment on the importance of mental health considerations in connection to the work on counter-radicalization?