Public Safety Committee on March 24th, 2021

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

No, I am speaking to the CBSA officials. The question is for Mr. Ossowski.

[John Ossowski, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

No, we're not anticipating the need for new officers right now. Our focus is on keeping officers healthy. We've obviously been able to keep many of them away from shifts because the volumes simply haven't been there, so there's no need for new officers right now beyond what we would normally staff up for normal attrition.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Did you receive any information from the minister as to how you should allocate resources to combat firearms smuggling across the border?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's a pretty important question, but there's no time left to answer it. I'm sorry.

Mr. Harris, you have six minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for the CBSA representatives. Last October, the Supreme Court of Canada decided, in a case called Fraser v. Canada (Attorney General), that the RCMP had discriminated against women members of the RCMP who had a job-sharing situation after serving maternity leave. They were not given access to buy back pension for that lost time, although the policy within the RCMP and the legislation provided that for other forms of lack of full-time service. It was considered discriminatory and contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There's a similar circumstance in the Canada Border Services with women taking advantage of job sharing, and when approached to have this applied to the Canada Border Services pension, a woman was told that this didn't apply because that case was about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act.

Does the department expect that these women who are affected by this ought to spend whatever time and money it takes to go to the Supreme Court of Canada to get a ruling there, or are you prepared to apply this to the women in the Canada Border Services Agency or retired women, in this case, who are seeking the same application of this law?

I've written the minister on this some weeks ago, and I'm wondering whether you're aware of this issue and whether you plan to reconsider this policy in light of the Supreme Court of Canada decision.

[John Ossowski]

I'm not aware of the specifics of that particular case, but this is something that would be determined by the Treasury Board, as it is the employer and sets the rules around this type of access to these funds.

Certainly I can follow up with the Treasury Board on the specifics of this, but there's nothing that we have in terms of a policy per se around this issue.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

The response that was given was by the CBSA, not the Treasury Board. They say it doesn't apply, so I would like that followed.... I've written to the minister, and I just wonder whether that has been passed down. I know you are here, and according to my notes you have a financial officer here as well, but neither of you is aware of that circumstance.

[John Ossowski]

Not that specific case, no.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

What about the policy?

[John Ossowski]

I would defer to my colleague Jonathan.

Are you aware of anything?

[Jonathan Moor, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Corporate Management Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thanks so much for the question.

I'm not aware of the specific case, but as the president said, I think there is a difference between the CBSA and the RCMP in that all of our staff is subject to the Treasury Board policies and procedures. Therefore, in our case, this is a Treasury Board matter. My understanding is that the RCMP is not subject to the same Treasury Board procedures.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This wouldn't be a Treasury Board decision. This is a Supreme Court of Canada decision, sir, and it applies on the basis of the Charter of Rights and the very similar circumstances.

I wonder why it is that you wouldn't have considered applying that policy and would give a perfunctory answer like that.

I will pass on to something else. I wish to go to Commissioner Lucki. I want to ask further questions on the Boushie report that we had this week. Of course, we all know it was disturbing. I appreciate, Commissioner, that you and the RCMP have acknowledged that both systemic racism and actual racism occurred.

I want to ask about a further matter that was disclosed publicly, I think, for the first time this week, although [Technical difficulty—Editor] about this for some time. On the night that Colten Boushie was killed, there were RCMP communications in the course of attending at the Boushie family home and Mrs. Baptiste, and those communications were destroyed.

We don't know what was on those communications, but the implication, obviously, is that there may have been matters on this communication that would be of importance to the investigation being done by the CRCC or any other investigation. It sounds that it could easily be something very close to obstruction.

Have the individuals involved in this destruction been identified and dealt with through disciplinary matters, Commissioner Lucki?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No, they have not. By the time the request came from the CRCC, those recordings had already been destroyed. What happened was that those recordings were examined completely by our major crimes investigators, who took carriage of that investigation. A full review was done of all relevant material that came in. There was no relevancy on those particular recordings and there was no evidentiary value, so they were just left where they get stored in the usual manner, and within two years, as per the retentions act, they were destroyed. Then the CRCC asked for them, and that's why we couldn't produce them.

In no way was it a cover-up, but I will say that, as a result of that, I have directed a policy review on that to ensure that a retention in such matters is in line with the reality.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You're suggesting that, despite the fact that there was a CRCC investigation going on, the normal conditions applied. Why would it not be saved so that the commission, not your internal investigation, could decide whether it was relevant or not?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

They worked, obviously, in silos, and they didn't find the evidentiary value with regard to the Criminal Code case. Therefore, it was left in its normal storage.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Neither was the internal report released—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Colleagues, we are now at 6:22. We are supposed to end at 6:49, and we have a vote to take. We are going to run over, almost regardless, so I'm going to say four minutes, two and two, and four and four, starting with Mr. Van Popta.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question for Correctional Service Canada. We received the report from the correctional investigator, and in that report he expressed some frustration, maybe exasperation, that his earlier recommendation about education and vocational training at corrections wasn't being followed, so he just repeated that same recommendation again in his most recent report.

My question is whether the funding that is being made available now is going to see some results in that area.

[Anne Kelly]

The funding that's been made available, if you're talking about IM or IT, was COVID-related. It was for people who worked remotely. However, we take his recommendation very seriously. Actually, we have done some work around education.

For example, we have a digital education program that started at Bath Institution. It's been very successful. We're monitoring it, and seeing if it can't be expanded to other institutions. We do a full review of the employment that we provide. Again, there's a lot of work being done in education, employment and employability skills.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

What's new now that wasn't there that the correctional investigator was responding to? What was his source of frustration that is going to be resolved today?

[Anne Kelly]

What the correctional investigator is mentioning...and we're working on a broader digital strategy. We have computers in our institutions. We don't have that many, so we want to get with the times. However, our institutions are quite old, so it requires some infrastructure.

In the meantime, as I said—

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Are you asking for more funding to solve that problem? That is one of the problems that the investigator identified, the outmoded information technology.

[Anne Kelly]

Yes. He talked about our antiquated institutions, absolutely, but we have taken steps. For example, the digital education program is one step. The other one is that, with COVID-19, we had to rethink how we delivered programs, so we're doing it now virtually. That's something else.

With the correctional investigator, our goal is a common goal. We want to see offenders safely and successfully reintegrate into the community.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Of course, that's what we all want.

I go back to the frustration that he expressed. He had made that recommendation on a number of occasions, and it wasn't responded to.

Is it going to be different this time?

[Anne Kelly]

We look at all of the recommendations that the OCI makes, and we act upon them.

As the commissioner, I look at our priorities, the resources and where we're at. Actually, one thing we've done is that we've looked at all the recommendations that were made by the OCI to see what is outstanding, and what hasn't been completely implemented. We've done that work.