Public Safety Committee on June 9th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Do I have unanimous consent to proceed for, say, the next 20 minutes? Would that be fair?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. Then I can call this meeting to order.

This is the 34th meeting of the public safety committee. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted May 5, the committee is commencing a study on the current situation in federal prisons in relation to Correctional Service Canada’s response to COVID-19, the implementation and operation of structured intervention units, and reports of sexual coercion and violence in federal prisons.

I see that Pam's hand is up.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I'm hoping we can deal with this quite quickly. I want to see if we can get unanimous consent for something.

Yesterday all parties in the House came together to condemn the attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario, which killed three generations of one family. Last night leaders of all the parties were in my hometown of London to attend a vigil in their memory. They all spoke about working together and putting partisanship aside to deal with the issue of Islamophobia and hate. I'm trusting that we can do that today.

On May 5 we passed a motion to study ideologically motivated violent extremism. We've completed two meetings thus far. I have a motion, which I would ask for unanimous consent to deal with today, that would see us continue our study next week, on Monday, and add an extra day on Wednesday. I think it would be important for us to hear from the National Council of Canadian Muslims to talk about the rise of Islamophobia, as well as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to talk about the rise in anti-Semitism.

Chair, the clerk should have the motion in both official languages. It reads as follows: That, pursuant to the motion passed on May 5, 2001, the public safety committee continue its study on ideologically motivated violent extremism; that the meetings occur on June 14 and June 16, 2021; and that the committee invite the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to appear as witnesses on June 16.

I'm hoping we can get unanimous consent for that and pass it quite quickly, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Before I recognize Mr. Motz, I would note that the motion does not have 48 hours, which is the usual expectation, and it is not pursuant to the business before the committee. Therefore, unless there is unanimous consent to table and debate the motion, we will have to wait for the 48-hour period.

Mr. Motz.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Chair, I'm just curious to know a couple things. One, we have a couple of outstanding motions before the committee already that we can't lose sight of. Two, I agree that this is a study that requires some fulsome review and direction and recommendation moving forward. I agree with the concept. However, what are we going to park and not get at before the end of session?

That's what we need to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're getting into the merits.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I need to know that we can proceed with this motion. Then we can hear debate on the content.

Does the committee give permission to proceed with the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I take note of Mr. Motz's intervention.

I see Madam Lambropoulos and then Madam Khera.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I want to speak in support of Pam's motion.

My riding has a very high concentration of Jewish and Muslim Canadians. Both groups are living in fear right now because of events that occurred in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, anti-Semitic events that happened, and now because of the London event that took place. People are afraid to walk in the streets alone. People are having their windows broken if they have a certain flag or a certain sign on their door.

I definitely think this is a pressing matter right now especially. I feel that it definitely deserves the attention of this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Khera, Madam Stubbs and Mr. Harris.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Chair, just like Emmanuella, I want to speak in support of Ms. Damoff's motion. I thank her for actually bringing it forward, because from the testimony we've already heard and from NSICOP's report itself, we already knew that ideologically motivated violent extremism has been growing in Canada and has been getting worse since this pandemic.

Given the horrific terrorist attack motivated by Islamophobia that took place in London over the weekend that destroyed a whole family and has broken the entire Muslim community, I think as leaders the time to act is now. The Muslim community is hurting and so are other communities. I think at this committee we have the ability to act on this very pressing issue and a chance to do something before the House rises. We already know the terrorist attack was part of the larger trend in the rise of IMVE, ideologically motivated violent extremism

I agree with Ms. Damoff's motion that we commit to finishing our study on this to provide the government with recommendations on what needs to be done to ensure that attacks like this do not happen again. It's incumbent upon all of us as elected members, as leaders and as members of this committee, to make that happen, to ensure that all Canadians, whether they're Muslim Canadians, Black Canadians, Asian Canadians, Jewish Canadians, indigenous people or racialized Canadians can feel safe in their homes and their communities.

I really hope that we can move this motion forward and I hope that everyone can support it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Next is Ms. Stubbs, and then Mr. Harris.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Pam, for bringing this motion forward. I, too, agree with the seriousness of it and the concept, the spirit, of completing our work and our report, and the specific witnesses who you're suggesting we bring forward in an urgent way to our committee. I sure as heck hope if there are immediate tools, which I think we've all been trying to explore, and legislative and policy remedies that could prevent and deter the heinous acts and crimes like the heinous act that took the lives of those innocent people and impacted their friends, neighbours, family members and an entire community, that it's being acted upon in government. I sincerely hope that our taking either a day or three extra days to report from our committee is not stopping that real work from happening if it is ready to go in government.

Chair, this is a bit embarrassing thing to confess: I have my material here prepared for our witnesses and the topic today, but could you or the clerk remind us what it is we had planned for which days? We're running up to there being eight days left in session. We all know that we want to complete the Levesque report, complete recommendations on Bastarache to drive to action, and then there is also a date for estimates. It's just so we can get a sense of logistics as to how we get all this done.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

If this motion goes through as presented, on the Monday we would have to deal with the border study in some other fashion, and we'd have to deal with the Levesque report in some other fashion as well. The motion as presented would bump those two schedules, and how we would deal with those two later I'm not quite sure.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Also, there's the Bastarache motion respecting the government—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The Bastarache motion we actually haven't dealt with.

Anyway, Mr. Harris.

Sorry.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Chair, are summer sittings an option, or are we going to run into a technical issue like we did the last time?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I would have to defer to our respective whips' offices, because I don't know that we have the ability to go past June 23 in a hybrid format, other than to go to real sittings in real places with real people, presumably in real Ottawa. At this point, as I understand it, that is before the parties. I haven't received a report from our whip, and I don't know about the other whips as well.

Jack.

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

I guess the other question is, on a similar point, what is currently scheduled for Wednesday?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's the Levesque report.

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

It's the Levesque report for Wednesday and Monday.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

No. Monday is the border study.