Public Safety Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2020

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you.

I believe that the measures we've put in place have been very effective, and we've essentially stopped the market for those weapons. I will also tell you that the criteria that we applied—for example, with respect to the SKS carbine—was that they'd be of modern design. Of course, the SKS carbine's origins were back during the Second World War, so it was not included on this list.

I also want to assure you, Ms. Michaud, that in addition to the legislation that I talked about bringing forward, we're also looking at establishing an evergreening process so that the Canadian firearms program will continue to evaluate weapons that represent a risk. This will enable us to make sure that weapons that should not be available in Canada won't be available in Canada because we know that the gun industry is agile and adept at bringing forward new models and variants in order to try to get around the rules. We've seen evidence of that quite vigorously over the past several years, so we'll have a system that maintains an evergreening process of classification, but it will be necessary to keep Canadians safe.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Blair, you quoted the throne speech to me in response to my question about action, yet you had a recommendation back in June from Ivan Zinger about legislation related to fixing the issue of sexually coercive violence in prisons. Mr. Zinger said something today that struck me as very remarkable: that the CSC has a history of being dismissive and unresponsive to his recommendations.

I have two questions for you. Why are you passing the buck to this committee to look at legislation instead of sending it off to the justice department to go ahead and draft something, because there's a great set of recommendations and plans set out by Dr. Zinger?

Second, are you going to fix this business of the CSC's being unresponsive and dismissive of recommendations by the correctional investigator?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Jack, these are important questions.

First of all, with respect to Dr. Zinger's report on sexual violence and sexual coercion in our institutions, that's completely unacceptable. He did make recommendations for us to consider legislation, and I actually thought that the public safety committee, all of you, might find the opportunity to really contribute to that discussion, to make sure that we take an appropriate and comprehensive response to that. It's entirely up to the committee, by the way. I'll leave it to all of your good judgment whether or not you think that's an effective use of your time. We're still quite prepared to deal with the issue. There are a number of other ways, as you've suggested. I actually have a great deal of respect for the input and the contribution that parliamentarians can make to this, and I thought it might be something worthy of your response.

I also don't agree that the CSC has been non-responsive, but at the same time, I really value the work of the correctional investigator. He and I speak quite frequently, and I'm absolutely committed to ensuring that we do the things that are necessary to produce better outcomes for people in our correctional institutions and that we fulfill our duty of care to keep them safe while they are incarcerated in our federal institutions. I work very closely with the federal investigator. I very much value his advice and his work. I will also tell you that from my work with the Correctional Service of Canada and Commissioner Kelly, I believe them to be very sincere in their desire and in their effort to produce better outcomes. I cited earlier in the discussion the extraordinary work that they did in the pandemic to keep their inmates safe. I believe that they are making progress, and I am prepared to support them in that work based on the excellent advice we receive from the correctional investigator and, hopefully, with good advice and input from the public safety committee as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris and Minister Blair.

Why is it that, with Minister Blair and Mr. Harris, I am forever struggling to stay within the time frame? I guess it's just coincidental.

Next we'll go to Madam May, who will of course never stray beyond the time frame that is allocated to her, which in this case is two and a half minutes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity.

Minister Blair, regarding the language in the mandate letter, I had to search for it to figure out whether this is really speaking to racism, but the idea that you have been mandated to address “unconscious bias and cultural competency training” seems to coalesce around the idea that Superintendent Lucki has told us that we're going to see anti-racism training.

I want to put something to you and ask whether you don't think this would be more productive. In the United States, in 2006, the FBI reported that white supremacist groups were deliberately infiltrating law enforcement and the U.S. military. Are you willing to take this on and ask your CBSA and RCMP directors to do a complete screen of the social media content of all their employees and find the ones who belong to Proud Boys, find the ones who were white supremacists, who don't have unconscious bias but have overt racism, and remove those people from service?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Elizabeth, I agree that there's absolutely no place in policing, in law enforcement or in any element of public service for racists, white supremacists, anti-Semites and Islamophobes. I think we have a responsibility to purge those influences and those individuals from the public service, and most certainly from policing.

I believe that the overwhelming majority of police officers do their job with integrity, professionalism and very sincere respect for all people in Canada, but we also know that ideologically motivated extremism—white supremacy—is unfortunately and tragically pervasive in certain elements of our society. I am in complete agreement that there needs to be absolute vigilance among those responsible for policing and our military, and any other element of public service, to make sure that there is no place for it there. I will also assure you that we are pretty vigorous in the national security establishment. We started to clearly identify the threat of ideologically motivated extremism, and in particular, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others. We're tracking them down and making sure that we take effective action to prevent their influence in our society.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Are you looking for them within the forces?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. May, I'm sorry to cut you off there.

Minister, the question was whether you were actually looking for them. Anyway, you can respond directly.

I believe my Conservative colleagues have a minute or two.

Mr. Kurek, is that correct?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

That is correct. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. It has been a very enlightening evening.

I have a couple of quick questions.

Can you share with the committee what percentage of rail cars are inspected as they come across our borders?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I would refer that question to the person responsible for the inspection of rail cars crossing the border, who would be the president of CBSA.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Okay. If I could get a quick answer on that, it would be fantastic.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Why don't I undertake to get you that information and I will make sure that we send it to you?

The CBSA does an extraordinary job of collecting data. I have a ton of it that I'm happy to share with you.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Sure. I appreciate that.

As a final statement, I would just say that a number of rail workers and border enforcement officers have brought forward significant concerns to me, saying that the percentage is very low and that there's an inadequate regime when it comes to follow-through in ensuring that contraband and illegal goods crossing our borders in rail cars are well taken care of.

I will cede the rest of my time to my colleague Mr. Motz, if there is any.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

There's one minute left for Mr. Motz.

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

Perfect.

Minister, as you know, crime or evidence labs are a significant part of the landscape for law enforcement in this country. As a result, we see that currently the RCMP provides nationally mandated lab services for those law enforcement agencies that don't have their own lab or can't afford to use private labs. We know there are huge delays and certain amounts of evidence are being rejected. I'm told by crime technicians from the RCMP lab that they're restricting capacity, limiting capacity, and even limiting the outsourcing of evidence currently to private labs, which adds even further to those backlogs. We know we're losing convictions on serious crimes, such as sexual assaults, across this land because of that.

I wonder whether you would commit today to ensuring that we address those backlogs to make sure that those who commit these crimes are held responsible based on the evidence that has been gathered and that we don't lose them because we can't get the lab results back in a timely manner.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Respond very briefly, please.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Glen, it's a very important question.

I agree that the National Police Services of the RCMP and the labs they oversee provide a very important service not just to the RCMP but also to police services across the country.

I don't want to get back into the impact of all of the cuts that the RCMP experienced, but we've been significantly reinvesting in their capacity to deliver those services, because we recognize how important they are as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That brings our evening to a close.

I want to thank Minister Blair and all of his officials for spending these last two hours with us.

I particularly appreciate the change in the threat posture with respect to the Government of China. I have long taken a public position that we have to treat China differently, so it was encouraging to hear the minister's comment.

Colleagues, you also know that we don't have Jean-Marie David as our clerk tonight. Jean-Marie has been reassigned away from this committee, and we now have a new clerk, Mike MacPherson.

Welcome, Mike, to the committee and thank you for keeping us on track.

Finally, colleagues, I just want to say that we keep getting all of these assignments and work piling up. Unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to see if I can squeeze out two hours next week for a virtual meeting even though the House is not sitting, just to try to work into the backlog.

With that thank you, colleagues, and Minister, and your officials. Good evening.