Public Safety Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

This is the fifth meeting of the public safety committee, and we are privileged to have Minister Blair with us for the the next two hours to talk about his mandate letter. I particularly appreciate his willingness to make himself available to members.

He's going to open with a statement and then we are going to go directly to questions. We might take a very short break and then go on to the second hour and do a second round of questions.

Minister Blair, you clearly need no introduction at this committee. You're welcome and we look forward to your opening statement.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to the vice-chairs and committee members, good afternoon and thank you for inviting me to join you today.

I'd like to begin by extending my thanks for your indulgence of me last week when I was scheduled to appear before your committee and, unfortunately, because of rather long votes that went on and then an overlap with a very important cabinet agenda that I had to address.... I'm grateful that you were able to accommodate the rescheduling of my attendance here today.

I'm also pleased to be joined today by the senior officials responsible for the agencies and departments of my portfolio. Specifically, I'm joined by Chairperson Jennifer Oades from the Parole Board; Director David Vigneault from CSIS; Commissioner Anne Kelly from the Correctional Service of Canada; Commissioner Brenda Lucki from the RCMP; and President John Ossowski from the CBSA.

For all of those who are new to this committee, I'd like to welcome all of you to your new roles and also extend my very sincere good wishes that we will have many opportunities to work together in the best interests of all Canadians. I fully anticipate that this will be perhaps only the first of many opportunities where I'll be asked to come before your committee. I look forward to those opportunities.

I also appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about some of the issues facing us, although we'll canvass that in greater detail in your questions.

I'd like to begin my remarks today by reiterating all of our collective thoughts with the families and friends for the tragic events that took place in Quebec City over the weekend. We know that it was certainly a terrible tragedy for the families, but also for the people of Quebec City. It's important, I think, for Canadians not only to recognize the historic significance and importance of Quebec City, but also to recognize that it is one of the safest cities anywhere in the world. For that community to have its sense of safety and security so terribly wrenched from them was indeed a tragic event. The individual responsible has now been charged.

I also want to take the opportunity, if I may, to offer my very sincere admiration to all the first responders—the medical responders and the police—who took very effective and immediate action. I want to acknowledge them. We reached out, of course, to Quebec and to the Quebec City police to assist if necessary, but this was apparently not, as we've learned from the police, a national security event. Rather, it was just a terrible tragedy.

I also want to acknowledge that since I was last given my mandate in the fall after the 2019 election, the world has changed rather significantly. In short order, the government was required to shift its focus. Although we are still very much in the business of governing—and, in my portfolio, keeping Canadians safe—much of our focus was, by necessity, shifted to the pandemic response. That remains a key priority for the government, and it is a key focus of my ministry.

We have taken very significant and unprecedented action to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Canada. We have, of course, taken very significant actions to protect our borders, and I'll be happy to answer any questions the committee may have about that. Beginning as early as January 26, we began putting in place screening measures at our airports to stop the spread of COVID-19, and then, over the course of the ensuing several weeks, we took the unprecedented but necessary step of actually closing the American border to all discretionary travel, while at the same time working hard to make sure that we maintained vital supply lines and the movement of essential workers and essential goods. I have some updates that I can provide this committee if there is time, Mr. Chair, which I think will assist the members in understanding the effectiveness of the measures that have been taken.

We continue to review those decisions on a regular basis in consultation with both our domestic and international partners, the provinces and territories and particularly the United States. We have, as I'm sure you're aware, recently announced a scaling up of the federal public health presence at the border. We are now covering 36 points of entry that account for 90% of all traffic into Canada, and that's a total force of 190 public health officers, which is up from the 18 we were at when the pandemic first began.

The Canada Border Services Agency has been working very closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada, including on strengthening compliance and enforcement efforts on mandatory quarantine and isolation orders.

Here, Mr. Chair, you will indulge me if I take this opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary work of our border services officers. We've asked them to do a job that was, frankly, unprecedented and even inconceivable in the weeks and months prior to the closing of that border, and they've responded extraordinarily well. They've done an extremely difficult job. It's a daily issue. MPs from across the country have reached out to attempt to resolve issues at our border, but our border services officers, in my opinion, have done an exemplary job of maintaining the health and safety of Canadians while continuing to adapt to a rapidly evolving situation.

With respect to legislation, I want to advise this committee that we have an ambitious agenda in the year ahead. As you know, in my mandate the Prime Minister asked me to serve as the Minister of Public Safety in part because I bring some experience to the issue of keeping communities safe, having spent many years on the front lines of policing. A number of issues remain a significant priority to us. I would mention in particular that firearms-related crime remains very high in Canada. We've actually seen an unacceptable and very worrisome increase in gun violence in many of the communities across Canada. We are determined to address that gun violence as a priority.

As the committee is aware, on May 1 the government took very significant and decisive action in an effort to protect Canadians and strengthen gun control by prohibiting over 1,500 models of firearms that were not designed for the legitimate activities of hunting and sport shooting but rather were designed, with their intent and effectiveness, as tactical weapons for combatants to shoot other combatants. We also put in place an amnesty to give the existing owners time to come into compliance with the law. We are providing a temporary exception as well for indigenous persons exercising section 35 constitutional rights.

We have signalled our intent to implement a buyback program as part of the legislation that we will bring forward. I would like to reiterate our commitment to ensuring that effective owners and businesses are compensated fairly while at the same time making sure that the implementation and management costs of such a program are responsibly enacted and sustainable. We are working with Parliament, provinces, territories and first nations to get this right for law-abiding gun owners and businesses.

I've also been very clear, and it's clear in my mandate, that the Government of Canada will strengthen Canada's gun control framework. That's why we will be introducing legislation in the near term to introduce a red-flag regime to reduce cases of intimate partner violence and suicide by temporarily removing firearms from individuals.

Mr. Chair, I take your point, and there are a number of other things I could speak to, but I want to move ahead quickly on two things. I want to speak to the focus of our government and this committee in making progress in policing and justice reform. All Canadians need to have confidence that the justice system is there to provide justice for them. We know that black Canadians and indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and we are prepared to make significant actions in both investment and legislation in order to change that. I'm happy to speak to those issues.

Finally, if I may, I would also like to speak to some of the actions we are taking with respect to individuals who are involved in hostile activities by state actors that threaten the safety, security and interests of Canadians. I want to be able to assure this committee that we take these matters very seriously and that all of our national security apparatus is focused on remaining vigilant against those threats and taking appropriate action to protect Canadians.

Mr. Chair, given our time constraints, I'll stop my remarks there. I hope to be able to explore a number of these and other matters with the committee in response to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Time is the enemy of us all.

With that, I would just take note that Madam Elizabeth May from the Green Party also wishes to somehow or other wedge a question in here. All the members of the standing committee are also very keen to ask questions. I apologize—insincerely, but upfront—that I may be cutting people off from time to time in order to be able to respect the time of members.

With that, the first six-minute round will go to Madam Stubbs, Mr. Iacono, Madame Michaud and Mr. Harris.

Madam Stubbs, you have six minutes, please.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being with us this evening.

Your mandate letter commits you to delivering results and effective government to Canadians. On October 22, as you announced, the last commissioner was finally appointed for the inquiry into the mass murder in Nova Scotia. That was almost seven months ago. The families have asked for the inquiry terms of reference to examine and report on the processes and the reasons for the delay in announcing and starting the public inquiry.

Last week I asked you in question period about honouring that request from the families, but you dismissed it and said it was for “political advantage”. I want to give you the opportunity to either clarify those remarks or just answer why it is you think that request from the families is something related to political advantage.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

First of all, I did not ascribe that intent or motive to the families, but rather to you, Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

You did indeed.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

That's right. Let me be very clear. In the days and hours immediately following the terrible tragedy of the mass shooting that took place on April 18 and 19, I reached out to the Nova Scotia government. I began working very closely with them because we knew that people would have many questions and needed answers. We began immediately to develop a process whereby both the Government of Nova Scotia, which has policing jurisdiction for that community, and also the federal government, because we have a role and a responsibility there, particularly in oversight of the RCMP, would ensure there was a fulsome examination of all of the events that took place there, that gave rise to that terrible tragedy, and how it was responded to in its immediate aftermath, and to make recommendations on how we can improve the response.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Minister, thank you. Of course, the question wasn't from me; it was directly from the families of the victims. I'll quote exactly what they've said, just for clarity. They have said this:

Given the delay and further victimization of the families by the two levels of government, his clients will request that all processes concerning the calling of the public inquiry be included in its terms of reference,” Patterson Law lawyer Robert Pineo said in a press release.... According to Pineo, those governmental actions must be disclosed and examined in a public forum “to ensure a meaningful public inquiry.” “That is the only way that the families and the public will gain a full understanding of the governments’ mishandling of the public inquiry from its inception and ensure that in the future, such processes are transparent, fair and conducted in a timely manner”.

Your government does control the terms of reference through the OIC. Will you commit to honouring the families' request for all the reasons and the processes related to the delay in the public inquiry?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We have committed to conduct a full and comprehensive public inquiry. We have empowered three public inquiry commissioners to determine all of the circumstances and factors that gave rise to the terrible tragedy of April 18 and 19; to examine everything that was done in response to that terrible tragedy, with a particular emphasis on the services that were provided to victims in that case; and to then make recommendations to both the Government of Nova Scotia and the federal government on how these terrible tragedies can be prevented. That's the purpose of the public inquiry.

I think it's important. We listened to those families, Shannon. We know they had concerns and questions that needed to be answered. We also heard them say that they were not satisfied with the review, that they wanted a full public inquiry. We responded to those concerns and called that. We've been working diligently to ensure that we have the three right people. I'm very pleased with all three of the people who have agreed to participate as the panel for that public inquiry. We've ensured that they have the resources to establish the secretariat and the processes to answer the questions provided in those terms of reference.

We promised those people that we would get answers to their questions regarding that terrible tragedy in April. That's what we've undertaken to do. We've now empowered a public inquiry to get them those answers.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Minister, have you spoken directly to any of the family members of the victims?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I've been working very closely with the police on the ground and with Attorney General Furey, who has reached out to the families. The Nova Scotia government assigned people to do that.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Okay. I know the Prime Minister has spoken to some of the victims. It might be helpful for you, just so that you're assured that my questions are not asked with political motivation, to hear directly from them that they do believe that governments have acted secretly and not in their best interests.

Moving on, given that your mandate also includes the Parole Board, I thought I'd just ask you another question on behalf of the victims of crime. This one is from Lisa Freeman, whose father was brutally murdered in 1991. She has said very clearly, and I think, has spoken on behalf of victims' families, that they want to be seen and to be heard. She and other victims' families were denied the right to present at parole hearings by video.

I know and I understand you did announce that your department is finally in the process of working on this now, although it probably was an issue that could have been anticipated. I'm only asking this in Lisa's own words. She says, “Why were you satisfied to have a paper hearing when you were aware that I couldn't attend because of COVID 6 months ago, and leave me waiting 3 weeks for an answer?”

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a little less than 30 seconds, Minister.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

First of all, I understand the stress, frankly, of all the people and the importance of having their voices heard. We have been working with the Parole Board to enable, first of all, the families to participate either through paper or by telephone. As I've announced, on November 9 in Ontario and Quebec, video conferencing will be established for victims and elders to attend those parole hearings, and on November 23 that will be implemented right across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Stubbs.

With that, it's six minutes for Mr. Iacono.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, Minister.

I have been very attentive to the announcement in the Speech from the Throne about reforming the parole system. Currently, the high court costs associated with access to parole are very often a barrier for most middle- and low-income citizens. One issue that should be addressed in this reform is the significant number of people with a criminal record who are denied the opportunity to return to work, a factor that is essential for a return to society.

First, Minister, could you describe the broad outlines of this reform project?

Second, the government has responded very well to the COVID-19 pandemic, but will this have an effect on the implementation of this reform?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much, Angelo.

These are perhaps the greatest challenges facing government. I think one of the things the pandemic has revealed to us, along with some very difficult situations that we have faced in Canada and right across North America as well, is the existence of significant systemic and structural disparity in the outcomes for indigenous people, poor people and racialized people in our criminal justice system.

It's one of the reasons that in the throne speech, we made it very clear that we will introduce legislation and make investments. Both of them are very important in taking action to address the systemic inequities in all phases of the criminal justice system.

I think it's important to recognize.... People often focus on one element of it, but what we have seen is that there are structural and systemic issues within the broader criminal justice system, from diversion to sentencing, rehabilitation to records, that are having an outcome for Canadians who are indigenous or from racialized communities.

Let me just give you some examples of the things that I believe are necessary for us to reform. You mentioned criminal records. We know that when people apply for a pardon for their criminal record, almost 75% of them have never spent a day in jail, but they have that criminal record. Although they may have received a conditional sentence and not been sentenced to any period of incarceration, 30 and 40 years later, that criminal record is having an impact on the quality of their life and their ability to succeed as Canadians. We are looking at ways in which we will make “record suspension”, as it's now called, or “pardons” as it's more commonly referred to, more accessible. Part of that is the impediment of cost.

Another issue for a lot of people is the bureaucratic thing of having to make application, significant background checks. For many people, I think it is fair to say that the pardon regime, or record suspension regime, that has been in place in Canada has made it inaccessible, particularly to people in lower-income margins, racialized communities and indigenous people. We are looking at significant reform to make those pardons more accessible. There are a number of very important ways, I think, that we can do that.

We are also looking at issues of sentencing. I think it's an undeniable fact that in our prison system, there is a very significant and unacceptable—disproportionate—number of indigenous men and women and racialized people, particularly young black men. It's grossly out of proportion. I believe there are issues within the criminal justice system that we need to look at systemically. We're dealing with things like training and reform for all of the justice participants, to make sure that there's anti-racism training and that they understand the influence that bias can have on them.

There are some systemic and structural changes that we need to make as well. We will do all of those things.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

I have another question regarding COVID-19, which, as everyone knows, has not spared our prisons. In my riding, the Federal Training Centre was very much affected. The pandemic has had a lot of negative effects.

How do you anticipate the second wave? What steps is the Correctional Service of Canada taking to ensure that this does not happen again in the second wave of the pandemic?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much.

It's a very important question, because we have a duty of care to people who are in federal custody. As you've noted, in the first wave of the pandemic, the infection went into five different institutions, including in your riding via the federal training centre there.

Correctional Services Canada took very proactive steps. They worked first of all with the Public Health Agency of Canada, but also with the provincial and regional health authorities. They took a number of very significant steps.

First of all, they made changes in limiting the number of people coming and going from the prisons, and that had an impact on the prison population as well, which they worked very hard to accommodate. They actually brought in health experts to do infection control measures and workplace health and safety audits. They were one of the very first institutions in the federal government to make the personal protective equipment available both to inmates and to workers in the prisons.

They implemented a very robust testing regime, in the first place, in all of the federal institutions. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that in all of the provincial institutions, but they did it federally. As a result of their excellent work, in a very short period of time—by mid-June—they had eliminated all ongoing infections in the correctional institutions. They have remained a vigilant regime of protecting the inmates and the people who work in those institutions to keep the illness out.

When, for example, a corrections worker contracts the disease in his own community—not in the institution—because of the rigorous regime and the testing regime they've put in place, we've been able to very effectively keep that illness out. It's not a guarantee. We know that's a vulnerable population, but I think Correctional Services Canada did some extraordinary work, which, quite frankly, we have shared with others. There were lessons learned in that work of infection prevention and control, the workplace health and safety audits and the measures that took place in personal protection and in testing and tracing, which were extremely effective in keeping that population safe.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Iacono.

I caution all members and witnesses about run-on sentences with many conjunctions.

Madame Michaud, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for being here tonight.

Thank you also, Minister, for being here. It is a pleasure to meet with you again.

I have to say that it's rather curious to ask you about your 2019 mandate letter, when we had a new Speech from the Throne in 2020. I guess the priorities are the same. The good news is that you've already had almost a year to implement your commitments.

I am particularly interested in your border protection strategy. You have committed to working with the United States to modernize the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. The pandemic has shaken that up a bit, and understandably so. It's all the more reason to be concerned about border management.

I want to go back over the chronology of events, because the few days between the border closure and the time it was requested—also the time when the World Health Organization, or WHO, declared that there was a global pandemic—could have made all the difference in stopping the spread of the virus in Quebec and Canada.

I remember telling the House that Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport was a real sieve. It was the mayor of the city of Montreal who had to go there with employees of the Direction régionale de santé publique to inform travellers arriving from Italy and other countries around the world where the epidemic had surged. There was no quarantine information or personal protective equipment. It took some time before measures were put in place.

Why has your government been slow to close borders, especially with the U.S.?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

Quite frankly, I'm a little shocked at the suggestion that we were slow to close the border. I've actually gone back through Hansard, and Hansard keeps an excellent record of all of the questions that were put to the government. I can't find a single incident where anyone in any part of the House recommended closing the border with the United States.

Frankly, we were working really closely at the time primarily with British Columbia, which was very concerned about a high rate of infection in the State of Washington. I can advise that as a direct result of those conversations, the deputy prime minister and I reached out to the Americans and began a conversation with them about restricting non-essential travel. We also engaged with them in a very important discussion about maintaining essential supply lines and the movement of essential workers back and forth across the border. From that first conversation when we reached out to the United States, until the Prime Minister and the President of the United States announced it, it was less than 24 hours.

I believe we moved with incredible alacrity and speed to do that. It is the largest undefended border in the world—some 6,000 kilometres. As well, there are very many points of entry. Our officials were able to respond with remarkable speed in essentially shutting that border down very effectively to non-essential travel. It was done with I think remarkable speed. If one looks at the timing of that and compares it with actions that were taking place in other parts of the world with respect to border closures, you will see that Canada and the United States were at the forefront of that effort.

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

I remember that the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, Mr. Jean-Pierre Fortin, was a bit exasperated by the situation. He said that Canada Border Services Agency officers were being left to their own devices and that they were obviously not consulted before orders in council were issued, including this famous order in council that has been renewed every month since March 2020.

Why not be transparent and inform us of your long-term plan on border closures, instead of renewing this decree every time at the last minute?

The Premier of Quebec, Mr. Legault, said just this week that it was important to keep the border closed. The burden is quite heavy for provinces that receive a lot of migrants through official ports of entry.

What is the long-term plan? Are you going to keep the border closed for several more months? I think it would be necessary to do so. Canadians and Quebeckers would also need to know a little more about it.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

The border will remain closed as long as it is necessary to restrict non-essential travel from the United States or from other places of the world. We put those restrictions in place to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

I communicate regularly, and I know the president of CBSA communicates regularly, with the union representing CBSA officers.

As I noted in my opening remarks, I think they've done an extraordinary job in implementing very significant new restrictions in the exercise of their discretion to keep us safe, and I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the work they've done.

I engage very regularly with my counterparts in the Province of Quebec and right across Canada in our provincial and territorial discussions. We work very closely. The order in council that closes the border is for 30 days.

We continually assess conditions on both sides of the border and the effectiveness of the measures we put in place and will continue to keep that border closed until the circumstances change significantly enough to facilitate a change at the border border that would not compromise the health and safety of Canadians.

I know everybody wants to know for how long it will remain, and I think this is reasonable, especially when we see the conditions in the United States, and the very significant surge in the virus that's taking place right across that country. I believe it's very much in Canada's interest to maintain those border restrictions, and we will do that as long as it is necessary to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have six minutes.