Public Safety Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you for that, Minister.

I'm not that reassured, because we have RCMP officers who are already speaking out on this. They spoke out earlier this month and said:

Canada must act quickly; this ruling opens a huge gap in our ability to protect kids and stop offenders from preying on them. There must always be a balance between citizen privacy and the state but—

This is in the words of an RCMP officer who is on Twitter, Sergeant Kerry Shima.

—this decision has put our kids in the crosshairs.

Those are the words of RCMP officers on the front lines.

It's now been three weeks. Your government has now unveiled massive new legislation, the online harms act, yet I can find nothing in your online harms act that deals with the fallout from this very concerning decision, which, in the words of an RCMP officer, “essentially terminates investigations into online sex offenders and identifying child victims”.

We cannot allow our country to be a safe haven for child predators. What are we going to do about this immediately, Minister?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Obviously, I share Mr. Lloyd's view that we can't allow Canada to become a safe haven for child predators. That's a circumstance that would be completely inappropriate.

I have confidence that the RCMP, respecting the law, respecting decisions of the Supreme Court and the charter, will come to the government, as will CSIS, with advice on the most appropriate way to ensure that they have the tools to do that exact work that Mr. Lloyd correctly identified. Perhaps the commissioner or others can discuss this in the second part.

However, I think the important principle is that in a case where an important Supreme Court decision reviews authorities like that—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I'm sorry, Minister. I have only about a minute left.

I just want to ask you this: How far are you willing to go to protect children in this country? Would you be willing to consider using the notwithstanding clause, if that were the only option to allow the RCMP to do these investigations?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Obviously, we're not going to answer hypothetical questions like that.

Our views, in terms of the notwithstanding clause, are well known. I think Mr. Lloyd is well ahead of himself in concluding that the advice I'm going to get as minister, with my colleague, the Minister of—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I'm not making any conclusions, Minister. I'm just asking how far you're willing to go to protect children in this country.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

We will do everything that we lawfully can to protect children and to support the women and men in the RCMP, CSIS and other agencies that do this important work. They are doing effective and good work in this area, and the government's job is to ensure they have the resources—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

They can no longer do that work, because of this decision.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

—and the authorities to do that work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

We will move on to Mr. Gaheer, please, online, for five minutes.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you to the minister and witnesses for appearing before the committee.

Minister, if you look at the 11 electoral wards of Mississauga, you'll see that ward 5, which contains Pearson airport, is largely within my riding of Mississauga—Malton. It saw the most auto thefts, by far, in 2023, out of all of Mississauga, and understandably, because it's home to Pearson airport, which is a transport hub.

It's been about a month and a half since we had a national summit on combatting auto theft. I want to ask about the progress that has been made since then.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

You correctly noted that in the community you represent and the neighbouring communities, this is understandably a very real source of concern to the citizens and to our partners in municipal governments and in the provincial government.

As colleagues will know, we made some initial investments with both police partners and the Border Services Agency. We'll continue to do more.

I have taken note of comments and conversations that we've had with elected municipal leaders in this space. I know that the mayor of Brampton has been an effective partner and has identified some concerns around the ability to quickly procure the appropriate scanning technologies for some of these intermodal hubs. We're very much seized with that work and will do everything we can, as quickly as we can, to support the important work done by police services. In some cases these are municipal or regional police forces.

The RCMP, as the commissioner noted a little while ago, has an important role in coordinating much of the transnational organized crime elements involved in this increase in auto theft, and their ability to work with international partners in terms of cutting off some of the money that organized crime would benefit from in some of this traffic in stolen vehicles. I always take advice from the commissioner of the RCMP and from the Border Services Agency in terms of what the government can give them in terms of additional resources or tools or authorities to work with their partners in this space.

In my role as intergovernmental affairs minister, I talk regularly with colleagues in provincial governments and with provincial premiers around what we can do in this area.

I am very encouraged by some of what my colleagues at Transport Canada are talking about in terms of vehicle standards. I had a conversation in this area with the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, when I was in Washington some weeks ago, around the integrated nature of the vehicle manufacturing sector in Canada and how we might work with American partners to ensure that some of the latest technologies that would discourage criminals from attempting to steal vehicles, or make it harder, could also be included.

We're always looking for good ideas and will continue to do more and more to make sure that Canadians feel secure in this increasingly worrisome context.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Great. Thank you.

I'm glad you touched on that point, actually. Mayor Patrick Brown of Brampton has gone on record on CP24 as saying that there is a leaky bucket. He claims that the leaky bucket is the port of Montreal. He highlighted some issues with scanners and the timeline for preparing those scanners.

Could you perhaps comment on some of the resources we've provided to different law enforcement agencies, including the CBSA, to help target this problem?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I'd like to thank Mr. Gaheer and also his colleagues from communities near the one he represents who have spoken to me. I had a conversation with our colleague, Mr. Sidhu, about this again yesterday as well.

Mayor Brown has been an effective advocate for his community and for his regional police services in this area. I know that for the RCMP it has been a privilege to work with the Peel Regional Police and with the Toronto Police Service. In some successful interdiction operations, the Border Services Agency plays a key role here.

One of the challenges is that, understandably, people focus on the port of Montreal or other places where these stolen vehicles might be exported. I am told that 30% to 40% of the vehicles that are stolen are in fact resold in Canada. It's not a perfect solution to choke off the export points only. We need to work also with the police of jurisdiction and the local police to prevent these vehicles from being stolen, or to arrest the persons who are stealing these vehicles at the point of theft. The most inefficient and expensive way to deal with the problem is at the very top of the criminal activity, when they are being exported.

Obviously, we will give the CBSA the authority and the instruments they need to do the work that we expect of them, but we also need to do it in a concerted and coordinated way with local police. That's the most effective way to bring these numbers down. That's what Canadians want. They're concerned about the increasingly violent nature of these offences. As I mentioned, it's something that we share and will want to attack in collaboration with partners as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Gaheer.

That brings the first part of our committee meeting to an end.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing and for your testimony.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

I'll bring this meeting back to order. We're going into our third round of questions.

Mr. Lloyd, you're up first for five minutes, please.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll lead with my last line of questioning with the minister, in the last round. He said with regard to the Bykovets decision requiring judicial authorizations for IP addresses, that it was an unfair analogy for me to make to say it was like asking for a search warrant to look in the phone book. In fact, it's worse than that.

Imagine a phone book that has phone numbers listed, but no names. The only names that are listed are the ISPs and the telecom companies that service those phone numbers: the Teluses, the Rogers and the Bells.

Police are being told now that they can't even look in the phone book of those IP addresses. They can't even know who the service providers are unless they have a warrant. The effect of this in the past month since this decision came in, according to frontline RCMP officers who are working in the integrated child exploitation units across this country, is that telecommunications companies, in compliance with the Supreme Court of Canada's decision, are now denying this critical information that police are using to track down and prosecute child sex offenders and child predators.

Commissioner Duheme, can you provide us with some more context on the impact this decision has had on the RCMP integrated child exploitation units in the last month?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

We were a bit surprised with the decision that came out. At this point in time—the decision was rendered three weeks ago—I've asked that throughout the country, we monitor the impacts on our operations. I don't have the numbers just yet, because it's relatively fresh. We will have to come back to the committee.

I think it's important to note that although we were focused on children, and that's extremely important, I'm looking at it much more broadly. I'm looking at threats to elected officials, and to individuals and whatnot, so it's a little early. We've been through other cases, like Stinchcombe. When Stinchcombe came in, we had to readjust.

Our concern is that we want to make sure there are no additional delays, and we're monitoring that right now, but I don't have the total impacts right now on the operation.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

A very good point you've made is that, of course, the issue of protecting children is of paramount importance, but this decision does not just impact child predator investigations; this is about threats against elected officials.

The case of Bykovets was one of fraud involving stolen credit cards. It is a groundbreaking decision. I must say it was not a clear majority. It was a majority of the Supreme Court, but it was a 5-4 decision. The dissenting judges, in their own words, said this decision “would seriously thwart the police’s ability to investigate such serious offences against children.” They also said later down that it would “exacerbate the existing challenges faced by the criminal justice system.”

Commissioner Duheme, we know our police are overwhelmed with the task we have given them and the paperwork that is required of them. Can you tell us what the impact is of having to get search warrants every time they get an IP address, say, from the FBI? We know it's our international allies providing us with this information.

There was a case in my own area, in the greater Edmonton area, in which a mother was allegedly putting up videos of her own child. It was a conviction following an investigation in California that led to the procurement of those IP addresses, which were given to our integrated child exploitation units and enabled them to rescue that child from that situation. Under this decision, those IP addresses would arguably be inadmissible in a case. This is a devastating blow for child protection in our country.

Can you tell us what the new administrative requirements are going to do to investigations?

Thank you.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

Mr. Chair, the impact is felt not only in the RCMP but also by my colleague David Vigneault from CSIS. Again, the decision was rendered three weeks ago. I don't have the number of files that took place in the last three weeks that incurred delays, but from an organizational perspective we are monitoring the impact on current operations.

I think I know what the impacts are, but I want some metrics to make sure we can come forward with a proposal to the minister as we move forward.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

With that, Mr. Chair, I just want to quickly move the motion that I gave notice of at the last committee meeting, which all members of this committee have, regarding the police resources that are being directed to food banks across the country that are dealing with the impact of, in some cases.... I am moving this motion. The motion has been moved.

In Surrey, police were brought in to redirect traffic because of the huge number of Canadians who were seeking food. We have food banks in Montreal where police have been directed away from the very important work they're doing on our streets to protect Canadians by providing crowd control at these food banks.

The cost of food is going up in Canada, and we know that on April 1 there will be a 23% increase in the carbon tax in this country. That's not just in the provinces where the federal backstop is in place. Every province, even with their own carbon tax regime, has to increase this price to meet the federal requirements.

At a time like this, when inflation is roaring, when food prices are escalating, in some cases over 10% in some categories, Canadians can no longer afford food, and we can no longer afford to see our police officers, who are overstretched across jurisdictions, not just the RCMP, having to go to food banks to provide crowd control to protect Canadians and protect food banks because of these rising costs of food.

With that, I'll move my motion, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Go ahead, Ms. O'Connell, please.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I move to adjourn debate, and I'll ask for a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

We're going to continue with our witnesses.

It's Ms. O'Connell up for five minutes, please.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I want to start with Commissioner Duheme.

In terms of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the service and the RCMP, can you please update us on what you're doing in your leadership to ensure that the workforce within the RCMP are protected? I refer in particular to women and the fact that, when there are instances or cases in which there is sufficient evidence of an assault or violence, these cases are also being referred to local police for charges, that offenders are not simply losing their jobs and face consequences that a civilian would, for example.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

Let me give you a few numbers on the sexual harassment side of things over the last couple of years.

In 2021, there were 48 out of 373 harassment files. Out of those, 12 did not meet the definition of harassment and violence; 16 at least had one allegation that met the definition of harassment, and 18 were withdrawn by the principal parties.

I must stress that our harassment process is independent. It's independent from the RCMP. The investigators are independent, but the decision-maker is a member of the RCMP who is present in the investigation.

Out of the total number of files, there's one that's still undergoing investigation. I want to make it perfectly clear: One complaint is too many. With one complaint, the damage in that unit has already been done. We want to get to a point where we don't get any more complaints.

The stats for 2022 are very similar, but the point is that I expect every employee engaged in the organization to respect and adhere to the core values of our organization.

We have measures in place to address that with regular members. We have a code of conduct through which some really great work has been done over the last couple of years. We're revamping the whole code of conduct to bring it to what is expected from Canadians when we are dealing with a code of conduct. We're being more aggressive on everything to do with sexual harassment and sexual assaults in the organization.