Public Safety Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Minister, will you commit right here and right now to changing them?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

—with the Governor in Council.

No, I can't change those regulations right here and right now.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Will you commit to changing those regulations to address this class of offender—yes or no?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I will commit to ensuring that those regulations that focus, as their most important objective, on public safety are appropriate to give the Correctional Service the authority to keep federally sentenced inmates in secure federal prisons to protect the public. That's a very important objective.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Appropriate—so it's appropriate that Paul Bernardo is in medium security. You are fine with that. I will take it that you don't care that Paul Bernardo is in medium security. I will take it that way, because you're not prepared to act. If you're not prepared to act, then what are we even talking about this for? It's someone else's problem. No, Minister, this lies directly at your feet.

When was the last time you went to La Macaza, Minister?

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Caputo. Your time is up.

Mr. Bittle, you're up for five minutes, please.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm from the Niagara region. I just watched Mr. Caputo, and I don't doubt that his sincerity is there and his concern is there. My constituents went through this. The victims' families are still here. It's very painful for them, and it's painful for my community, but perhaps you could explain the law for those who are watching.

I know that Mr. Caputo is a former prosecutor. I don't expect that the provincial attorney general ever called him to tell him how to prosecute a case. Mr. Motz is a former police officer. I don't imagine the mayor called him to tell him who to arrest and how to conduct an investigation.

Can you please explain your role with respect to federal correctional inmates and what the law says on this subject?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

We obviously share the concern that you articulated for the communities you represent and, particularly, the victims of some of these most notorious crimes. Every Canadian remembers some of these horrific crimes and remembers, sadly, the names of the perpetrators.

I think you identified an important distinction in the role of an elected minister and an elected government, and the proper administration of justice, including the Correctional Service. When we think of the administration of justice, we think of courts or the police, for example. However, I think you properly drew a parallel between administering a Correctional Service of Canada that is responsible for, in some cases—and the commissioner, in the subsequent part of the morning, can provide more details—approximately 13,500 people who are currently residing in different federal correctional facilities across the country, and there are thousands of others who are under supervision in the community....

I think, Mr. Bittle, you correctly identified the challenge here. Some people—in my view, irresponsibly—seek to say that because a particular offender was transferred based on a series of long-standing criteria administered properly by independent, professional public servants, who are accountable to the commissioner of the Correctional Service for those decisions.... These are not new rules. They have existed for a long time, and they are made often in the interest of institutional security.

That's something we perhaps don't reflect on: the safety of the brave women and men who work in the Correctional Service. I visited a number of these facilities and was very impressed by the women and men who work in these difficult environments in these correctional facilities. Their safety and security are often a factor when the Correctional Service makes these decisions on transfers.

It's not new that people would transfer from a maximum- to a medium-security institution. As I said, in 2013 to 2014 alone, in the last year of Mr. Harper's government, 319 inmates were transferred from maximum to medium security. That's certainly higher than in any recent year.

These are normal decisions. What is disingenuous is to pretend that because somebody is in a medium-security facility, there isn't a very high level of security to make it impossible to escape from these facilities, their behaviour isn't appropriately controlled within these institutions, or somehow they're on their way out to the community. That's the really disingenuous part. It's pretending that some of these notorious people who are serving life sentences in secure federal prisons are somehow on their way out to the community.

That's the part that we think is very disingenuous and not conducive to public confidence in a correctional service system in which I have a lot of confidence.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'd also like to respond to Mr. Shipley's comments. I think it shows how unserious the Conservatives are on climate change if their only environmental policy is recycling slogans.

I was wondering if you could comment, Minister, on what climate change is doing for the security landscape that you and our public servants have to deal with to protect Canadians.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

As I said, anecdotally, as a member of Parliament in New Brunswick during some of these extreme weather events, I'm thinking of hurricanes. I'm thinking of flooding circumstances.

In our province, the RCMP, in many cases, is the police of jurisdiction. It's the contract police of the Province of New Brunswick. I have seen remarkable work done by women and men in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in the Coast Guard, for which I used to but no longer have responsibility.

These public safety personnel are on the front lines of protecting Canadians during these alarming, worrisome and potentially very dangerous events. If I think of hurricanes that have hit Atlantic Canada and my province of New Brunswick.... Our chair's province of Prince Edward Island was obviously very badly impacted by some of these events. It was the women and men who serve in the RCMP who were providing that public safety presence in these very difficult moments.

Working constructively and effectively on climate change should be a priority for everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

We'll go to Ms. Michaud, please, for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, let's face it, the government's not doing too well these days. It's not going very well. Some MPs are putting their foot in it, and the latest blunder is that of your colleague the MP for Brossard-Saint-Lambert, Alexandra Mendès, who is also Assistant Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. She was quick to criticize an ongoing Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into alleged Chinese police stations in Montreal. I won't ask you to comment on the investigation, and I won't do it either. However, experts, including former Sûreté du Québec investigators, and even an RCMP member of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, as well as former diplomats, have said that it doesn't make sense, because there is a separation of powers. It's a basic principle.

How is it that members of your government interfere with RCMP investigations?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Chair, I think Ms. Michaud described these circumstances well.

I understand that investigations are underway. The Commissioner of the RCMP is in a better position than me to talk about these kinds of details. However, I think that Ms. Michaud is right. It is not appropriate for government members, or opposition members for that matter, to comment in the context of an ongoing investigation. So I won't.

However, I have every confidence that the RCMP will conduct an investigation to shed light on the circumstances surrounding this incident. Above all, I understand that the Canadian Chinese community, the Chinese diaspora in Canada, is often targeted by these practices. This is totally inappropriate interference by the government of China in these circumstances.

Mr. Vigneault and Mr. Duheme can talk about how they counter and limit these threats. I completely agree with you that it's not helpful to talk about any particular person or investigation. In fact, I don't think it helps the RCMP do the important work they do. I have every confidence that they will do their job.

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

Thank you, Minister.

I'm counting on you to pass on the message to your Liberal colleague.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

You have done a proper job of it.

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

You talk about foreign interference. Yesterday, you were talking about introducing a bill on electoral reform. Bravo!

Indeed, to prevent these practices of foreign interference in our democratic institutions, I wonder why you didn't take this opportunity to insert electoral reform into it. If I'm not mistaken, your government was elected on this promise, in 2015, among others.

Did you forget to insert this measure in the bill?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

We tried to adopt this measure.

You mentioned the 2015 elections, and there were elections in 2019 and, subsequently, 2021. It hasn't been a huge success in terms of government commitments.

Between 2015 and 2019, we found it difficult to reach a consensus. As part of the agreement between Mr. Singh and the Prime Minister, we made a commitment to strengthen the electoral system to make it even easier to vote. I understand the request you're making, and I'm pleased to see you smile when you ask the question.

I don't think it would have been very helpful, when we had a small window, to add a potentially controversial measure to a bill aimed at strengthening the electoral system—

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Minister LeBlanc. Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

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

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have two more questions.

The first is on the CBSA cuts. We have a dearth of funding around CBSA officers. We've heard testimony before this committee that we lack about 3,000 CBSA officers across the country. This government can rightly blame the Harper regime for having cut back on CBSA, and of course the Harper regime was horrible for public safety, but the reality is you've been in government now for nine years, and you have not addressed that shortage of CBSA officers. How do you intend to respond to those needs, given the rise in auto thefts?

My second question is about prejudice. You said you wanted to tackle harms such as hate.

We know that every single ideologically motivated mass murder in North America in 2022 and 2023 came from the extreme right. This is a growing and persistent threat to our democracy and to public safety. What are the actions your government intends to put into place to counter that threat from the extreme right and extreme right violence?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Those are two important questions. We recognize the good work done by the Border Services Agency and the frontline personnel. We also recognize that continued and sustained investments are important. We announced an amount of funding targeted specifically at some auto theft concerns, but we recognize that we can do more.

I know I'm going to run out of time, and I want to get to your second question. I would have happily yielded some time to the CBSA to answer the details of those particular recruitment challenges, but in order to get to the second part of the question, perhaps in the second part of this meeting the CBSA could answer that directly.

We do share, absolutely, the concern with respect to the rise in hate crimes, the increasingly violent rhetoric that sadly motivates and incites people to undertake some of the most heinous and violent actions that we've seen in recent years.

My conversations with David Vigneault and his colleagues at CSIS leave me with a very real concern about ideologically motivated violent extremists. Mr. Julian referred to that. There's also religiously motivated violent extremism.

We have invested with the RCMP and their partners in terms of helping police forces across the country, police of jurisdiction—including the RCMP in many cases—better understand ways to prosecute some of these hate crimes. It's a difficult space for prosecutors and police officers to investigate.

It doesn't mean that we don't need, as a national police organization in the case of the RCMP, to take responsibility for working with partners. I know that if there's time in the second part.... The officials who will be here can provide very good answers, and I know that David Vigneault would be very anxious to answer Mr. Julian's question with some important work that CSIS is doing in this area.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Leblanc, and thank you, Mr. Julian.

We'll move to Mr. Lloyd, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here.

We have the whole national security establishment of the country, so hopefully we can get some good answers to my questions.

Minister, earlier this month there was a pretty groundbreaking decision of the Supreme Court, the Bykovets decision. I wonder if you can tell us about what the impact of that decision has been in the last month.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I'm not familiar with the precise details of that decision. I'm happy to answer, but the associate deputy minister would be the best one to give you the precise answer to your question.

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

Thank you.

Going into the Bykovets decision in regard to Internet protocol addresses, IP addresses, these IP addresses are essential evidence enabling our law enforcement to track down and prosecute child predators.

Under the Supreme Court decision, it has now been ruled that there's a judicial authorization required in order to get those IP addresses. It's the equivalent of saying you need a search warrant to look in the phone book.

This decision has had an immediate effect on basically freezing, and, in the words of some RCMP officers, terminating child predator investigations in Canada. Some believe that Canada has now become the safest place in the world to be a child predator.

I wonder if you can give your comments on that, Minister.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Obviously, that would not be a circumstance that's at all acceptable. I am informed that the RCMP and CSIS are looking at the court decision and determining, based on some legal advice, its operational impacts.

I wouldn't compare getting access to an IP address to looking in a phone book. I think that's a bit disingenuous.

These are areas that are governed by law, and a body of case law, but we recognize that the police, the RCMP and other police partners, and CSIS in the case of national security investigations, need appropriate access to that information. We'll take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the police have access to that information, while, obviously, respecting the Charter of Rights and cases that the courts—