Public Safety Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Could you highlight for the committee what kind of training our officers undertake?

Again, the place where I went to university educated a lot of police officers, from both the United States and Canada. A lot of border officers, either Canadian or American, went to school together.

What kind of continuous improvement in training do you have? We have the infrastructure, the facilities and the equipment, but we also rely on officers to do what they do to identify. They do quite a good job.

[Erin O'Gorman]

Absolutely. There's an excellent introductory training program that spans several months at our campus in Rigaud, and then there's training throughout, but we are continually sharing intelligence and information.

When an officer uncovers a secret compartment where you need to kind of press four buttons before it will open, this will be shared with officers across the country to look out for the same thing. A lot of the training they do is just looking unrelentingly at different ways people are trying to conceal contraband as they cross the border.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

You mentioned the sniffer dogs. That's like old tech, if you will. They've been around for a while, but they still play a very important role. I know we have one at the border in the Sioux as well.

What's that program doing? I'll talk about the old tech and the new tech. What are the plans for the future for investing in the border? I know that the minister is looking at announcing something, but are you able to share anything with the committee right now?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Not in terms of the announcement this week.

Regarding your comment about detector dogs, they are old technology but they will have a place for the foreseeable future, barring any kind of new technology that we haven't thought of. In terms of the places they can get into and how quickly they can do their jobs, I don't foresee our not needing our detector dogs, but, certainly, we're always looking at new equipment.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Ms. O'Gorman, I'm so sorry to cut you off. I apologize, but we're a bit over time.

Thank you, Mr. Sheehan.

I will go to Mr. Motz for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to change gears for my last line of questioning, but if I have time, I'll come back to it.

Recently, the Minister of Public Safety was here and indicated to this committee that he's working on a plan to strengthen our borders. Commissioner, you had indicated as well, as reported by the National Post, that you had presented the government with a plan to bolster the country's border security.

Can you describe what that plan looks like from the RCMP's perspective? I also want to ask Ms. O'Gorman—both of you—what developments have been made since the minister's meeting with us here a couple weeks ago on the plan? What does is look like? How is it rolling out, and what does it look like moving forward?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

We've briefed the minister on the need to increase our capabilities by evergreening the technology that we have and increasing resources. This has already been said by the minister publicly. It includes having more ability when it comes to surveillance by means of drones or helicopters.

There is an also appetite to increase the resources. We have to be mindful that, like any other organization, we have limited resources, but how can we benefit from other organizations by working together and having additional people at the border?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Actually, that would almost be the same answer I would give insofar as we are working extremely closely on a day-to-day basis with the RCMP as we carry out our mandate at ports of entry; the RCMP does it in-between. The extent to which they benefit from technology.... We know what new technology is out there that would help us increase the number of seizures that we are able to make.

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

Fair enough. If I'm hearing you correctly, there's not necessarily a specific plan other than capitalizing on some evergreen technology that we already have. We're going to maybe put some more boots on the ground there, and we're going to use some other technologies like drones or those sorts of things along the border.

Is there a plan to develop bilateral agreements with the United States and partner in some of those border processes? The minister says that we have a plan or that we're going to develop a plan, but are we bolstering a plan we already have, or are we doing something even bolder than we're doing now?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I would leave it to the minister to announce his plan. As he said, he's consulted the provinces.

I have to respond to your comment about agreements with the U.S. because I don't want it to be understood that we don't have them. We have information sharing, and we're increasing them and operationalizing our agreements. I just want to make sure it's clear that we do absolutely have multiple agreements with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with the DEA, with the ATF and with HSI. I'm sorry for the acronyms, but I expect that you know what they are. Those agreements are well in place.

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

Apparently, the minister has had conversations with the provinces. Was part of the plan to include them or have the provinces step up?

For instance, Alberta made an announcement this afternoon putting resources, manpower, technology and other things on the border and for spending $30 million to augment the resources there in Alberta.

Other provinces, I understand, are looking at doing similar things along the border. Is that part of the plan that the government is talking about? Can any of you speak to that?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I can't speak about the conversation that the minister has had with his counterparts in different provinces. What I can say is that Public Safety, at the deputy minister's level, has a weekly call. Erin and I are on the call with the deputy ministers from across the country. Throughout the calls, there's a strong appetite to see how they can help. The Premier of Alberta has announced that they are looking at mobilizing 51 officers. We welcome that. Obviously, as I said earlier in the committee, this is a shared responsibility. We all want what's best for Canadians and to ensure that there's a safe and secure border.

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

Commissioner, that's great. I applaud the Premier of Alberta for moving in that direction.

I'm wondering how you plan when it comes to both CBSA and the RCMP patrolling and being part of the border security there. It's a very vast border, I might say, as I have in my riding all the border crossings that matter in Alberta. How do you intend to incorporate those efforts so that you don't work against each other and you share intel, you communicate together and you are on operations together? How do you plan on doing that?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Give just a very brief answer, please.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

It would be no different from how we're doing it right now in the province of Quebec, where we're joined at the hip with la Sûreté du Québec. We collaborate together and share information. You might have joint teams, joint command teams, to make sure everybody knows what each other is doing and shares intelligence at a fast pace in real time.

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

I would encourage you guys to make sure that happens in all the provinces.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Ms. O'Connell, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I couldn't help but laugh at Mr. Lloyd's last comments in his round, when he said, “I hope you will get” all the resources you need to do this work. He had the opportunity to vote on some of these resources and he actually voted against them.

Following up on the questions about organized crime, it actually brings me back. I come from a region where the Hells Angels have been active at different points of time. They don't really go away, but there are spikes in their activity. In fact, when I was in high school I did a placement with our local police in forensics. Organized crime was a big focus of some of that work.

Did organized crime groups just spike after the Supreme Court shut down mandatory minimums?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

When it comes to the activities of organized crime groups, I wouldn't say they spike. They're constant. The groups are forever engaged in criminal activity. Even if you break one cell down, another cell replaces it and continues.

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

Part of their operations is really what the market demands. It's almost organized crime capitalism. If there is a large profit opportunity in fentanyl today, let's say, but in five years from now it's some different drug, they will change operations. It's not that the organizations themselves don't continue to operate. It's that the drug of choice, or the guns of choice, or the trafficking of choice might change, depending on where there's an actual market.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

As I said earlier, organized crime is driven by financial gains. With regard to profit, they will change from one commodity to another. Geography also plays a key role. This is why you sometimes see turf wars with different organized crime groups. They're expanding their territory and whatnot.

Whatever is the commodity of the day and the demand of the day, organized crime is involved.

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

Thank you.

Commissioner, in response to an earlier question, you started to talk about dealing with some of the societal challenges. If there weren't a market, for example, for some of these drugs, then that profit margin wouldn't exist. Can you speak to some of the programs? I would assume that task forces within your agency are working on this with local partners on how best to actually deal with some of the roots of the markets of some of these illicit drugs in particular.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

It would vary across the country, but RCMP commanding officers in each division and commanding officers for the federal regions work closely with the provinces to see what's required to make sure there's the right support. Obviously, there's always a question of funding in that. It's about the right support and basically how to get the information out to the people who are actually using it.

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

Thank you.

President O'Gorman, you provided in your last appearance, I think, some numbers with regard to questions we've had at this committee about staffing levels. I know this continues to be a question. I would love to ensure that we have the most accurate and up-to-date numbers. It's my understanding that CBSA recruits something like 500 new agents every year. Is that accurate? Is it also accurate that the previous cuts of over 1,100 CBSA agents or staff have been fully restored and that additional officers or agents have been hired?

Can you confirm some of those numbers for me, please?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We can put about 500 officers through our college every year. We're regaining after the pandemic, when we had to close. It's about 500 a year.

Right now, we have 16,700 employees, 8,500 of whom are frontline officers.