Public Safety Committee on May 19th, 2022

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. McKinnon, for your question and for your advocacy. Having visited your community, I know that you are a very informed and outspoken voice when it comes to addressing extreme weather, including last fall right across British Columbia.

As you pointed out, since 2021, the department has been divided, if you will, into two separate subportfolios. My portfolio deals principally with law enforcement and national security and, of course, Minister Blair focuses on emergency preparedness. There is still a lot of co-operation between our two branches. Specifically, as it relates to requests for assistance and the processing of applications for disaster mitigation and relief, Minister Blair and I and our departments work very closely by function of the way the laws are still on the books.

I will say that the reflections in the main estimates are really a broader reflection of the challenges we face around climate change. The devastating impacts we saw around the atmospheric rivers and the flash floods, just recently in Manitoba as well, are really commensurate with, I believe, both the policies and the federal dollars that are going into addressing those challenges in partnership with your province and all provincial and territorial jurisdictions.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

As you know, last summer the Fraser canyon community of Lytton was actually destroyed, and there were heavy losses in the Fraser Valley due to flooding.

Is this funding going to help these communities to recover from those disasters or is this money going to be used going forward for future disasters?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It's a bit of both because the funding is designed to be sustainable over a number of years.

As you heard me say in my remarks, the estimates can be adjusted based on extreme weather events, which can manifest rather abruptly and then lead to devastating consequences including as we saw last fall. I think tens of thousands of British Columbians were displaced from their homes. My recollection is that it was in the vicinity of 18,000 or so.

It is difficult to overstate how important it is to be able to get them back into their houses. It is equally important to rebuild the highways that have been destroyed and put in place the critical infrastructure. On one of my recent trips to British Columbia, I saw some of it around the protection against flooding. Putting that infrastructure in place is so important.

These disaster funds are designed to provide sustainable support for those parts of the country that are hardest hit by extreme weather and climate change.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to stick on the floods.

I note that part of the problem with the flooding we had in the upper Fraser Valley was due to circumstances on the other side of the border in Washington.

I'm wondering if the government is able to work on mitigating those kinds of externalities that triggered this flooding, through border services or through our international relationship with them.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I know I have a very short—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I'm sorry, Mr. Mendicino. We're out of time. It's the great constraint.

I move to Ms. Michaud.

In this round, you have two and a half minutes. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I'd like you to tell us about Roxham Road.

When you are asked about it, you often say that it is not possible to close it because migrants will find another way to enter the country illegally. Yet closing Roxham Road is what the Quebec government is asking you to do. You can do it unilaterally by suspending the Safe Third Country Agreement.

You have to be aware that this puts a lot of pressure on the Quebec government. Right now, about 100 irregular migrants arrive every day, and 92% of them do so through Quebec. More than 50% of them are children. So we have to open two school classes a day for these children. It's extremely difficult to house them because of the housing crisis in Quebec and elsewhere at the moment. It's also difficult because many of them don't speak French, and we have to find ways to francize them.

You could close Roxham Road unilaterally. We hear there are discussions with Washington about this.

I'd like to know what the status of this is. Does it remain a solution for you or do you categorically refuse to close this illegal entry route?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Ms. Michaud, first of all, I recognize that this puts some pressure on Quebec. That is why the federal government is working very hard to find ways to collaborate to strengthen the integrity of our immigration system, which is so important. I hope everyone is proud of this aspect of our country.

I want to say that we need to make the investments to strengthen the work of IRCC and to protect, at the same time, the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. This is another value of our immigration system. This balance is a function of our two governments working together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

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

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Mr. MacGregor, you have two and a half minutes whenever you're ready, sir.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, the shooting in Buffalo was motivated by the great replacement theory, where the shooter published his manifesto and really personally thought the Anglo-Saxon race was being replaced through immigration policies and all kinds of racist garbage.

Where did he find that? Where was he exposed to it? It was online. It was through a very toxic ecosystem and echo chambers.

Pat King, one of the lead organizers of the convoy, was spouting off the same garbage and live-streaming on social media. Back then we might have just passed it off as the ranting of an individual. One of your officials during our IMVE study said a lot of what you see on the Internet is awful, but it's lawful.

I understand there's a very fine balance here. At the same time, it can have very real and devastating consequences.

Minister, social media companies have come before this committee and they told us they have very robust terms of service. Those terms of service are failing. It's quite apparent they're failing. What are your thoughts? What is your government's approach going to be on holding social media companies accountable for their terms of service so that they are actually enforced?

I understand it's a very fine line between protecting our charter right of freedom of expression...but at the same time what people are being exposed to online has led to some very tragic consequences. I just want to have your thoughts, Minister, on how your government is approaching this very real problem.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

My thoughts are as follows: Words matter. Hate can lead to violence.

The great replacement theory is a conspiracy that is being driven by white supremacists and it is leading to violence, not only in Buffalo but in Canada. We all have to be vigilant, not only within government but right across society, including working with social media. You're right. They have polices. You've seen me in the past call out where I don't think they're living up to those policies, particularly on Twitter, but we have to do this work together.

We have to stamp out hate. We have to stamp out racism.

We have to be sure that we're putting in place the tools that are necessary to prevent these crimes, these awful crimes, from occurring in the first place. I'm committed to doing that work with this committee and all parliamentarians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

I would now invite Ms. Dancho to begin her five-minute block of questioning.

Start whenever you're ready, Ms. Dancho.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, again, I just want to give you an opportunity to acknowledge that there seems to have been a failure in your department to take the Coastal GasLink pipeline seriously. Can you point to any measure that you have done to show the public that you're taking this seriously?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Ms. Dancho, respectfully, you've said now on a couple of occasions that my officials don't take this seriously. That's wrong.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Why is it then that they were not able to tell me and members of this committee when they were invited here to talk about extremism that they were following this case?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I think rather what they are attempting to respect is the independence of law enforcement in carrying out investigations, which we all should be very cautious about commenting on. It's not a lack of attention. It's rather, wanting to respect that police are the ones who are best positioned to answer your questions, which, by the way, I agree that you have every right and should be asking. I would just simply encourage you to direct those questions to the police of jurisdiction. They're best situated to answer those questions.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Minister.

I do want to ask you about something else. This is a non-partisan issue actually, so I'll take a bit of a break from that.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Do you mean the rest weren't?

This is a very non-partisan, collaborative—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Well, I wish that attacks on our critical infrastructure were considered non-partisan, but it doesn't appear that's the case.

I wanted to ask you about something quite interesting that's happening in the United States. Again, I'm approaching this just to see if this is something that's on your radar, and it's a bit out of left field, so to speak.

Please bear with me, but I think it's pertinent—

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Now we're doing baseball metaphors. This is really great.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

That's right, but to be serious for a moment, the director of national intelligence in the United States recently released a report concerning unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP. The report discussed the military sightings of hundreds of these objects that exhibit unusual flight characteristics.

As I'm sure you're aware, on Tuesday the United States Congress held its first congressional hearing on this in about 50 years. During that U.S. congressional hearing, U.S. military officials said that the UAP represent a national security risk, particularly with sightings around nuclear plants.

Again, on the face of this, certainly for me, it seems like a bit of a fringe area that is dominated by conspiracy theories, but given that the United States has recently taken this very seriously—the director of national intelligence is talking about this—do you feel that your government should be taking this as seriously as the American government?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I saw reports similar to the ones you're referring to, and I'm confident that our national security apparatus looks at all manner of threats to our national security.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Have you had any briefings about UAP?