Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

And neither is more present than the other? Is one not leading to the other, or do they both go hand in hand, for lack of a better term?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

It's the nature of the activity if they're both involved, and whether there are gangs or higher levels of organized crime. That's what leads to the use of firearms and the need to acquire illegal handguns or illegal firearms.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Chair, is there still some more time to switch my line of questioning?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 50 seconds.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I have some questions for Mr. Sauvé.

Mr. Sauvé, I read your bio. I know you've been a member for a while, and now you're the president of your association.

I'd like to get some feedback from your members if I could. I'm sure you deal with them quite often. According to your members, what would be the best organizational changes the RCMP could make to better combat illegal gun smuggling?

[Brian Sauvé]

With only about 30 seconds to answer a 30-day question, that's a difficult one.

Honestly, at the moment, I spoke earlier about resources. We have some excellent provincial-municipal partnerships with the CBSA, but resources are the big thing. I think you're hearing that across the board, whether it's from CBSA or if you talk to municipal and provincial police services. Things are falling through the cracks, because our priorities are 911 at the moment versus proactive larger-scale issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

For the last slot in this round of five minutes, I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Chiang.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for participating and giving us your valuable time.

My question is directed to the RCMP. We have heard about the importance of intelligence gathering or intelligence sharing between law enforcement services. Can you elaborate on the importance of this co-operation and provide any ideas you have to increase co-operation between the various departments?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

That's an excellent question.

The answer would be that it's critical. The more intelligence and the better intelligence we can share between law enforcement agencies right across the country, the better understanding we'll have of the criminal landscape and the more insights we'll have of how we counter that.

The one big gap that we have had for a number of years is the national criminal intelligence system. It's a system that is used by every police service and law enforcement agency in the country. That system is built on a platform that is decades old and no longer serves the very effective purposes of exchanging, developing and sharing intelligence between police services.

We just received a significant investment from the government to build and roll out a brand new, modern and robust Canadian automated criminal intelligence information system with very modern and advanced analytics. That is going to significantly advance the volume of intelligence and the nature of that intelligence that we're going to be able to develop and share a lot better than we have been able to in the past.

For me, the development of that system is going to be a bit of a game changer in the sharing of intelligence.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

In the past, I heard that various agencies worked in silos. Based on what you're saying, are those days gone? Is the intelligence sharing more elaborate now and is there more co-operation between agencies?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

It is, but there's always more work to do with regard to continuing to encourage all police services to share as much intelligence as they can, whether it's with regard to organized crime, firearms, or other illicit activities. We need everybody to be sharing in a very robust manner. I'm very hopeful, as I mentioned, that once that new system that is currently being developed does come online, it will facilitate that.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My follow-up question is for the CBSA and Mr. Harris.

You provided information about the cross-border joint task force that was established last year. Could you elaborate some more on the work that has been done? Has it been fruitful? What are you doing with the JTF?

[Scott Harris]

The committee started meeting as of the fall and bringing the partners together, specifically for the purpose of identifying these patterns and threats that you're talking about, namely the intelligence—not only the sharing but also the actual consolidation of some of that intelligence, so that people can have a more sophisticated understanding of what it all means and how we can choose to intervene in it. Some of that work will come together, as I said earlier, in a report later this year, which will bring that together.

To your point, the task force is also a forum for continued collaboration to provide a venue to ensure we don't get lost in collaborations that maybe aren't as effective. We now have a forum to pave over those relationships. Given the complexity of mandates on both sides of the border, it's imperative we have a venue to do so.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

I'm going to ask an open question for whomever would like to answer it.

In regard to gang violence, I've heard there's an increase in it. Is that to do with the economic situation in our country or is it the gang violence that has traditionally been going on and has increased at this time?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

I'll start off.

I think it's always been going on. There have been increases and decreases over the years. It is reflective of a number of things in terms of gangs.

For example, there are recruitment efforts and more relationships and liaisons that you have between street gangs and organized crime groups, especially in the urban areas, as that's where more street gangs tend to evolve, and there's competition between each other, so it depends on the drug markets in those areas as well. A lot of factors come into play in terms of determining the level, scope and intensity of the violence related to street gangs.

One thing I can say—and I think I said it earlier—is that street gangs traditionally tend to be much more overt and in the open with regard to their violent activities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

That completes this round of questions, and we'll move to a fresh one.

The opening floor goes to Ms. Dancho, who will have five minutes.

The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few questions for the CBSA.

Mr. Harris, you said in your opening remarks—and if you could just verify the numbers—that it's $51.5 million over five years and an additional $7 million in addition to that over that period as well, specifically for gun smuggling, so it's $60 million for gun smuggling over five years. Is that about right?

[Scott Harris]

Yes, it was $51.5 million over the first five years, and then $7.5 million ongoing, so that will be money that continues into the future.

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

Okay. It's a little bit of a boost plus a five-year spread-out. Got it.

[Scott Harris]

That's right.

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

That's specifically for the task of combatting gun smuggling, correct?

[Scott Harris]

Yes, guns and gang violence.

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

That's right.

[Scott Harris]

I would add that we also had a recent announcement in budget 2021 of a five-year investment of $38.5 million, with an ongoing amount of over $6 million as well. That will supplement those efforts as well.

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

Okay. It's just under $100 million, not $90 million, all things considered, over about five years additionally.