Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I recognize that a licence is required. My question was just whether the RCMP is required to validate the licence.

[Kellie Paquette]

Yes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

So you're required to validate the licence. Are there any other things that you do before you pass on the number to the seller, or is it just strictly a licence verification?

[Kellie Paquette]

It's a licence verification.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I want to switch gears a bit, and again I want to direct this to the RCMP. We know that people are not born criminals and we've talked a lot about enforcement, but we haven't talked a lot about the prevention piece. We're going to hear from other organizations that are doing a lot of the work on that. As one of them said to me, if there are no young men joining gangs, there are no gangs.

We're also going to hear from a woman who was a gun runner in one of the gangs. You mentioned human trafficking and we've talked about drugs, but are you seeing younger people being drawn into gangs? We're seeing 13-year-olds being used in gang and also women, so basically some of the most vulnerable people are being drawn into gangs. I'm just wondering if you could comment on that a little.

[D/Commr Stephen White]

My first comment would be I think there have always been vulnerable people being drawn into the gang lifestyle. I don't have specific stats with regard to ages or gender, and I'm sure it varies across the country.

What I would say, and it's been alluded to here today, is there is no one-size-fits-all approach to addressing the gun violence and gangs that we've been talking about. Whether it be lower-level street gangs or more sophisticated organized crime groups, it does require a whole-of-society approach, and it's going to start with education and prevention early on to ensure that we address the root causes that lead people to join gangs in the first place. Then it's all about, as well, having exit strategies for people in those lifestyles to lead them toward a healthier lifestyle. With that, as well, does go a very robust law enforcement role as well.

Mr. Sauvé talked about it earlier—the Surrey gang prevention initiative—and I think that is a perfect example of a lot of the things we need to be doing. Their gang intervention and exiting team consists of police officers and civilian case managers who provide outreach, safety, planning and resources in a non-judgmental manner to people who have been and are involved in gang activity. They provide counselling, life coaching, education, employment programming and mental health supports if they're required.

In the few years that program has been in existence I think they've had 23 individuals who have successfully exited the gang lifestyle. It's a good start for that program and I see a lot more opportunities for similar initiatives across the country.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Sauvé, I have only 45 seconds left, but perhaps you could comment a little bit on that program. My sense is that the resources across the country to expand that program are sorely lacking for people who want to exit gangs. Could you comment on that, just briefly?

[Brian Sauvé]

I would agree with you. Resources are sorely lacking. It's really part of a broader discussion. We're talking here about Canada's social safety network, with the police being the last first responders standing. We should be having a discussion on it. How big a social safety network do we want? Who's going to fund that? How are we going to ensure that those funds are appropriately placed and that there's an actual success program in place? That's where Surrey's end gang life program is successful. They measure it.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

We now move into the next round of questions.

A five-minute slot is to be led off by Ms. Dancho.

The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sauvé, I'd like to ask you some questions on a few things you mentioned. You touched on in your opening remarks, and just a few minutes ago, the fact that police resources are very strapped. You're concerned that a few of the measures put forth by the government will further strap your already limited police resources. Of course, you represent 20,000 RCMP officers.

Could you shed a little bit more light on the impact to our already strapped RCMP officers regarding the buyback proposal and the potential provincial handgun ban? What impact will that have on police ability to do their jobs and combat gang violence, drug smuggling, gun smuggling and the like?

[Brian Sauvé]

Thank you for the question. It's a really good one. I don't think you would speak to any police association leader out there today who would talk about having adequate resources, whether it would be Vancouver, Calgary or the OPP. Recently, the OPP published a report that said they were a thousand officers short. So it's not unique to the RCMP. I have to make that very, very clear here.

Part of it has to do with improving the lustre of a career in policing and public safety, whether it's from the RCMP or any municipal police jurisdiction. When I speak about adding resources, a lot of it has to do with looking at the current state of affairs in the RCMP. If you look at our budget submissions—the third one is upcoming—COVID has had an impact on our recruitment and our graduation of recruits. We graduated only 16 troops in the fiscal year of 2020-21. We were supposed to graduate 40. A lot of it is because of shutting down for COVID and then a staged reopening of the depot in Regina. That has led to almost a 1,200-member deficit across Canada. When you talk about 20,000 police officers in our bargaining unit, we're talking about 5% right there. We're not talking about hard vacancies or soft vacancies for family-related leave or daily injuries.

Then add in the buyback program: Who's going to go and pick up those guns after they've been sold back to the government? It's going to be your police of jurisdiction. Do we have the resources to increase that mandate and do that? I don't think we do. So it's a challenge.

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

Understood.

You also briefly mentioned in your opening remarks your third pillar, I think, specifically about gang violence and criminality as the main causes of gun violence in Canada. You mentioned that sentencing will help address gang and gun violence. Can you elaborate on what you meant?

[Brian Sauvé]

Well, I think strong sentencing, which goes to challenges that we have within Canada's legal system, and the appearance, if you will, of a revolving door.... Whether that comes from a lack of pretrial custody beds, or whether that comes from a lack of Crown counsels being able to do efficient JJP hearings, or whether that comes from a lack of provincial or Federal Court judges, I don't know, but the appearance to a lot of people who reach out to us and speak to our members is that there is a bit of a revolving door.

So are we talking about pretrial custody or are we talking about mandatory minimum sentencing at the end? The discretion for provincial court judges or appellate court judges to be able impose those is a deterrent, but to commit a crime on a Friday and be out on a Saturday morning to commit the same crime Saturday afternoon—that, I think, is what the Canadian public is seeing. How do we, in part, change within that system?

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

Recently, the Liberal government brought forward Bill C-5, which addresses, as you mentioned, mandatory minimum sentences. For those who don't know what that means, a mandatory minimum means that if you commit X crime you go to jail for a minimum of x amount of years or days or months. That's what a mandatory minimum sentence is, from my understanding.

So you're saying that you're already right now, without this Bill C-5, which will eliminate mandatory minimum prison time for extortion with a firearm, robbery with a firearm, firing a firearm that tends to injure someone.... It eliminates mandatory minimums for those crimes. You're saying that even without the elimination of those mandatory minimums with gun crimes, the RCMP are seeing now a revolving door; violent crime is committed Friday, like you said, and they're back out on the street committing crimes two days later.

[Brian Sauvé]

I think that if you were to ask the average Canadian, as we are hearing a lot in our tours in Alberta, looking at the provincial policing services, a lot of Albertans would say with respect to rural crime that we need to fix our legal system, however that looks, versus talking about different areas.

Part of that legal system may be a charge diversion. It may be early intervention. It might be more restorative justice. It might be more healing circles. It might be more spaces in elementary schools and high schools, and more career and vocational training. All of this is part of that discussion about the big Canadian social safety network versus relying on the police to solve the problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Sauvé.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Zuberi, who will have five minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Again, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. We've been running for two and a half hours. We haven't yet had a bathroom break, but we only have half an hour left to go.

I want to touch base with the RCMP. Can you please elaborate on whether there are any gaps in the legislation that you see right now when it comes to laying charges against gangs?

Would you like to speak to that point?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

I guess my perspective, in terms of laying charges, is that we have a full slate of offences related to firearms in terms of street gangs and organized crime. We have organized crime offences that can apply equally to both gangs and organized crime groups.

We have a fairly comprehensive suite of offences that are available to us.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

How about when it comes to prevention? Would you like to speak to that point too?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

Yes. In terms of prevention, as I mentioned earlier, in my last intervention, we need a lot of education, a lot of awareness, a lot of working with community groups and back to the CFSEU program that they are leading. They're working with a lot of community groups both to try to prevent individuals from joining gangs and, if they have joined gangs, to provide very robust and comprehensive exit strategies and work very closely with those individuals to help them exit the gang lifestyle.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I would say that's extremely important. It's not just a case of using a hard stick but also getting pathways so that people can exit lifestyles that are not productive in society.

[D/Commr Stephen White]

It's extremely important.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

On that point, when it comes to mandatory minimums, how do they impact or potentially not impact, or are not helpful when it comes to dealing with the issues we're talking about, gun violence and illegal arms trafficking?

[D/Commr Stephen White]

What I would say on that, in terms of a comprehensive criminal justice system, whether it's dealing with firearms, organized crime or gangs, law enforcement.... Enforcing laws is a very big part of that, but equally big is the full continuum of Canada's justice system. We, as law enforcement, have to have confidence that the sentencing decisions rest appropriately with our courts and judicial officials.