Public Safety Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to meeting number 43 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

We will start by acknowledging that we are meeting on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. I'd like to advise everyone that we have a hard stop at 5:30.

Pursuant to the Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of allegations of political interference in the 2020 Nova Scotia mass murder investigation.

With us today on the panel, we have the Honourable Bill Blair, president of the King's Privy Council and Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Mr. Shawn Tupper, deputy minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Welcome, gentlemen. You have up to five minutes for opening remarks.

Please, go ahead.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee for their invitation to once again appear before this committee on this matter.

Let me begin by once again acknowledging the profound tragedy at the heart of this discussion. The events of April 18 and 19, 2020, were the worst mass shooting in Canada's recent history. Twenty-two people lost their lives, and their families and loved ones continue to mourn them. This senseless act of violence continues to reverberate throughout Nova Scotia and across Canada. We cannot begin to fathom the grief and the loss caused by this event.

On the matter before this committee today, I will begin by repeating part of my opening remarks from when I last appeared on this issue in July. At no point, Mr. Chair, did I direct the RCMP in any operational matter, including on public communications. I did not ask them to release any specific information, nor did I receive a promise from them to do so. As you will find in all of my public statements from that time, I confirmed that identifying the weapons used was a decision wholly within the purview of the RCMP.

My testimony on this point from July 25 continues to stand. The independence of police operations is a principle that I have not only respected but also vigorously defended over my nearly four decades in law enforcement and throughout my subsequent career as a federal member of Parliament and minister.

I would not and I have not ever directed police to release information pertaining to an investigation, nor did I do so in this case. I do understand the recording of a call between the commissioner and her subordinates has been identified by the RCMP and subsequently released by the Mass Casualty Commission. Neither I nor my office were participants on this call. My conversations with the RCMP during that period, and generally throughout my time as Minister of Public Safety, were with the commissioner directly.

I understand that Commissioner Lucki will be appearing in the second hour of today's meeting and she will be far better placed to speak to specific details of what occurred between her and her subordinates.

The order in council that was announced in May 2020 had been the result of many, many months of work. I was in fact leading consultations across Canada alongside my former colleague, Minister Goodale, on the question of assault-style firearms and handguns as early as October 2018. As a government, we first signalled our commitment to get assault-style weapons off our streets in the 2015 Speech from the Throne. Work on the OIC began almost immediately after I became the Minister of Public Safety, as it was one of the priorities given to me in my mandate letter from the Prime Minister.

To put these regulations together, we needed to invest the time to get it right, and so this work was undertaken throughout the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2020. Through this OIC, Mr. Chair, we banned 1,500 plus of some of the most dangerous weapons that were at that time still legal in Canada. These are weapons that were designed to kill people and to do so efficiently. Weapons that were captured in the OIC were used in the polytechnique massacre, in the Fredericton shooting of two police officers, in Moncton, in Mayerthorpe and at the Quebec City mosque. The AR-15 alone has been used in some of the most deadly mass casualty events in the United States within the last decade, including most profoundly and concerningly the horrific murders of little kids at Sandy Hook.

Mr. Chair, gun violence is a complex problem and combatting it requires complex solutions. The order in council was a significant and positive step forward for the safety of Canadians, but that work, as you know, is not done. Just over a week ago, the Prime Minister announced a freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns. I also understand that your committee is currently examining legislation from my colleague, Mr. Mendicino, on this very issue in Bill C-21.

Mr. Chair, we continue with this work as a government because we know that effective gun control regulations can save lives. Our first priority has been and will always be to ensure the safety of all Canadians.

I thank the committee for their attention. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Minister.

We will start our rounds of questions right now with Ms. Dancho.

Please go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here.

I think you know what I'm going to ask you, Minister, so let's just get right to it, shall we?

In the audio recording, the commissioner said that she “flew it up the flagpole” because it was a request from the minister's office: “I shared with the minister that in fact it was going to be in the news release”.

Now, you directly refuted this in committee. How do you explain that?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Dancho.

I explain it with fact—just the truth. The reality is that in all of my conversations with the commissioner, at no time did I direct her, ask her or even suggest that she release that information. At no time did the commissioner promise me that she was going to do it.

I think you're referring to a conversation that the commissioner had with her subordinates, of which I was not a party. I can't and won't speculate on what was going on in that conversation.

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

So you feel that the commissioner—

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I can simply advise you that the fact is—

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

—was not telling the truth.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

—that I never directed her in that way.

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

Okay.

She also said further along that, yet again, “the minister on the simplest of requests”.... She's saying this word “request” several times. She also said that she got confirmation, that she confirmed to your office. You're saying that did not occur. She did not confirm to you or anyone in your office that this weapons info would be released. Is that correct?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

That information was never shared with me. I can say that with absolute certainty, because I recall very vividly that....

I would remind you, Ms. Dancho, that on April 25 and again on May 1—

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

Thank you—

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

—when asked about the guns that were used in that offence, I made it very clear, very publicly in my response to the media—

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

Thank you, Minister.

She said at committee as well—

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

—that it was the sole responsibility of the RCMP to determine when and if that info should be released.

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

I asked her specifically if “the Minister of Public Safety at the time, Bill Blair, specifically asked you if weapons used during the attack would be mentioned in the press conference of April 28”. She said yes.

I asked her, “So you confirmed to Minister Blair, when he asked you if the weapons information would be released in that press conference, that, yes, it would be. Correct?” She said yes to that question.

Is Commissioner Lucki not telling the truth, Minister?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I think Commissioner Lucki has told the truth. In fact, I would remind you that when she came before this committee, she was explicit and clear that at no time did she receive any direction from me, nor was there any interference with government with the RCMP's decision to release that information—

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

I'm not asking about direction, Minister. I'm asking specifically about what Commissioner Lucki said.

At the Mass Casualty Commission, she also said, “I got asked if the media event would include the details of the guns”, to which Rachel Young, the Crown prosecutor, asked, “Who were you asked by?” She said she was asked by “the Chief of Staff of the Minister”.

Were you aware that the chief of staff made this request of Commissioner Lucki?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I was not aware of that. Frankly, it was not something that I was at all concerned with. I believed then as I believe now that it was entirely the purview of the RCMP to determine if and when that information could be released.

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

Are you saying, Minister, that your chief of staff acted solely on her own in making this request?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

My understanding subsequently was that the commissioner had indicated to both my chief of staff and the deputy minister that she had made a decision to release that information, and that apparently it wasn't subsequently released.

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

So you were not familiar...that your chief of staff made this request to the commissioner. Just to be clear, you were not aware that your chief of staff made the request to the commissioner to release the gun information at the press conference.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Ms. Dancho, I believe that's not correct. I do not believe that my chief of staff asked the commissioner to release that information. In fact, that contradicts your assertion...contradicts the statement by the commissioner, who's made it very clear that no one in government—

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

Minister, it's not my assertion—

Hon. Bill Blair —neither me nor anyone in government, asked her to do that.

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

It is not my assertion, Minister. It's the words of the commissioner, Commissioner Lucki.