Public Safety Committee on Feb. 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Good morning, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 58 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 November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Friday, February 3, 2023, the committee is resuming its study of the effects of withdrawn amendments G-4 and G-46 to Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms).

Before we proceed, I would like to remind all members of the confidentiality of our working documents, such as notices of motions, briefing notes, working plans and witness lists. According to the rules of the House of Commons, a breach of the confidentiality of our proceedings could be considered a breach of parliamentary privilege by the committee. I thank everyone for their co-operation.

Before we go to our witness panels, we will segue into some other business as we wait for some technical difficulties to be ironed out.

We have undertaken a report, which we collectively call “the Russia study”. We have examined it, and I believe we're ready to approve it. There are five questions for the committee to respond to.

I will ask the committee whether the draft report, as amended, shall be adopted.

(Motion agreed to)

Shall the report be entitled “Strengthening Canada's Security Posture in Relation to Russia”?

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

I believe that the title is “Up to the Task: Strengthening Canada's Security Posture in Relation to Russia”. I'm not sure what that translates to in French. I just wanted to compare.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Shall the report be entitled “Up to the Task: Strengthening Canada's Security Posture in Relation to Russia”?

(Motion agreed to)

Shall the chair, clerk and analysts be authorized to make such grammatical and editorial changes as may be necessary without changing the substance of the report?

(Motion agreed to)

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, shall the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report?

(Motion agreed to)

Shall dissenting or supplementary opinions be in Calibri 12-point font, left aligned and single spaced, and be submitted electronically, in both official languages, to the clerk of the committee not later than 4 p.m. today?

I believe there is one supplementary report, and it's already been submitted.

(Motion agreed to)

Shall the chair present the report to the House?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you all for all the great work on the committee.

I thank the analysts for all of their enormous work on the committee as well.

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

May I speak?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes, please go ahead.

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

Thank you very much

I want to thank SECU committee members, who have worked really hard on this. I know there's a lot that we agree on and a lot that we disagree on, but I think we collectively agree on this very important study. It speaks to the committee's ability to come together and collaborate on issues we're unequivocally united on, and that's certainly putting on a strong front in the face of Russian aggression and showing solidarity with our Ukrainian friends and allies. I'm very proud of the committee for coming together on this.

Also, I'd like to thank the analysts for their excellent work. It's a wonderful read, actually. All of those little changes we talked about a few days ago were implemented perfectly, as were the things that needed to be further explained. The industry jargon was explained really well in the last edits you did. It's really commendable work. You should be very proud of this. Thank you very much for your hard work.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you all, and thank you once again to the analysts, without whom we'd be dead.

We have Madam Damoff, please.

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

That's an understatement.

I have something else to deal with very quickly, but before I move on to that, I just want to give a thank you to MP Dancho for bringing this study forward and for her leadership on it. It really is a good study, and we wouldn't have done it without her leadership.

I want to propose that the committee visit the RCMP gun vault here in Ottawa. If members agree, we could use committee time. I'll leave that up to the clerk and to you, Chair, to figure out the best date to do it before we get back to clause-by-clause. I'm hoping there's committee agreement for us to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you. I'll take that as a motion moved.

Are we all in favour?

Go ahead, Ms. Dancho.

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

I certainly support committee excursions. I don't think we've done any in the year and a half that I've been on this committee. I think seeing firearms first-hand and getting that knowledge would be important, and I think visiting the gun vault would add to that.

I support the motion, but I'm not sure what the timing would look like. If we include today, we have three consultation meetings. Then I would assume we're going back to clause-by-clause. Would that mean four more meetings and then clause-by-clause? Would we use existing committee time to do that excursion? How would that work?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think we would take extra time to do that excursion and fit it in wherever it is reasonable to do so.

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

That may be short timing, then, because if we end our consultations on a Friday, our next meeting is the following Tuesday. Monday I'm unavailable in the evening. I'm not wanting to put us in a box, but we are supportive of going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

My concept of this was that we would take, say, a Tuesday meeting slot and do this. These facilities are nearby. Hopefully we can arrange transport through the House if we approve it as a committee, and maybe the House can approve lunch, but I'm making no commitments.

We have Ms. Damoff, please.

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

It could be a $10 Uber ride, so we can all share an Uber to get there.

Also, we come back the week of the 20th, and we still have one hour with the minister. In my head, I was thinking that on the 21st we could go and then have the minister on the 24th, but I don't want to box us in on that. We can leave it to the chair and clerk to figure that out. If the House can't provide transportation, I think it's a pretty short trip to get there.

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

I suppose our caveat is that we use a committee time slot to do it. I think we're all available at that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm led to understand that excursions of this kind while the House is sitting are kind of problematic, and the House may or may not approve it, but I think we should ask.

I'm going to propose the motion that I believe Ms. Damoff has offered:

That, in relation to the study of the effects of the withdrawn amendments (G-4 and G-46) to Bill C-21, the committee visit a Royal Canadian Mounted Police's facilities located in the National Capital Region and that the Clerk of the committee, in consultation with the Chair, prepare a draft budget for consideration by the committee on March 7.

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

That sounds just like what I said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Exactly. That's what I heard.

Is everyone in agreement with this?

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

I haven't seen the motion, but it sounds fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'll share it with you.

I keep hurrying to the vote and forgetting the debate.

Ms. Michaud, you can speak if you wish.

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

No thank you. That's good of you, Mr. Chair, but I agree with the proposed wording.

On the other hand, I'm unsure as to whether a date had been set.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry, but I missed everything you said.

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

I'm assuming you're giving me the floor to ask whether I had any questions.

Has a date already been set? I agree that it's a very good idea. Was it for March 7?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I mentioned March 7 for signing off on a budget. Otherwise, there is no specific date in the motion, the idea being that we would schedule in whatever works for the schedule and whatever works with the House.

Is there any further discussion? I see none. Are all in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you all.

Now we can proceed to our business. I thank our witness for hanging in there with us.

We are short a witness. Maybe the clerk could fill us in on the situation here.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Simon Larouche]

Ms. Wendy Cukier has an issue with connecting right now. I'm waiting to hear from her. Mr. Langlois can deliver his testimony this morning, but apparently the sound is not perfect. I may get a sign from the interpretation service that we have an issue, but I think we can go ahead with Mr. Langlois.