Public Safety Committee on May 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, everyone.

That concludes this portion of the meeting with the minister. We're a bit over on his time, and I appreciate the minister's patience and forbearance.

With that, we will suspend and bring in the next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I now call this meeting back to order.

Before we carry on with our officials, I want to point out that we need a bit of an adjustment to our budget on Bill C-21.

I believe that all members have received a copy of the supplementary budget. I'm wondering if it is the will of the committee to pass the supplementary budget at this time. Do we have agreement on that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That's done. Thank you.

Okay, having paid for our lunch, I'd like now to welcome the additional officials who have joined us.

From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Natasha Alimohamed, director general, recourse directorate; and Philippe Tremblay, acting director, public complaints and external review division. From the RCMP, we have Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin, specialized policing services; and Alfredo Bangloy, assistant commissioner and professional responsibility officer.

I'll now open the floor to questions.

We have a hard stop at six, so we will probably not get more than one full round.

Mr. Shipley, please go ahead. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'll open up with my first question.

Of the complaints that the CRCC receives, 95% to 98% are currently turned over to the RCMP for investigation. According to the NPF, the process of investigating CRCC complaints takes approximately 60,000 hours a year away from RCMP core duties, and they take issue with the fact that the police are essentially investigating themselves.

Can you tell this committee whether the new PCRC will be truly independent and what actions you will take to stop reducing the number of frontline resources available to the RCMP?

I don't know who exactly wants to take that.

[Randall Koops, Director General, International Border Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

The PCRC will be fully independent, in that it alone will decide what to investigate. It has its own rules of evidence.

The PCRC, as under the current regime of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, would ordinarily give the right of first instance of investigation to the RCMP or the CBSA. Experience shows that the vast majority of complaints can be resolved at that stage, with the initial investigation by the agency itself.

When the complainant is not satisfied with the results from that agency, it can turn to the commission. The commission can decide to conduct a review, so it preserves the status quo in the case of the RCMP, and in the case of CBSA it creates a parallel arrangement.

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

Thank you for that.

Perhaps I could have Deputy Larkin comment.

I was a bit shocked when I had a meeting recently with your association, the NPF. I heard about the amount of time that's being taken away from frontline services, especially in some small communities, where perhaps they don't have all that many officers to start with.

Could you comment on that, and tell me if that number's accurate and how you see that being cured going forward?

[Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin, Deputy Commissioner, Specialized Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thanks very much.

On a five-year average, about 2,385 complaints come in. As my colleague, Mr. Koops, alluded to, there's a right of first refusal.

I'll give you some insight into one of the important pieces. We believe it's managing the level of complaint. Out of that average, about 13% are actually withdrawn through initial dialogue and/or discussion. Through informal resolution, about 35% of those complaints are addressed. From a larger perspective it's satisfying service levels and the individual's concern about the action of the RCMP member. We still believe that there's a uniqueness whereby if you can informally resolve the complaint and bring it to a satisfaction level, then there's some good in that outcome.

We recognize the impact on our level of service when we look at the demand on the level of the RCMP across our country. It is significant and continues to grow based on our current challenges. However, again, we are completing files in a relatively quick time.

My colleague, Assistant Commissioner Alfredo Bangloy, may provide further information that would assist you in your inquiry.

[Alfredo Bangloy, Assistant Commissioner and Professional Responsibility Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you.

There's not really much further information that I can provide, other than this has been something that we have been doing for quite a number of years. We work as best we can with the resources we're given. There are always resourcing challenges. We definitely are in a recruiting crunch right now. We work as best we can with the resources we have.

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

I had a whole list of comments here.

My colleague, Ms. Dancho, mentioned this earlier, to the minister. I'm going to take the opportunity now. It has been a rough couple of years for policing, and I know across the country recruiting is a problem.

Assistant Commissioner Bangloy, are you finding that's improving at all? Are you having problems fulfilling not just the growth, but the openings that are happening from retirements or people moving on from the career?

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

Thank you for the concern.

Certainly, across the nation—not just within the RCMP—all police services have been facing a challenging time when we look at our current climate. In particular, the loss through recent on-duty deaths magnifies that. In short, recruitment in policing is not simply a national issue, it's a global issue. Through the experience of working with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, I can tell you that globally all police units are having a similar discussion.

Commissioner Duheme is very committed to recruitment and working with all of our stakeholders. We are actually proactively right now launching a significant review and modernization of our recruitment process. Many of those processes are in place.

We are working, for example, with the National Police Federation on how we enhance trust and confidence. One of those key pieces is in public complaint processes. Ensuring that people are satisfied with the institution of policing is also a key pillar. When we get these types of processes correct, we also build trust and confidence.

We believe that we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel around recruitment. We believe there are opportunities to engage all Canadians. We've made changes to permanent residence. We've made changes to diversifying our workforce. We see a number of strategies. We have seen a slow uptick in recruiting processes. However, this year we're likely to move about 800 individuals through RCMP Depot. That, again, will meet existing standards.

When we look at the demographics of our workforce, we're seeing attrition and enhanced retirements. There are challenges for the organization.

Recruitment is one of the key pillars for Commissioner Duheme. In fact, right now it's the number one priority to fill vacancies across our country and deal with releasability and mobility issues across.... We are a national police service and in fact a global police service where we have numbers deployed. It is a cause for concern, but I would say that all police leaders share in that cause for concern, not just the RCMP.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

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

I just want to say thank you, and it's good news that it's at least looking like it's going in the right direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Ms. Damoff, please.

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

Thank you all for being here. It's good news to have this bill in front of us. Between iterations of the bill, a number of changes have been made to reflect recommendations that came from the chairperson and from other organizations. Good work getting this to us.

I think the committee is prepared to work hard to get this done as quickly as we can.

I have a couple of questions.

One is about time frames. The RCMP Act has a one-year limitation period for discipline. If someone comes forward with a complaint to the new review commission and, at the end of the day, a disciplinary process is recommended, that whole one-year period may have ended, given that it can take a while before someone comes forward with a complaint.

How do you ensure that those recommendations that are coming from the commission will be reflected in action that's taken by the RCMP? By the time it's instigated, investigated and sent back, that one-year period mandated in the RCMP Act may have expired.

[Alfredo Bangloy]

Mr. Chair, that is correct. There is a one-year period in which to initiate discipline. That is one year from the time the RCMP became aware of the identity of the member and the actions alleged.

However, there are provisions within the RCMP to obtain an extension to that. This happens fairly frequently. There has to be some rationale. Often it's because of a statutory investigation that's occurring. For example, the Alberta serious incident response team might be conducting an investigation and they might be taking some time. At the conclusion of that, if warranted, we can obtain an extension to initiate conduct proceedings.

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

What if the time is completely over, or what if the RCMP were aware of the incident and felt that discipline wasn't required, but the commission says that it thinks discipline is required? How do we ensure that action can be taken by the RCMP in that case?

Do you follow the question?

[Alfredo Bangloy]

Yes.

There is an ability to get a retroactive extension. That occurred in one instance. It was under a section 9 review of the conduct CSOs, where a board hearing took place and the reviewer thought the penalty was inappropriate and wanted to initiate another discipline proceeding. We sought an extension and obtained one for that. That went right up to the federal court and was upheld.

There are provisions for that. However, as far as the recommendations for discipline are concerned, I would imagine it wouldn't happen that often, because—

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

No, I'm sure it wouldn't. I just want to ensure that you're not getting something from the commission that recommends discipline.... I think that might have happened with the Bastarache report, where the time frame was so far gone that there was no ability to have discipline or charges laid.

I'm going to move on to something else.

What is the RCMP service standard for investigating and finalizing public complaints, and how often do you meet those standards?

[Alfredo Bangloy]

We have a service standard of 90 days to complete a public complaint. Unfortunately, we are meeting that standard only about 54% of the time.

We've been working towards improving that with regular communication with our colleagues in the divisions and identifying this as an issue. Last year, we were able to reduce the outstanding complaints by 45%.

We're continuing to work to improve our service standard. A public complaints process is important for ensuring public trust and confidence. We want to have timely investigations.

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

Thank you.

I read an article recently about a woman—a domestic violence survivor in the Okanagan—who experienced problems with an RCMP officer when her door was knocked down. She was not able to file a complaint because it was a reservist—someone who is not employed by the RCMP.

Is there something we should be doing to fix that in the bill, so that individuals who are contracted by the RCMP fall within this?

I have to be honest: I heard an answer earlier from the minister saying that CBSA contractors are covered, so I'm just wondering why RCMP contractors would not be.

[Randall Koops]

RCMP reservists are not covered, not because of a provision that's in this bill, but because they aren't covered now. The extension of the new regime, and the creation of the PCRC, preserves the status quo. Reservists in the RCMP are not employees; they are not members. They're not public servants, so they're in a different class of employee, if you will, and that class of employee is not subject to the RCMP Act, the code of conduct, or the review process.

A decision to extend that to them would be a much larger discussion and decision about the status of their employment, their terms and conditions of employment, and their status as public servants or not.... That is beyond the scope of the bill.

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

I'm almost out of time.

Is there an ability for someone to file a complaint in that case? Is there a way around that at all?

[Alfredo Bangloy]

Yes. Although they're not covered under the RCMP Act, we still treat a complaint against a reservist as a complaint, and we investigate it. It's just not under the legislated provisions of the RCMP Act. We conduct an investigation. A decision-maker makes a decision as to the alleged conduct. The matter is dealt with in that way, by informing the complainant of the outcome and the findings. Because it doesn't fall under the RCMP Act, the CRCC wouldn't have jurisdiction to review that complaint, but that's how we address these non-RCMP Act complaints.

Reservists are primarily retired RCMP members who work a couple of times a month as and when they wish to work, or as we need them. If there is an issue with reservists, we simply do not use them anymore, or we terminate their employment with us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

Ms. Michaud, you now have the floor for six minutes.