Public Safety Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dagher. I'm sorry, the time is up.

[Fady Dagher]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Chiang, who will have six minutes to pose his questions.

Sir, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for participating in our event today.

I want to direct my question to Staff Sergeant Michael Rowe of the VPD. With regard to your presentation about gang violence and gang crimes in Vancouver, what [Technical difficulty—Editor] your law enforcement agency to address the domestic movement of illegal firearms?

[S/Sgt Michael Rowe]

Thank you for the question, sir.

Being in the Lower Mainland, we have a lot of municipalities that are very close to each other, bordering on each other. We have a number of information-sharing initiatives, such as weekly, biweekly and monthly conference calls with all of the police forces in the region that are responsible for dealing with firearms trafficking, firearms offences and gang violence and working on the Lower Mainland gang conflict.

We share our information effectively through our various investigative and reporting systems, and we also work very closely with our provincial and federal partners to identify opportunities to work together to combat gun trafficking and illegal firearms manufacturing.

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

Thank you so much.

Earlier you mentioned the gun barrels being shipped across the border and not requiring licences. Would you have a suggestion of a possible way to stop these shipments, since they don't require licences?

[S/Sgt Michael Rowe]

Yes, sir. I'd respectfully like to submit that a potential solution would be to bring in legislative remedies to regulate the possession, sale and importation of firearms parts such as barrels, slides and trigger assemblies. This type of legislation would give us, the police, the necessary tools to be able to seize these items, get active enforcement action and more effectively target the manufacturing of privately made firearms.

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

Thank you so much.

What do you think about information sharing between law enforcement agencies? Could that be improved to address gun and gang violence across the major cities in Canada?

[S/Sgt Michael Rowe]

Yes, sir. Information is one of our key tools in conducting any type of successful law enforcement action, so the more information sharing we can engage in, the better. I do believe we work very effectively with our partners on a variety of different levels. I know our RCMP partners at the national weapons enforcement support team, NWEST, do a very good job of coordinating the various municipal agencies.

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

Thank you so much.

My next question is for Chief Inspector Dubé.

How do you think your service does in terms of information sharing between law enforcement agencies? Does it address the gun and gang violence within Canada, and could it be improved?

[Benoît Dubé]

That's for sure. I'm really proud of what we're doing in the province of Quebec with our partners. We are embedded with 26 municipalities like Longueuil, Laval and Montreal, sharing all the intelligence, and also with the Americans and with the RCMP.

As I was saying, the intel leading policing is really there to be more effective. The sharing is going really well all around the country with all the communities we have. We're really proud of what we have been doing in Quebec for the last couple of years.

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

Thank you so much, Inspector.

I want to ask about the successes your police service has had in relation to gang violence. What can other police services take away from what you're doing in the province of Quebec in terms of preventing gang violence?

[Benoît Dubé]

The strategy is repression on possession and distribution, being embedded with all the law enforcement, and also the prevention that Director Dagher was talking about, preventing kids from joining.

As I said, we're not attacking just the top. We're attacking from bottom to top, applying pressure every day to seize guns. Also, there's the prevention that we're doing. For us, a three-level strategy is really working.

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

That's excellent.

Have you seen any positive outcome of your three-level strategy?

[Benoît Dubé]

Yes, we seize a lot. If we see the [Technical difficulty—Editor] an arrest, more than 150 gun seizures. With that, we also seize drugs and 3-D impressions, and we put on that pressure.

With that three-level strategy, we're doing everything we can. We're seeing results. If we compare the last three months since Operation Centaur was put in place, we're seeing those results. We're talking about three months. I think next year, again, we'll be doing better than we're doing now.

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

That's great.

Thank you for your answers and co-operation.

Mr. Chair, those are my questions for our witnesses today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you. You are perfectly on time, Mr. Chiang. Congratulations.

I would now like to turn the floor over to Ms. Michaud.

You have six minutes to pose your questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today. We're grateful to them for doing so. Thanks in particular to Mr. Dubé for accepting our invitation.

Mr. Dubé, I'd appreciate some more details on the outcomes and successes of Operation Centaur.

First, I want to mention that the other day we heard from representatives of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service and the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, who told us about the specific situation in their territory, which has a unique geography. That territory spans parts of Ontario, Quebec and the United States and thus involves several police forces.

My impression is that Operation Centaur is a space for cooperation among various police forces. However, there are problems, and traffickers take advantage of the fact that different authorities are involved. We understand there may not be enough cooperation or sharing of intelligence and resources on the ground to put a stop to firearms trafficking. Some 500 weapons can pass through the area every week, but authorities are unable to halt the traffic.

I'd like to hear your comments on that, Mr. Dubé.

[Benoît Dubé]

I'm in constant communication with Chief Dulude. The situation's complex, of course, as a result of the borders. We've been sending additional resources to Chief Dulude for some time now to help gather intelligence and determine better ways to work together.

The Centaur squad has helped us spread out our staffs, of which we now have two. The squad has helped us in our efforts to have a greater impact in Akwesasne. However, it shouldn't be forgotten that Akwesasne isn't the only territory and that we also have to work on other borders. We need to put our energy into Akwesasne, but we have to do the same elsewhere as well.

We're optimizing the cooperation you referred to. It's not that it wasn't already good, but we have to optimize it and find solutions to improve weapons seizures. We need to ensure we seize weapons before they turn up on the street. We have to attack the importing component. We also have to do that in cooperation with our Ontarian and American partners. We meet with them constantly to optimize our procedures.

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

Specifically with regard to borders and resources, representatives of certain organizations, particularly CBSA, tell us that the Canada‑U.S. border is so long it would be impossible to post officers all along it 24 hours a day.

People from the CBSA union, on the other hand, tell us that their results would be better if they had more resources and an expanded mandate, and if their officers could patrol between border posts. The Akwesasne representatives have told us more or less the same thing, that the situation would improve if they had more resources on the ground.

What's your opinion on that?

Could we provide them with more resources? Should we invest more money and deploy more human resources?

[Benoît Dubé]

It would be hard for me to express an opinion on the human resources needs of CBSA and Akwesasne. However, I can tell you that intelligence is critical. The more intelligence we have, the greater our impact. Of course, when you have more resources, you can gather more intelligence. Having said that, I won't venture any further because I don't know enough about the resources those people have.

Whatever the case may be, you have to acquire more intelligence and attack the subjects, the perpetrators, in order to have an impact on the ground and seize those weapons. You have to cut the supply. You know how the situation looks when supply exceeds demand.

In short, I'd say intelligence is the key to all that.

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

On that point, you discussed your cooperation with Chief Dulude. Is the intelligence-sharing situation the same with the United States, with the New York police, for example?

Could your cooperation with them be better? Would they raise a red flag if they knew people were prowling along the border?

[Benoît Dubé]

We've really established a relationship with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in recent months. We've deployed Sûreté du Québec resources to their squads to gather intelligence. We've been building that relationship for years, but we've been putting more energy into it in recent months to attack the firearms problem more effectively.

We aren't in the same position with the state police. I'm working on that with Chief Dulude and the Ontario Provincial Police to come up with better solutions.

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

Please tell us about the squads that have been established in the past few years. There was the one that was created at SPVM in 2017 to combat violent crimes, the SPVM's ELTA anti-firearms squad in 2020, SQ's gangs and guns squad, also in 2020, and the joint EILTA squad in 2021, which, according to some sources, wasn't activated. The Centaur squad was launched in 2021.

Why do you think the Centaur squad will achieve better results than the other previously established squads?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Sir, if you could do all of that in 20 seconds, that would be great. Thank you.