Public Safety Committee on June 13th, 2023

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

I think it would be a mistake to think about this as additive. The interactions that CBSA has with the public are qualitatively different and are quantitatively different from that of the RCMP. Also, the CBSA has a very different training regimen. It is, I would say, much more robust than what the RCMP does at depot.

Even in most cases when there is, for instance, an arrest to be carried out, CBSA will call in the RCMP to carry out that arrest. CBSA will usually engage only in the detention piece, so I think you won't see the types of extremely resource-intensive and onerous investigations that you might see with the RCMP.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I have just one last quick question, if I may.

I am familiar with ASIRT in Alberta, the SSIRT in Saskatchewan and the IIU in Manitoba.

Dr. Leuprecht, do you think this act clearly defines the threshold we require to determine when PCRC is going to begin or get involved, and when the agency should?

My final statement is just that transparency and investigations are key, and I think that will solve a lot of problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Respond very quickly if you can, sir.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

I'll need to think about that and give you a written response.

The distinction is important, and then of course to avoid any asymmetry across the country in the treatment of sworn members is also critical so that we have one systematic process and the proper triage.

Lots of provinces do the triaging, so this is not rocket science. We can figure this out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Mr. Gaheer, please, you have two minutes.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for their testimony.

My question is for Dr. Leuprecht. I think you've touched on this already, but I want to give you more time to clarify.

One of the issues we've looked at during this study on Bill C-20 is the interplay of the PCRC and other provincial police review and oversight agencies. Can you talk abut the interplay between these two different jurisdictional reviews and oversight bodies, and how they can actually work together to ensure more police accountability?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

It's a super question. It's probably a question that requires resolution more in regulation and in policy than in legislation.

However, the issue the public is going to have is that they don't know what all these different agencies are. They don't know if they can make a complaint to the local police service. There is a provincial agency. There is the PCRC.

What we need is a proper mechanism to make sure that wherever the public shows up.... It's not like the health care system where we send you to 15 different physicians to try to figure out what's going on. If you show up at your local service and you want to lodge a complaint, you're going to get the same answer as you would get if you would go to the provincial agency, which is the same answer you would get from the PCRC, and we don't have the local agency telling them, “Sorry, we're not responsible and you're going to have to go to these folks in Ottawa,” and whatnot. That would be one concern I have.

The other concern I have is, of course, that in terms of anything that is pushed down from the PCRC to other entities, we need to make sure absolutely that there is a uniform regime across the country for sworn RCMP members and anybody who is seconded to the RCMP. This is because the last thing we want is, obviously, different treatment in different provinces according to different types of standards and so forth.

It's about how we work out the asymmetries in a country with eight different contract policing, plus territorial policing, plus indigenous policing and then national and federal policing. There is a bit of the devil in the details to make sure this is done systematically.

I am sure the RCMP association will be delighted to help make sure there is equity in the treatment of members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Gaheer.

It's now Ms. Michaud's turn.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Leuprecht, I'm thinking back to what some witnesses told us. Bar associations, who represent migrants and refugees, often find it rather strange for a border services officer to have so many powers.

For example, a police or RCMP officer has certain powers, and probably has the training to go with them. Maybe it's not quite the same for border services officers. In some cases, we've seen abuses of power.

The day that a commission can receive complaints about the Border Services Agency of Canada, the CBSA, do you think the number of complaints will skyrocket from people who suffered injustice? How do you see it, especially in terms of the power or the perception of power that some border services officers have?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

In my opinion, there should be basically two types of complaints: those for CBSA detentions and those for the land border.

At the maritime border, there are very few interactions. When arriving in the country by plane, and you are neither Canadian nor American, you have to fill out an electronic travel authorization. Abuses of power are therefore less likely to occur.

It is true that CBSA officers have extraordinary powers, but those powers are comparable to those granted to most of our partners in democracy.

In fact, entering a country is a privilege. When people have to interact with the country's police, I think that type of interaction is different, because they've already obtained the right to be in the country. It could explain some complaints filed against the CBSA, which previous witnesses talked about.

Complainants have experienced very serious personal consequences, such as being denied entry into the country. If a person whose phone gets seized thinks it's not warranted, for example, they have to wait for the CBSA to give it back to them, and too bad if it takes months.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Madam.

Mr. Julian, take us home, please. You have two minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You were very generous in my last round, so I won't abuse it this round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I fell asleep. It was my fault.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you. It was 10 minutes, and it was awesome.

Dr. Leuprecht, we've just been speaking about the resource issue. You mentioned in your opening statement as well the importance of having public confidence, yet there seems to be a clear gap between what is required to effectively do the job for this new complaints commission and the actual funding that's required. We've heard testimony that the funding requested was far higher than what is actually being provided.

How important is it that this be adequately resourced? What are the consequences if it's not adequately resourced?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

As you know, at RMC I'm not just a professor. I also happen to be a civil servant. For the task that I currently have for National Defence, I have a small budget. I have a small staff. When you want to change your staff or you want to change your budget, there's a proper business process. There's a proper business plan.

My suggestion would be to just make sure that the new PCRC has a proper business planner and that they know how the business, financial and staffing processes in the federal government work. This is not obvious. It is a bit of a mystery how you make them work, but there are people who can make them work despite all the rules we have in place.

This is not a prohibitive issue. With proper business planning, this is readily resolvable should the PCRC find itself in a situation where it does not have sufficient positions or a sufficient budget or is not able to match positions and budget.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

We know from the get-go that it's under-resourced. What are the consequences in terms of public confidence if the process is so slow that it simply doesn't provide the response that the public would want to see?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

The more reasons you provide or the more inquiries you're going to get, the more strain you're also going to provide on the agencies. Ultimately, this is for the government of the day to figure out. We probably need to have a proper assessment process. For instance, one thing that's missing in this country is regular reviews of legislation like this. Maybe the committee can propose that within a certain number of years we can review the legislation. At that point, there's an opportunity to voice concerns about the functioning of the legislation, the budgetary situation, the staffing situation and the like.

This legislation is too important to be held up on whether or not we have exactly the right amount of staffing or the right amount of dollars allocated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Thank you to all our witnesses. You've given us a great deal to think about and have been most helpful to our study.

Thank you to the committee for putting up with the erratic timekeeping of your chair.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

With that, we are adjourned.