Public Safety Committee on Nov. 1st, 2023

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

Can you refresh my memory? I know the RCMP has a six-month investigative window within which they report back. I've heard CBSA say that it has a 40-day report-back window.

What does the commission have currently? When you get a complaint and you're working on it, what is your general timeline? Is it still six months?

[Joanne Gibb, Senior Director, Strategic Operations and Policy Directorate, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

When we conduct a review, the duration depends on a number of factors, including how long it takes for the commission to receive the relevant material from the RCMP.

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

The way this subclause 2 reads in clause 64, if you—or I guess it would be the commissioner of the RCMP—or the president of CBSA receive the report, they have to give a written response.

I guess it applies more to those two agencies than it does to the commission at this point in time. Would that be an appropriate suggestion?

[Joanne Gibb]

Yes, because it's the response to the commission's report back to the agency heads.

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

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. Michaud.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question was exactly the same as Mr. Melillo's.

In view of what my colleagues have said, I can't support Mr. Julian's amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Mr. Shipley.

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

Thank you, Chair.

In regard to this amendment, it's been a while.... I've already been accused of hearing things in my head, so my memory is not as good as it once was either. That's to my younger friends across the table, in all good fun.

We heard from the witnesses in the early spring that one of the issues was resources to implement, or even to keep going right now. It is tough.

With regard to an amendment like this, which would be cutting down the timeline so much, what types of personnel resources and additional funds would you need?

Can anybody guess a little—because it's quite important—at what's needed to implement something like this? I know it's a quick question and a....

[A/Commr Alfredo Bangloy]

Any comment I have would really be a guess.

Just based on the timeline, reducing it in half, I would imagine that a reasonable estimate would be doubling what we currently have devoted to working on this, again, depending on the nature of the review. Some of these reviews are very complicated, with quite a number of recommendations and findings that we have to look at and analyze and provide our thorough response to.

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

To recap, you said it's a doubling of your resources for this one amendment.

[A/Commr Alfredo Bangloy]

Well, again, this is not—

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

I know you don't have time to write down a whole business case for this.

[A/Commr Alfredo Bangloy]

At the current timeline that we're operating under, six months, I'm ballparking that doubling the resources to cut it in half might be able to satisfy it.

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

That's very considerable, then, considering we heard originally that resources were very stretched for this and additional funds were going to be needed.

Thank you for that.

Because of that and some other issues, I won't be able to support this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Seeing no further interventions, all in favour of NDP-43?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

That brings us to G-7.

Mr. Gaheer.

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

That's great. Thank you, Chair.

This amendment clarifies that the CBSA and RCMP are responsible for sending their responses to PCRC—interim reports—to both the chairperson and the Minister of Public Safety. As it's currently written, they are required to respond only to the chairperson of the PCRC, so the minister will be made more aware through this amendment.

I think this will enjoy support from all sides.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Are there any interventions?

Mr. Motz.

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

What obligation does the chairperson of the independent complaints commission have to report to the minister now, and what are those timelines?

[Joanne Gibb]

A copy of our report is sent to the minister, and the reply, which is what this amendment refers to—a reply from the RCMP and CBSA—is currently also copied to the minister.

This changes the existing provisions in the RCMP Act, by not.... Sorry, the bill, as written, changes the existing provision, where the minister was included. The chairperson put forward that she would like to see the minister added back into this clause, so that the ministerial accountability is there—so the minister is aware of how long it took the agency to reply and the nature of that reply.

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

All right, so this actually came from the commission itself.

[Joanne Gibb]

Yes.

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

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Lloyd.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

We've had some recent incidents in which the ministers were supposed to have been informed of things and the messages weren't passed along. What assurances do we have that this amendment will result in the minister's actually personally receiving this correspondence? Is there a risk that it could go into a minister's office and that the minister will never see it, that it will never see the light of day? What accountability measures can we be assured will exist to ensure that the minister's eyes are actually on this document, based on this amendment?