Public Safety Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

[Brian Sauvé]

When it comes to nationals, immigrants and so on, a team will be dedicated to that task. The government's priority is to move in that direction. The government is going to give us all the tools we need for success.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

That's right. From what I understand, you aren't getting the political signal you need to devote significant resources to the whole issue of immigrant nationals who are wanted criminals. You're only getting the political signal needed to make it a priority.

[Brian Sauvé]

That's right. I have to say that the RCMP's involvement in that operation is really limited. It can involve arrests, intelligence or managing an integrated team. When someone is arrested, it's the Canada Border Services Agency that handles their file. We don't touch the file after that. Even when someone was crossing at Roxham Road, in the Swanton area, for example, we read them their rights then referred them to the Canada Border Services Agency. We had finished our task at that point.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Yes, we—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Frank Caputo]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille. I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Sauvé.

Now we will go to Mr. Lloyd for five minutes, please.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're doing an excellent job.

Thank you to our witness for being here today.

Mr. Sauvé, we've heard previous testimony about the need—that we need more RCMP officers, that there's an overload of work. How important is it for RCMP officers to have facilities to train with their firearms?

[Brian Sauvé]

It is a basic requirement of employment to be able to carry and use a firearm. I would say that the more training facilities we have access to, the better.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Are government-owned facilities widely available to all RCMP members across the country?

[Brian Sauvé]

Well, I was in Iqaluit a little while ago, and they just go out into the back 40. I've also spent most of my career in the Lower Mainland of B.C., and there's a very professional facility at the PRTC in Chilliwack, so the varying degrees are there, from—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

That's not a government facility; it's a private facility that you use.

[Brian Sauvé]

Do you mean the Pacific Region Training Centre? No, it is a government facility. It's the former CAF—and still currently quasi-CAF—facility.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Okay.

What I'm getting at is that, you know, I've received information from the South Okanagan RCMP. They say that they do not want to see the Penticton Shooting Sports range closed down. They say that they use that facility for training. Did your organization.... You might know that this committee just voted—possibly at our last meeting—to call on the government to not divest that facility or the land that the facility is based on. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Brian Sauvé]

I would support more training facilities for our membership all across the country, so that our members don't have to rely on gravel pits, farmers' fields or permission from neighbours to be able to go out and do pistol, shotgun and carbine training.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

I noted in previous testimony on other related issues that there's been a lot of evidence that visa requirement changes made by the government in the past 10 years have exacerbated the problem of foreign nationals with criminal records. We had the president of the CBSA and other witnesses here at a recent meeting, talking about how it's almost as though they are trying to empty the bathtub with a bucket, but the bathtub is continuing to fill up almost as fast as they are able to drain the bucket. Obviously, you said that the RCMP is widely involved in these removals.

Have you noted that visa requirement changes have led to spikes in those with criminal records in Canada?

[Brian Sauvé]

I haven't noted that, but obviously Canada has seen, over the last eight years, a large influx of immigrants. When you increase the number of people coming in, commensurate with populations across the world, you're going to increase all types of folks.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Do we essentially need to screen out people who are high risk from coming into the country in the first place? If we don't have visas, is that removing a critical safeguard?

[Brian Sauvé]

That I can't comment on. I don't know.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

At a previous meeting, I raised a bulletin that the criminal investigators for the CBSA were sent. In that bulletin, it said that, following the adoption of Bill C-75, which introduced the principle of restraint, criminal investigators are asked to take into account the least onerous measures and the least restrictive measures in cases that they're involved with. Is that something that RCMP members received direction on as well?

[Brian Sauvé]

Do you mean with regard to day-to-day operations with the RCMP, or specifically...?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I mean for immigration cases.

[Brian Sauvé]

Well, again, with immigration cases we have very limited involvement. It's more or less arrest, enforcement and passing off to the CBSA. If there is an arrest, it's sharing with another agency.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Your members would go out there and do the dangerous work of arresting these high-risk.... You said that it's mostly in high-risk situations that your members are involved. You're handing them over to the CBSA, and then the CBSA is sending a directive to its investigators that they should be applying Bill C-75 rules, which involve the least restrictive measures necessary. What does that do to the morale of RCMP officers who are putting their lives on the line to apprehend these high-risk people?

[Brian Sauvé]

I think I'm on the record at a number of different committees, talking about the challenges our members, and police in general, face with repeat violent offenders generally in Canada. Some of those are definitely illegal in Canada.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I knocked on the door of an RCMP member in the last election. He said he arrested a drug dealer who was out the same day, a few hours after being arrested.

Have you seen any cases of RCMP members being involved in apprehending high-risk criminals who had immigrated here, who were then released in short order?

[Brian Sauvé]

There's nothing recent that I can comment on, no.