Evidence of meeting #19 for Public Safety and National Security in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was officers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Now, you talked about the identification issues. How do you see that Bill C-8 could address those issues?
President, National Police Federation
Bill C-8...? You have me. There have been so many C's during the last couple of weeks.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
I mean the one that we're talking about, Bill C-12.
President, National Police Federation
Oh, it's Bill C-12. I'm sorry. I was confused there for a second.
December 9th, 2025 / 12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Sauvé, am I right that, for border security, if it's a formal border crossing point, it's CBSA, but in between, that's RCMP. Is that right?
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Does the RCMP have all the same powers and the same jurisdiction with respect to, for example, checking to see whether someone has a work permit, as CBSA would?
President, National Police Federation
Well, you wouldn't be crossing between ports of entry if you're authorized to be in the country.
President, National Police Federation
If you're authorized to be in the country—i.e., if you have a work permit—you would cross at a lawful port of entry.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
There is, say, in northern Ontario—Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods—the remote access program. You can cross there. You're supposed to have a work permit. If the RCMP were to stop them, is that the kind of thing they could have the power to ask for? Could they say, “Well, let's see your work permit”?
President, National Police Federation
Yes, we could ask to see the work permit. We could even get on the phone or radio to CBSA to confirm.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Now, this is a problem I've been dealing with, because, as you may know, my riding goes from Thunder Bay to the Manitoba border. There's a large area of territory there. Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake are immense. There are tons of bays and lakes. The RCMP had one boat, which occasionally went back and forth there. CBSA may or may not have had one boat. We tried to work on this, and hopefully we got somewhere.
We've talked about coordination. Treaty 3 has boats already. Natural Resources and the province have boats. My guess is that they have two or three boats. If there were more overlap of jurisdiction, then, you would think, we could do a better job, not only of protecting the border but also, for example, making sure people weren't overfishing.
Should it be and is a sharing of responsibility something that occurs? It would seem to me.... I don't think the RCMP stop a boat in Canadian waters and see a whole bunch of fish and say, “I think you're over your limit of fish here. How many fish do you have?” However, Natural Resources enforces fishing limits. Is there that cross-jurisdictional ability to deal with something that is not formally in your jurisdiction, and should there be?
President, National Police Federation
As long as all agencies are rowing in the same direction, we can accomplish the goal. If the resources to patrol the waters are owned by Natural Resources Canada, and CBSA and the RCMP need added resources to patrol the waters, a pilot can take those folks out on a Natural Resources boat. While you're there, you now have a crew with the authority to enforce everything that Natural Resources enforces.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
This isn't your particular jurisdiction, but we were told that the CBSA refuses to go on the boats of some other agency, like the RCMP or Natural Resources. Do you know if that's really the case?
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
To your knowledge, if the different agencies aren't working together and coordinating and jointly enforcing the rules, it's not because of any legislative impediment to doing so; it's more just lack of coordination.
President, National Police Federation
It's lack of coordination, lack of will. Perhaps it's lack of manpower or lack of clear priorities to be able to do so.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Speaking of that, we don't have enough RCMP. The RCMP is looking for more people for that region, to do a lot of the border patrol.
I know that three Thunder Bay police force officers applied to join the RCMP, and the process was so onerous that they all decided to give up on it. This was despite the fact that the RCMP seems desperate to get people, and these were people who were going to stay in the area.
Are the requirements for officers transferring to the RCMP too onerous? It would seem to me that they are.
President, National Police Federation
Any police officer recognized under a police service act in Canada can actually come over as an experienced police officer, assuming they've shown good character and good reputation in their current service. We do those background checks. It's my understanding that there's a three-week training session at Depot, and they could be deployed across Canada now.
There has been a reluctance to move experienced police officers directly into federal policing roles now, because we have a lot of members who have been doing their time in Manitoba or Yukon or the Northwest Territories who want to go to those roles. A lot of experienced police officers have come over; however, there is a reluctance to bring them directly into those federal roles.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Frank Caputo
Thank you, Mr. Sauvé and Dr. Powlowski.
We'll now go to Mrs. DeBellefeuille for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sauvé, this isn't your first visit here at this committee. You have told us on a number of occasions that what was hindering the work and effectiveness of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was the allocation of your resources to the new priority. However, your current human resources, which comprise around 18,500 officers, haven't increased much, and the government's priorities are shifting.
The maple disruption 2025 initiative to fight fraud and cybercrime was announced today, so a team is focused on that. You also had to set up a team to respond to the government's priority of fighting extortion in British Columbia and ensuring border security, mainly in the south.
What would you like to see so that you can be more active when it comes to intercepting nationals and having them leave the country? Given all these new priorities, shouldn't there be a team dedicated to the issue of criminal nationals who are still in Canada? Should this issue be a government priority?
President, National Police Federation
In terms of federal policing, I think so. Maple disruption 2025 is an existing team that has announced a new project to combat fraud, cybercrime and so on. It isn't really a new priority for that team. It's a new project that was just announced. I read a publication about it this morning.