Public Safety Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

You'll notice that I regularly talk about issues that affect people outside large urban centres, because we need resources in the regions as well. I'm going to talk about places like Sherbrooke, which have a lot of halfway houses for people on parole.

Mr. Pyke, I'd like to know whether you have enough resources to support people out on parole in medium-sized cities. How do you support those municipalities, which become somewhat responsible for these people in the community?

[Jay Pyke]

In terms of capacity, increasing our CBRF—our halfway house or community partner—capacity....

I'm sorry, you lost me with the youth piece because I don't deal with youth. I understand that you mean the succession of youth into our facilities. Is that right?

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

It was probably lost in translation. I was asking about regions. How can we help municipalities that have transition centres?

I don't know if it's the right term in English.

[Jay Pyke]

Yes, it's fine. I understand what you mean. Sorry.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Do we have the resources to help municipalities that receive those people? Those people need help, obviously. How do we help municipalities with those situations?

[Jay Pyke]

Thank you for clarifying, Ms. Dandurand.

We work collectively. Halfway house associations exist across each province, region and district. We will work with our community partners in terms of looking at expansion options. Some may put forward project suggestions for capacity or to increase capacity or programming. We'll work in collaboration with those partners in the community to try to increase that capacity to meet the demands of what we have coming out.

In fact, we have done this across the country. I come from a region myself—a couple of regions, to be candid—and it's always a challenge. A lot of it is balancing expectations with what we have. The other dynamic, particularly in community, is its ability to expand capacity as well. As we know, putting these facilities in the community area is not always popular, so there's lots of engagement with the community and local police to be able to expand.

I can openly say, with an increasing offender population, we are seeing increasing pressure in terms of community bed space and community programming. Funding at this point is not a concern for the CSC in relation to our programs and maintaining a safe reintegration to full extent, but we are always working with community partners in terms of how we expand.

It depends on the region as well, or the area of the region. Obviously, in built-up urban areas, we have a big demand. It's equally challenging in some of the smaller localities depending on the the specifics of the case. We're certainly working on specialized beds in relation to substance use and continuing that care into the community from that. It's the same with aging. We have an aging offender population. I know you were speaking of youth coming through the system, but the reality of it is that we have to match specialized beds inside with specialized community support outside. That's a focus of ours as well.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

Switching topics, I want to talk about border security.

Mr. McCrorie, the threats at the border are increasingly complex, ranging from drug trafficking and guns to vehicles and human smuggling. It's important to have strong co‑operation with our international partners, especially our American partners in the case of my region, which is near the U.S. border.

How does the funding in the main estimates help you improve your ability to intercept threats at the border?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Thank you for your question.

Yes, the threats and challenges are constantly evolving. How we try to allocate our resources is based on risk. Where that risk is emerging or where it's changing, we will reallocate our resources accordingly.

The main estimates are providing funding for us to continue that work. They also include the funding for the 1,000 officers. In particular, the 1,000 officers are going to be allocated in areas where we've identified threats and risks that need to be addressed, primarily in terms of our uniformed staff at the border, but also inland. We'll have people working on removals or inland investigation as well as having people doing security screening.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

How does it work—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Unfortunately, your time is up.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Now we go to Mrs. DeBellefeuille for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Larkin and Ms. Hazen, yesterday in Parliament, our committee chair, whom we are quite fond of, presented the report on our first study. It's on border management. I'm not sure whether you had a chance to look at it, but it contains a series of recommendations. Two of them are especially important to me, so I'd like to know what you think.

First, like Ms. Dandurand, I represent a riding that borders the U.S. My riding is home to an RCMP detachment that works very well with area partners: police forces, and municipal, provincial and federal officials. At the end of the budget cycle, the detachment members set up a satellite post for interviews and storage of rapid response equipment such as snowmobiles and quads. In its report, the committee recommends that the satellite posts be established permanently.

The second recommendation I was talking about has to do with the fact that, when migrants cross the border illegally, small municipalities provide emergency services at the request of the RCMP. That's an additional expense for small municipalities. In our report, we recommend that the RCMP set aside funding to reimburse municipalities for the help they provide in those situations.

Those two recommendations are specifically for the RCMP and would affect its funding. I know you're in the midst of your budget cycle. Can you tell me whether you're supportive of the recommendations? Do you think they're appropriate and would ensure that Canada's borders continued to be managed and controlled properly?

You have 45 seconds left to answer.

[Samantha Hazen, Chief Financial Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you very much for the question.

Through you, Mr. Chair, the RCMP was very grateful to be the recipient of funding to help secure our borders, as part of the fall economic statement in 2024. A $1.3-billion border security package was provided to the entire portfolio.

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

I'm talking about satellite posts in rural communities along the border, mainly Valleyfield, but I know there are others. Does your budget cycle include funding for that?

[Samantha Hazen]

As part of the onboarding of the 1,000 new personnel for the RCMP, the majority of that personnel will be located outside of the national capital region.

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

That doesn't answer my question at all. I'm talking about satellite posts, not personnel.

[Samantha Hazen]

All I could share is that there will be an increase in RCMP resources to support our federal mandate, including those to support our border protection. We anticipate that there will be just under 200 more personnel located in the eastern region, which encompasses the province of Quebec and the maritime provinces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

To make things a bit fairer vis-à-vis the other two parties, I gave you a bit more time, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

We now go to Mr. Au for five minutes.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

I have questions for Mr. Larkin.

Earlier on, when we talked about the MOU between China and Canada on policing co-operation, you mentioned three things. Number one, you said that it's general; number two, you said that this is similar to the previous MOUs; and number three, you mentioned addressing the fentanyl crisis. I find that to be very interesting because, from experience, we know that in the past years the previous MOU has not been effective in stopping the influx of fentanyl into Canada.

If that's the case, why would we again sign an ineffective MOU and expect that it will bring a different result?

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

I'll focus on a couple of broad comments around this.

The RCMP was interested in continuing to renew the MOU around ongoing transnational threats, which include, obviously, drug trafficking—the importation of fentanyl—which we work very closely with our CBSA partners on, threats of foreign actor interference, criminal activity and serious organized crime. These threats, quite frankly, require the RCMP to engage with other law enforcement agencies globally, including the Ministry of Public Security in China. We do have officers located across the Indo-Pacific, liaison officers who work with all agencies.

Again, the engagement and/or participation in these memoranda of understanding should not be mistaken for any endorsement of other countries' conduct. I think that's really important. The reality, though, is that we have a responsibility, as a police agency, to work with all partners. That at times includes countries where we may not, in fact, endorse and/or support the way they operate. However, we have a responsibility. Obviously, we have Canadians who travel, Canadians who go through those countries, including the People's Republic of China. The MOU was designed to re-engage dialogue because it had been stagnant for some time. Our relationship had, quite frankly, been quiet. There had not been much engagement between our organization and the Ministry of Public Security, and it was an opportunity to once again engage in ongoing dialogue, renew that dialogue and look at opportunities.

Again, I would concur that the addiction and fentanyl challenges in our country remain at the forefront, and we're doing significant work with all police services to conduct large-scale investigations.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

You mentioned a few more areas in addition to fentanyl. You mentioned foreign interference and other kinds of security concerns.

Do you agree that, judging from past experience, the MOU has not been effective? You also used the word “dialogue”. Are you saying that these MOUs are serving a purpose only on engagement and dialogue, and that there's nothing in the MOU or in the co-operation that could actually be effective in helping our country to become safer?

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

Do we have a matrix that measures the success of the MOU? No, we don't have a matrix. That being said, we've simply.... This one was renewed recently. The commissioner has engaged in dialogue at the United Nations Police Week in New York City with leaders from the Ministry of Public Security, and he intends to do so in the coming months again to reopen doors around some of the challenges we're facing. We do work very closely. We track, for example, precursors that come into our country, and we are obviously trying to engage law enforcement in the People's Republic of China to assist us and to get information. Those are things that we do on a regular basis.

Again, I want to be clear that we don't have a matrix for success. I think I've been very clear that the relationship had been mute, so this is about re-engaging and starting that. I want to be very clear that this is not an endorsement of the particular country. However, there's work to be done from a law enforcement perspective. Regardless of the challenges, we need to work through those for the safety of our country and the safety of our citizens. That's incumbent upon us as part of our fiduciary responsibility.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Okay.

Again, in order to make our country safer, what kinds of guarantees do we seek from our partners regarding implementation or what kinds of measures have to be put into place to make it work? I don't want people to have a false expectation based on a useless MOU.

What kinds of guarantees are we seeking in order to make this kind of protection effective?

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

Generally, I don't think we go into any guarantee. When we enter an MOU with any law enforcement agency globally, there are no guarantees. There are no performance outcomes or matrixes in those MOUs. Their purpose is to create a framework and a regulatory opportunity for us as to how we can share information and how we can work collaboratively. At times, there's language around cost recovery in those MOUs. It's how we use the information. That's what it's designed to do. There's a broader perspective here. I don't think that any MOU that our organization has with any law enforcement agency has the outcome or guarantee that—