Public Safety Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Christian Leuprecht]

I will read you a paragraph that I skipped, but that I think responds strategically to your question.

It says that “my late Queen's colleague Nils Orvik cautioned that, as the smaller partner in the continental sovereignty dilemma, Canada's strategy in dealing with the United States” must be to “defend against help”—to pre-empt unsolicited offers of help—which means, for Canada, “to establish and maintain credibility in matters of defence and security” with its great neighbour as a way to safeguard Canada's capacity for sovereign decision-making.

Of course, once the United States comes in and helps us, we've now seriously constrained our ability to make the decisions that are in the best interest of Canadian citizens, as reflected by the legitimately elected government of this country. “A more aggressive, robust, bilateral, bipartisan approach to managing border security is essential to counter the bipartisan consensus in the United States that Canada is a liability to the United States by virtue of actual [and] perceived deficits on security and defence.”

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Thank you for that.

I want to make sure we can keep concise answers as we go forward, but in your view, how was this avoidable—to avoid situations like this?

[Christian Leuprecht]

For decades , I and a former lead on CBP under the Obama administration, Alan Bersin, have had a proposal for what we call NORAD 2.0, which is effectively for the two countries to agree to depoliticize how we manage the border and to give the border, including the intelligence, enforcement and investigative infrastructure that goes along with it, to professionals to manage. I think we have an opportunity. The silver lining of the challenge we currently have with our southern neighbour is precisely that we can propose new structures that might better serve both our interests. I think taking the politics out of it and leaving it to professionals has served us very well in terms of continental defence. I think we might do very well to do likewise at the border.

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Understood. Thank you for that.

What are the consequences of the failures today? How do they affect us, not just for our national security but also for the safety of our communities, agency morale and public trust?

[Christian Leuprecht]

The challenge is that we now have a very significant lag effect. I think the temptation by politicians has been....

This is a very complex space. It has many moving parts. It is very dynamic. My sense, and you tell me if I'm wrong, is that politicians look at it this way: This will be really hard and really high risk, so let's just try to put band-aids on it, keep the wheels on the wagon, hope it doesn't fall apart, leave it for someone else to fix and kick the can down the road. The problem is the delta between where we need to be and the challenges we have as a result of transnational state and non-state actor threats. Expectations by the United States and allies continue to grow exponentially. What is the strategy for narrowing that delta, both operationally and especially in terms of perception by our closest partners?

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

I believe you're correct. I believe the current government is not taking these precautions seriously and is, as you said, implementing a technique of putting band-aids on it for now.

As we see these promises from the Liberal government that are unfulfilled, and there's no real urgency for any quick solutions on what's broken at our borders, is this government still failing to take these issues seriously today?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Christian Leuprecht]

The current Prime Minister's attention to working with what I call joint multi-functional teams that get us out of departmental silos and get the right experts around to solve targeted problems with very clear expectations and clear milestones that reflect scale, pace, mass and quality is a good way to reframe the problem. Now it is for the government to demonstrate that it can actually deliver.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Leuprecht.

It's now your turn, Ms. Dandurand. You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. It's very interesting to hear you.

I've heard my Conservative colleagues talking about, and making you talk about, public trust, reputation risk and things like that. Very recently the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, was talking about RCMP leadership, saying such things as they're “despicable”.

From the perspective of national security in a domestic matter, and the perspective of the role of such institutions as the RCMP, what are the consequences of a perceived loss of institutional legitimacy? Could this affect co-operation within Canada or with our partners when we have leaders talking in such a way about our leadership?

[Christian Leuprecht]

I think in many ways, the RCMP leadership finds itself in an impossible situation in terms of the expectations we've placed on it. As I mentioned, perhaps we could do much more in terms of preparing our national security leaders more effectively for the challenges and tasks we give them. I think we always need to trust that every civil servant in this country, including myself as a professor at the Royal Military College, spends every day doing their very best at trying to serve the interests of this country, of the government of the day, of their institutions and of their people.

But we might ask hard questions—why, perhaps, some of the criticisms, perhaps not as prudently expressed as we could, reflect not just frustrations by a leader of the opposition but also frustrations by some of the police associations, by some of the members who work, by some of the provinces, by local police forces and governments, as well as by some of our allies and partners; and what is incumbent upon us as the political authority to provide in terms of the direction, the resources, the structure and the capabilities to ensure that we set people up for success with the tasks we expect of them in these very complex and challenging times.

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

Thank you.

Recently in front of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, you were talking about Canada's Arctic strategy. You were talking about defence as an investment to innovation in research technology. You were talking about the European drone company Helsing and the power of the algorithm behind those drones. Can you elaborate on the heightened skills we have in Canada and how they can be utilized to support efforts along the U.S. border?

[Christian Leuprecht]

The investment point is so important. You might know that I have a separate life in police governance where I've tried very hard—and I think we are getting there—to change the discourse around the money we put into local policing. As an investment, what is the return on that investment? How is the political authority defining what we expect in terms of clear strategic plans and clear measurable metrics as opposed to just saying, “Here's more money. Go do something a little bit different or more of the same”? Politicians talk about investments, but where is the public accountability for those investments and the objectives that we want to achieve with those investments? Hold the leadership of institutions accountable for the public money that we invest in terms of delivering on the expectations of the government of the day.

In terms of high tech, this environment is changing very quickly. I think that the Prime Minister, during the election, talked about procurement; he's now talking about investments. I think this reflects in part a recognition that we can't procure much of what we're looking for either because it doesn't exist on shelves or because we are not set up to procure it.

The point that I make is that, if you want to sell drones in this country as an innovative company, you could not because of what do we do. We procure drones that achieve certain effects. The algorithms and the AIs have all been much faster than the drones and the effects we need to achieve with those drones. What we need to procure is the algorithm and the AI and then build the drone on top of that to achieve those effects.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

[Christian Leuprecht]

What are we going to do to make sure that the government becomes a data-driven organization that reflects those priorities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Professor Leuprecht. I'm sorry to interrupt you again. I'm always very reluctant to do so, but it's my job.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for two minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have questions about the accountability and responsibility of the Minister of Public Safety. The minister often sidesteps his responsibilities by saying that the Canada Border Services Agency is an independent agency and that he can't tell the agency what to do or how to do it. In my opinion, this is a way to avoid accountability and responsibility.

I want to know how to make a minister more responsible and accountable when the minister must ensure border security and national security, but somehow offloads the responsibility by handing it over to an independent agency.

[Christian Leuprecht]

First, I believe that any minister is responsible for setting three, four or maybe five priorities for their department to ensure that all public servants clearly understand the objective. We aren't talking about a dozen or roughly thirty priorities, but about three, four or five priorities. I would say that the minister clearly expects his officials to allocate human and financial resources in a manner that best serves his priorities.

Second, I believe that the minister is in a better position to provide clear guidelines regarding his expectations for his department. Third, I believe that the federal public service basically isn't structured in a way that helps achieve the objectives of the current government's public policy priorities.

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

Would you agree with the appointment of a “Minister of Borders”, who would take sole responsibility for border management and who would be accountable for border security?

[Christian Leuprecht]

I'm not convinced that more ministers are needed. Quite the contrary. Much larger countries with small cabinets, such as Germany, successfully manage their borders.

As you said, the situation shows the need for a certain level of political responsibility, including ministerial responsibility on the part of the department. Public studies clearly show that the minister's role in ministerial responsibility has been in steep decline in our Westminster parliamentary system. I believe that the Prime Minister has the opportunity to restore the purpose—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Professor Leuprecht. Sorry to interrupt you again.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Lloyd for five minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you for being here, Dr. Leuprecht.

Seeing as you're a professor, I might ask you a philosophical question and challenge you on one of the things I think you said when you were talking about depoliticizing the border.

In my experience in this place as a member of Parliament, a lot of the time, the government doesn't take action unless you make an issue political. I think of the issue of auto theft in this country, which rose significantly for a couple of years before it became a political issue and then the government started to take action on it. I think of when we talk about the flaws in the bail system. When opposition parties hold the government accountable and make issues political, it leads to action.

Can you tell us briefly how you propose depoliticizing something like the border and ensuring that we get effective management at the same time?

[Christian Leuprecht]

Those are terrific points.

For politicians to take action, there are three basic preconditions. First, there needs to be recognition that there's genuine physical harm to citizens as a result of non-action. Second, there needs to be a sense of diminishing that harm for the greatest number of Canadians. Third, there needs to be a sense among politicians that there's a chance of success with what is being put forward. Tell me if you think I'm wrong on that.

Yes, we need political action, because only politicians have the authority to change the frameworks under which civil servants operate in terms of the priorities we set and the legislative constraints we ultimately set. Yes, it is on the political authority to establish them, but we established NORAD in a rapidly changing threat environment at the time that posed and continues to pose existential threats to this continent.

We need to understand that what is happening along our borders is a rapidly changing threat and security environment that poses an existential threat to the political and economic sovereignty of this country if we don't get it right. Here is the opportunity to rethink how we manage the Canada-U.S. border, because if we can't manage it effectively, I think it will ultimately be the end of this country.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I'm going to move on to another line of questioning.

At a recent committee meeting, we had a journalist, Sam Cooper, come in and we heard about the non-resident importer program.

Can you tell us if you believe the non-resident importer program is being used to bring precursor chemicals into Canada?

[Christian Leuprecht]

There are a vast number of vulnerabilities, and I think the political priorities on immigration in recent years have rapidly outpaced the ability of our intelligence and security agencies to do the vetting and be able to build the investigative and intelligence capacities to ensure that these are not being systematically exploited at scale by bad actors.