Public Safety Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you for that.

I appreciate you bringing, sir, the human component into what you've said. I haven't talked about this yet in my role as a member of Parliament because I get emotional about it, so I'll carefully just, before I ask about breakdown points.... During the last federal election, I lost my brother's son, my nephew, to an accidental overdose, and fentanyl is the reason for that. I'm going to talk a lot more about that when I can do it not emotionally, but I appreciate so much that you brought that human aspect to it.

My background is in educational therapy. Sometimes, we get accused of looking at the negative. You're always looking at the negative—why students are having struggles—but to look at the negative, sometimes you have to look at those breakdown points to figure out how to solve the problem we have, so I have a couple of questions on that.

We've heard repeatedly that fentanyl and precursor chemicals are flowing through Canadian ports and across the border. Where, specifically, are the biggest breakdown points that you see in detection and enforcement? Just give your top two, maybe, breakdown points for the sake of time.

Also, where has federal coordination between Public Safety, CBSA and the RCMP broken down? Where do you see that this breakdown is between them? What structural reforms could you maybe suggest to address those gaps?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Answer in about 30 seconds.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Oh, I'm sorry. That's a lot for 30 seconds.

[Christian Leuprecht]

I can do this in 30 seconds.

What frustrates me is that we take apart superlabs by the dozens in this country, and in many cases, not a single person gets charged. Our inability to go after the kingpins of transnational organized crime in this country shows that we are not positioned and that we are not structured to actually engage with these transnational threat vectors. Simply adding a few people here and there or tinkering with a little bit of legislation will not fix the problem if we are not going to commit politically to restructuring the national security posture. Our allies in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom and several European allies have done it; we have not.

With regard to coordination, I would say that we actually have pretty good federal coordination now. Where we lack significantly in coordination is with our provincial, local, private sector and civil society stakeholders. That is a whole testimony on its own.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I apologize for interrupting. We'll have an opportunity to come back to the witness.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Because that was such an in-depth question, would you mind providing to the committee something in writing that is a little more in depth? Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

Let me turn now to MP Acan for six minutes.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Leuprecht.

Our government has announced recent investments to hire 1,000 RCMP and 1,000 CBSA officers. As it was mentioned earlier in this committee, Canada's border plan aims to bolster security operations across the border with infrastructure, technology and intelligence sharing. These are the first steps in strengthening our border and bolstering our enforcement capabilities across the frontier.

From your expertise and your recent answer, what additional investments should the government pursue to strengthen our capabilities along the border?

[Christian Leuprecht]

Thank you for that important question.

My view on the RCMP is that money is not the overall problem. The way the organization functions and its inability to perform on some of the highest political priorities for the federal government suggest that we need serious structural reform when it comes to national and federal policing in this country.

In the dying days of his office, after having been in office for almost a decade, the previous prime minister went on the record in his white paper on this. This should give us serious pause for thought, and it is serious cause of frustration among our allies.

In light of what I told you, hiring more CBSA or RCMP officers is not going to fix our problem. In my view, none of those CBSA officers should go on the front line. They should all be doing intelligence and investigative work, because the border is a very complex issue of expertise. Where we are falling down is our ability to run complex.... We are under-resourced in what keeps the threats away from our border to begin with and our ability to collaborate with our allies.

On intelligence sharing, yes, we have a growing number of liaison officers working with key institutions both in the United States and in other countries. It is unfortunate, in my view, that it looks like Canada recently did that in response to U.S. demands. These are proposals that had been put out well before, but had, unfortunately, in some cases not been actioned. What value are those liaison officers providing? Where are the studies and the evidence?

As far as I can tell, there's considerable frustration among some U.S. agencies, at least, which are saying it is so cumbersome to work with Canadian colleagues. The requirements, the regulations and the policies are so overwhelming that they might as well not even bother. Paperwork that takes half an hour or an hour in the United States takes half a day or a day.

I understand the importance of following proper regulations and proper procedure, but there is a fine balance between the government assuming certain degrees of political, financial and reputational risk and offloading all of the risk onto the agencies, with the policies, procedures and regulations. That means we can't have those people doing the investigative and intelligence work we want them to do, because they spend all their time managing risk for the government.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

I assume that your expertise is on the table, and you are putting forth all of these recommendations to the government agencies and government personnel.

[Christian Leuprecht]

I am happy to work with you to formulate whatever submissions or further recommendations the committee might be looking for.

My remarks, in particular with regard to the RCMP, have been on the record in what I think is the longest study on the RCMP that's currently out that was not commissioned by the government. It lists, I think, 70 different studies that have been done over the years on the RCMP. I don't know the number exactly. I'd need to go back and look.

My point is that we've been at this for decades and we keep kicking the can down the road. We think we're going to fix the problems by hiring a new commissioner.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

To follow up, are there other models of border security and enforcement among Canada's allies and partners, like the Five Eyes, from which lessons can be learned for the U.S.-Canada border?

How does the management of the Canada-United States border differ from the border management of any other countries?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

You have one minute.

[Christian Leuprecht]

My starting point is that whether it comes to policing in this country or whether it comes to borders, I think we actually need a systematic professional development program. One thing that the military has is a systematic program to develop officers, in particular rank-and-file members and NCOs, as they rise through the ranks. We lack that at the level of policing, although CBSA does it a little bit better in the way they go about this. It means we never harness the full capacity of the people we have, in particular at the officer and management levels.

This is a very small investment with very high returns. The most important things aren't memoranda of understanding, technology and so forth but the people we have and the investing in those people so that we get the maximum return from their area of expertise.

I've long been on record as saying that we also need one dedicated expert agency in Canada to deal with the border. Canada is very different in the way that it has two agencies—one expert agency that manages at ports of entry and a generalist agency that manages not just borders, but whose commissioner has the largest span of control of any democratic police force in the world. We wonder why we are struggling with this organization: We're asking too much of it on too broad a spectrum.

I can provide some submissions on other models, but I think it ultimately comes down to political will. It comes down to understanding that security is job one for a government. As long as we don't understand that this is the first mover—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Leuprecht. I'm sorry to interrupt again.

I now turn to Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Leuprecht, thank you for joining us today. It's good to hear your analysis, which takes us a bit outside the box of our original study.

The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, announced with great fanfare that it would assign an additional 1,000 border officers and 1,000 RCMP officers to the borders. However, we know that many more are needed.

The CBSA and RCMP resolve the issues that receive media or political attention by allocating the necessary resources, whether these issues involve car theft or other border‑related problems.

Which sector is being neglected as a result of this approach? Intelligence and investigations are being neglected because they receive limited human resources, which don't necessarily meet current needs.

You're saying that, if we want to deploy resources in the right places, we should perhaps take a more pragmatic approach to analyzing how we use them. In other words, we should optimize the skills of RCMP and border officers. You're saying that we should carry out a more localized analysis of needs for each port of entry, rather than taking a more general approach to resource management.

I gather that you're proposing a more tailored resource analysis for each CBSA port of entry. Is that correct?

[Christian Leuprecht]

Great analysis, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

I would like to address three points.

First, with regard to resources, the RCMP is a prime example of an organization that, owing to considerable constraints, must constantly reallocate its resources according to political priorities. This explains why it can rarely develop the necessary expertise. From one day to the next, it expects priorities to change.

For example, if the decision is made to assign RCMP officers to a port of entry rather than implementing a more systematic strategy, there must be a specialized team that focuses exclusively on borders.

Second, Canada lacks the resources necessary to assess strategic intelligence. If it wants to achieve certain objectives for strategic purposes, it must adopt a comprehensive strategic perspective in order to properly allocate its resources to strategic priorities.

In my opinion, there are two types of priorities. There are national security priorities, and then there are priorities—

to respond to Ms. Kirkland, that are causing the most individual harm.

However, without a good comprehensive overview, we can't really allocate our resources strategically for strategic purposes.

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

Sorry to interrupt you, but we know that the National Police Federation finds it difficult when the government changes its priorities too often. For example, it allocates its resources to the fight against organized crime. Then a new government or minister comes in, and the priority changes as well. As you said, it isn't possible to develop expertise and to continue the work started. Many projects have been started, and police and border officers are moving from priority to priority.

I should point out that the upper echelons of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, and the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, don't seem to necessarily listen to their rank and file. Instead, they listen to politicians who want to score points and who care less about short‑term and long‑term strategic planning.

[Christian Leuprecht]

In this country, public safety policies are developed backwards. We make all kinds of policies. We then assume that this will help us achieve a larger goal. We lack a national safety strategy to properly align all the other policies under development. The latest strategy of this kind dates back to 2004.

Another point, which you rightly raised, is the localized aspect of the whole issue. Since September 2001, we've taken a centralized approach to managing border security policy. However, border issues are quite localized. For example, in Quebec, everything is tied to protecting language and culture, including the approach to managing cross‑border flows. We need a more nuanced policy that takes into account the past, the flows and the needs of local communities around the border, including economic flows.

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

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

You have 40 seconds left.

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

Mr. Leuprecht, I would like your opinion on the recommendation that the RCMP and CBSA should have closer ties with the different levels of government in areas with ports of entry in order to share information, provide training and increase awareness. They should strive to work together on data collection and observation.

I sense some openness at the RCMP, but not necessarily at the CBSA. What are your thoughts?

[Christian Leuprecht]

In my opinion, in places such as rural Quebec, it's certainly difficult to manage the public safety issues of an agency whose policies and structure serve and reflect Ottawa's objectives. My point is that the RCMP's current structure doesn't seem particularly conducive to achieving its objectives. Without any restructuring, things will stay the same. Police officers, police associations, politicians and the general public will remain frustrated by the results of this agency, which isn't structured to meet these types of nuanced needs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you for this discussion.

Mr. Gill, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Professor, for being here today. We really appreciate it.

You touched somewhat on the U.S. government and the Trump administration coming forward, basically in saying how the immigration policies and the increased border control that they demanded.... Why do you believe that the Liberal government failed to take early obvious steps to strengthen our border security and to provide necessary resources before illegal crossings, smuggling and organized crime activity surged in Canada?