Mr. Chair, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this evening on the RCMP and law enforcement in Canada.
I am splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Spruce Grove.
I just want to take issue with what was said by my colleague from the justice department. He said that violent crime was somehow going down. I would tell that member to take a look at statistics from 40 years ago and compare where our society was then to today. Now we have the additional fact that crimes are not even being reported any more under the Criminal Youth Justice Act. It is not in issue that crimes are going down; they are simply not being reported any more. People have given up.
If the hon. member wants to find out what the statistics are, he should go back 40 years and compare them year to year and he will see the truth, that violent crime is rising.
The request for the debate was made by my colleague from Yellowhead, following the March 3 deaths of the RCMP officers near Mayerthorpe, Alberta. I want to thank the member for bringing this matter to the House and for all his work.
I want to say again how profoundly grateful Canadians are to these four brave young men who lost their lives on duty. We are also thankful to all the men and women of the RCMP who serve our communities across the country and put their lives at risk in the service of others every day. My own riding is primarily serviced by RCMP officers. The only complaint that people in my riding have about the RCMP is that there are not enough officers. They want to see more of the RCMP and unfortunately they do not.
The crime of the four young officers who were killed like that, and I use the word “crime” deliberately because it is not a tragedy. Tragedies are not preventable. This is a crime that could have been prevented. It was a poignant reminder of our duty as parliamentarians to give our men and women in uniform the very best in support and resources.
In that context I would like to make some brief comments about the cuts that have been made over the past decade to the front lines of our law enforcement officials.
During the past few months, the justice committee has heard testimony about critical shortages of RCMP officers in Quebec and in other parts of Canada, including my own province of Manitoba.
I have received information from confidential internal RCMP sources which indicates that the staffing levels for the RCMP in Manitoba are falling to a critical level, particularly the highway patrol divisions. In my home town of Steinbach, the highway patrol was closed down on the number one highway. Basically, from Winnipeg to almost Falcon Lake, let us say, about 75 miles, was not patrolled by the RCMP because the highway patrol had been shut down.
A committee motion two months ago summoned the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Commissioner of the RCMP and the commanding officer of “C” division to explain before it why they ignored the committee's previous order to stay the closure of nine RCMP detachments in Quebec.
The Minister of Public Safety declined to appear in front of the committee and the RCMP Commissioner, although he did appear, did not give much by way of explanation, other than saying that he felt confident he had made the right decision.
During that same committee meeting, we heard from front line officers about the porous nature of our border, the fact that the border was not secure and that our officers simply were not there to take care of incidents as they arose.
Increasingly, with all this talk about the Gomery commission these days, some facts unrelated to the sponsorship have come to light during the testimony that actually shed some light on this issue. I would point members to the testimony of December 15, 2004. Mr. Dawson Hovey, who was in charge of the program review process of 1996, stated that he was required to reduce the RCMP budget by 10%, which involved a budget reduction of about $173 million and the deletion of over 2,200 RCMP positions. This was his sworn testimony.
I recall when I was in the public service in Manitoba as the minister of justice, a Liberal minister came to see me and said that what they were doing was reorganizing and that there would not be any cuts, knowing full well that there would be cuts. In fact, we learned the hard way in Manitoba that there were cuts. The people of Quebec are now learning that there are cuts.
It is no secret that our RCMP have been suffering from budgetary cuts. The government talks about increases in actual money, but it is not going to our front-line police officers.
The health of our police officers and the safety of our communities are suffering because of it. I do not know why the RCMP commissioner simply does not come out and say that the cuts have been made.
I want to take note of this incident. Let us learn from it. Let us honour those officers who have fallen by treating their fellow officers with respect, by providing them with the appropriate resources.