Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity today to speak at second reading of Bill C-42. It is called An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, but the government has chosen to call it by its short title, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police accountability act. The government is fond of naming these bills in some sort of public relations move. This is intended to cover everything that is included in the act but also to respond to public concerns.
It is fair to say that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was an institution that, up until recent years, had a great deal of respect among Canadians, whether they be members of the policing field or members of the general public who looked to the RCMP as the embodiment of a system of justice that had high standards of professionalism and respect from the public and from other police officers.
I started practising law in 1980 and in my early days the RCMP was known by other police forces as the senior police force in Canada. The police forces in my jurisdiction and others would look to the RCMP in terms of standards, whether they be of training, establishment of procedures and investigative procedures or standards of ethics and conduct, and this went on for many years.
I am only saying what many others have said before me, including members of the RCMP, many of whom I have spoken to over the last few years. There is a great deal of concern about the institution itself and about its ability to ensure the level of trust and respect that a police force demands. Others have rightly spoken about the high regard in which the RCMP is held throughout the world in terms of its effectiveness, its investigative ability and the forensic and technical expertise it has and lends to other forces throughout the world. In terms of training in other nations under various international agreements and United Nations efforts, we have made a significant contribution through the RCMP.
However, we have seen, at sometimes very senior levels of the RCMP, a failing that needs to be corrected. The most recent controversy has been about complaints of sexual harassment and, more importantly I suppose, the failure to adequately respond to the question of sexual harassment. Although we do have incidents of sexual harassment, as the report published today pointed out based on a survey of 426 members of the RCMP in British Columbia, the majority of respondents did not feel that the harassment was rampant inside the force. However, they expressed frustration at the handling of existing cases and the high number of unreported cases.
That is not saying it is rampant throughout the force, so we are not condemning the RCMP when we talk about the existence of sexual harassment cases. However, we are condemning the institution both for failing to respond properly to those incidents that have been reported and for failing to provide an atmosphere in which reporting can take place and—because primarily we are talking 99% of the time about women who are subject to such sexual harassment—in which they actually have a safe place to bring forth their complaints knowing it is the complaint that will be dealt with and not them.
That is important. It is important that the public have a clear understanding, belief, trust and faith in our senior police force representing the nation in symbolic ways, whether it be on our coins or through the musical ride. The RCMP is well known as a symbol of Canada and of respect. Even the ancient comment, which I suppose is praise, that the RCMP is the force that always gets its man or woman as the case may be, is emblematic of the esteem in which this organization is held in the popular culture of Canada. However it has to be fixed.
The question here is whether or not Bill C-42 is that fix. We know that the RCMP and the authorities within the RCMP need to be able to deal with bad behaviour. We know we need to have effective civilian oversight, and this has been commented on in various speeches here for many years. We also need a fair grievance procedure, one that ensures that grievances, whether they be about sexual harassment, pay and benefits or the conduct of some officer towards an individual, are dealt with fairly and in a timely manner. These are things that have to be done.
In this atmosphere, where we are talking about one of the principal recent reasons—the issue of sexual harassment—for the public outcry for accountability of RCMP officers and the force itself, what I find surprising is that in this bill we do not have a standard or even a statement with regard to sexual harassment and the unacceptability of it in an organization and in employment relationships. It may be a matter of policy in some organizations. In an institution of this nature, which is regarded as quasi-militaristic and has a hierarchy of authority where officers are expected to listen to and obey the commands of senior officers, more particularly there is a need to ensure that officers who have authority over others are prohibited and exhorted in a specific way not to abuse that authority, especially when it comes to the serious issue of sexual harassment.
Today's news, as mentioned by the previous speaker, is of the release of a survey done five or six months ago, interviewing a fairly large number of British Columbia members of the RCMP, and an internal report that found female members do not trust the force's system to deal with harassment complaints and frequently avoid reporting instances of perceived wrongdoing:
Participants strongly expressed that they were fearful of coming forward to report harassment as it could hinder promotional opportunities, have a negative impact on their careers, and possibly cause them to become a scapegoat for anything supervisors wanted to find fault with.
The opinion was also expressed that the RCMP is known for moving the complainant rather than dealing with the problem. In that context, I have to challenge the minister's statement in his speech yesterday that all we need to do is give the front-line managers power to make decisions, in fact, give them more power to deal with circumstances in situations.
We are supporting the bill at second reading and our public safety critic, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, spoke very eloquently yesterday on it. We are supporting it because we do know there is a need to fix some of the problems in the RCMP and provide for a greater accountability and an ability to deal with these problems. However, we want to ensure we do not see merely a pendulum swinging one way and then the other, giving more authority and power to those at the top without ensuring that the job that needs to be done gets done. This is what I see and fear about this legislation.
We need timelines to deal with grievances. We need timelines to deal with situations. We need standards, particularly around conduct and behaviour. In that respect, a code of conduct is a good thing. However, we also have to make sure there would be due process.
I have a worry that the checks and balances are not there when I see a grievance procedure that gives the commissioner final and binding decision-making authority that he can delegate to somebody else, who in turn can delegate it to somebody else below him or her. It would be a final and binding decision without any reference to third parties, civilians outside or standards that may exist in other elements of public life.
This is a concern that has been raised within the military where there are similar circumstances. The grievance boards do not have sufficient outside involvement and it is all done within the context of the military circumstances, just as with this bill, where there would be an internal grievance procedure that would not have the checks and balances we would want.
Many of the matters that are dealt with are not specifically policing matters but rather of compensation, fair treatment or whether a dinner allowance was properly awarded. Yes, these things should be dealt with quickly, but with fairness and not arbitrarily.
We need due process in terms of grievances and conduct that may result in dismissal without powers arbitrarily set with the commissioner. The proposed legislation would give the commissioner the absolute right to appoint or discharge members, but it could be subject to a conduct board, which is probably a good thing.
If we are going to have a code of conduct, we have to have someone able to interpret and apply it. However, from my opportunity to peruse it, it is not clear in this proposed legislation who would actually do that or who the members on the conduct board would be. This is something that the committee would look closely at. We would like to see a code of conduct that specifically prohibits and explains what sexual harassment is, for example.
We do have codes of conduct with respect to the use of force. Clearly, the conduct of the RCMP and policing communities in the use of force in certain circumstances is another issue that has brought about concerns from many people. We had the Dziekanski investigation and hearing in British Columbia and there are other instances throughout the country that question the behaviour of RCMP members and police officers on other forces. It is not an exclusive issue to the RCMP, but behaviour, standards and conduct are brought into question and challenged.
These are the subject of lawsuits in some cases, and inquiries and other investigations. There has to be a proper code of conduct for that. There has to be a disciplinary procedure when it is necessary to impose discipline. There has to be due process to ensure that officers themselves are protected when they find themselves accused of certain breaches of conduct. It has to be fair. I believe the word used yesterday by my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca was “balance”. There has to be a balance struck that does not simply let the pendulum swing one way because there is a perception that there is insufficient authority being exercised.
I want to talk about something else that others have mentioned, namely that legislation alone is not going to change the culture within the RCMP. It has to come from leadership and education. It perhaps also has to come by involving people from outside the force, that is by having them come in to help in solving some of these problems. The RCMP internally has been aware of these problems; they are not new. There has been report after report expressing concerns about the structure of the RCMP and the problems there, yet we do not see solutions. They are not all going to come from the top. The leadership has to come from the top but other people can be brought in to solve the problems.
This is an internal report that was commissioned after Commissioner Paulson was appointed. The commissioner himself has vowed to root out so-called dark hearted behaviour in the RCMP. Rooting things out is one thing, but changing the culture is another. It is a little harder job. It is not simply a matter of passing legislation. It is a matter of replacing the culture with a new culture based on respect: respect for each other, respect for women, respect for citizens and respect for the fact that police officers are given significant authority to use force in keeping the peace. That is something that has to be used with great care. It is a big responsibility that we give to police officers. From those to whom that responsibility is given, much is expected.
What is interesting in the response to the internal report, a pretty damning report referred to in today's Globe and Mail, is that the majority of the respondents in the report said they had no faith in the current reporting process. That is why we have unreported cases of sexual harassment and other forms of harassment. That is a fairly damning conclusion by individual members of the RCMP in this internal report. This results in severe morale problems and also a lack of faith in senior officers and the structure itself.
One response by Deputy Commissioner Callens, who is the commanding officer of the B.C. RCMP, was to send more than a hundred officers for training to ensure greater timeliness and follow-up to complaint investigations. Indeed, this is what the RCMP said in a statement. Well, follow-up and timeliness is one thing, but there are also other aspects to this whole notion of how does sexual harassment exist in the first place. Why is it tolerated? Is there a culture of toleration? Is there something more deep seated that has to be dealt with outside of legislation but internally within the RCMP? It is a big job and they may need outside help to do that.
Therefore, I realize this is a big task and that the legislature cannot fix everything by legislation. Nonetheless, the legislation itself is a step in the right direction. We support the notion of having more authority to deal with problems and having things dealt with in a more timely fashion.
We are concerned about some of the measures here. There need to be a lot of changes in the bill before it will be acceptable to the official opposition. We will work assiduously in committee to help make that happen.
