Mr. Speaker, I will begin my speech by responding to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. She has asked for examples of witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and contradicted her remarks.
One of those witnesses was Mr. Rob Creasser, from the Professional Association of the Canadian Mounted Police, who spoke to us about the imbalance of power in the organization: “Bill C-42, rather than mitigating these issues, will only make them exponentially worse”.
I do not know what made the parliamentary secretary say that no witnesses contradicted the government. Even though Mr. Creasser does not have a doctorate in mathematics, I think that he knows what “exponentially” means. He went on to say:
If Bill C-42 is passed in its current form...our Parliament would be promoting the bad behaviour and cronyism by legitimizing this type of behaviour.
I hope that addresses the concerns of the member for Saint-Boniface regarding the witnesses who appeared. I did not attend the testimony, but I read the transcription and I came to the conclusion that the parliamentary secretary is mistaken when she says that no witness contradicted the government.
One of the things that initially shocked me about Bill C-42, An Act to Increase Accountability of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was the huge discrepancy between the number of complaints made against police and the inadequacy of the Conservative government’s response. Having said that, I was especially shocked by the lack of any practical solution to adequately address the problem of sexual harassment, which is serious and ongoing, within the venerable institution that is the RCMP.
One explanation for this discrepancy is probably the fact that the government members did not consult all stakeholders on this issue before drafting this legislation. Bill C-42 has been held up by the government as a solution to the problem of sexual harassment in the RCMP, yet clearly, the bill does not meet that objective because it does not even refer explicitly to sexual harassment. To attack the problem, the bill must name it and come up with specific solutions for sexual harassment.
More generally speaking, the bill does not make an attempt to modernize an institution such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as other countries have done. My colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin put it well earlier when he said that in other countries, particularly in Europe, this very problem has been tackled directly by creating institutions that are independent from the police and whose investigations cannot be hampered by the police force under investigation.
We have to consider whether Canadians’ gradual loss of trust in their police forces, in general, and in the RCMP, specifically, is warranted. Part of the answer can probably be found in the 2010-11 annual report on the management of the RCMP disciplinary process, which is the most recent report available. The list of offences speaks volumes and is instructive. It was developed by police officers who are supposed to police their own conduct.
Here are some things on that list: excessive force; use of computer to play video games; use of computer to access pornographic websites; improper use of government credit card; impaired driving; altercation in public place; sexual assault; reporting for duty while under the influence of alcohol—that is the same person as the sexual assault, so we wonder if it was the same day or not, but we do not have the details; use of controlled substances—that means drugs; theft; false claims of overtime hours; domestic assault; possession of firearm without proper licensing; unauthorized use of satellite television signals—perhaps we need to raise our Mounties' salaries if they are reduced to pirating TV signals; refusing to provide breath sample; and here is an interesting one—allowing a prostitute actively soliciting sexual activity to enter personal vehicle for sexual activity; and falsification of medical certificates.
That is the list of the offences that police forces, especially the RCMP, are expected to detect, investigate and punish.
Thus, we can understand the public's growing lack of confidence in police forces, particularly the RCMP. Instead of building confidence, it just undermines public confidence in the police.
In Quebec, this reminds us of the sad case of "Officer 728", which has been widely discussed. Although there is no direct link with the RCMP, it is one more element that undermines the confidence of Quebeckers and all Canadians in all police forces. That is cause for concern.
The point of third reading of a bill is to make good use of the testimony by witnesses at the committee stage.
I will give as an example the testimony by the president of the Canadian Association of Police Boards. He expressed his concerns about the ability of the chairperson of the civilian review and complaints commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—they could have found a shorter name for it, but that is its name—to refuse to investigate a complaint, even when the chairperson believes that would be in the public interest. Once again, that is something for the hon. member for Saint-Boniface to consider. This testimony confirms that a number of witnesses expressed serious concerns about the usefulness and the weak intent of Bill C-42.
Let us say more about this civilian review and complaints commission that is going to replace the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. The first obvious flaw is that the results of these investigations will simply be recommendations and not orders. The recommendations will not be binding on the commissioner or on the Minister of Public Safety.
The second major flaw in this commission is, I think, even more important. That is the fact that it will not be any more independent than the previous one, since it will not report to Parliament, but to the Minister of Public Safety.
This makes me think of a strong trend that we are also seeing within the Standing Committee on National Defence. I am a member of that committee. Just yesterday, we were debating the possibility of adding a link between the Vice Chief of Defence Staff and the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal. This is a typical example of an independent body losing its independence through the addition of a clause to a bill. This means that, once again—and I am using the example of national defence—the Conservatives are limiting the independence of those who should have all the independence they need to investigate any deviations from normal operations that occur within a government department or agency.
For all of the reasons I have outlined, I will not support Bill C-42 at third reading. The main reason for which the bill was drafted is not properly articulated and the bill is not an adequate response to the problem that it is supposed to solve.
