44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague.
I think this sends the right message to the public. It is a message that might restore public confidence in the country's institutions. We know that, both for the Canada Border Services Agency and for institutions in general, the public has lost confidence in public safety institutions and agencies in Canada, and even in elected officials.
Bill C‑20 will bring in mechanisms that will enable people to follow the complaint process and see the results. It is all well and good to file a complaint, but if it is never mentioned again and nothing comes out of it, then it serves no real purpose, and that does not show that people have been heard. I think this sends a rather positive message.
This could have been introduced sooner, but we are glad it is before us today.
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Madam Speaker, I hope so.
I do not have the figures or the details about the complaints filed in recent years, but I imagine that the degrading comments made about certain people involved gender or nationality. We want to avoid this at all costs.
Once again, I do not want to put border services officers, who do an extraordinary job, on trial. There is a shortage of officers right now, and I think they are doing their best, but that does not give them the right to go places we do not want them to go. That does not give them the right to make degrading comments or abuse their power, which has happened in recent years.
Let us hope that the bill will help resolve these issues. Let us make sure that the commission remains independent, and that the complaint process goes smoothly. If it takes people months or years to get a response after they file a complaint, we may find that the commission is not doing much good after all, so let us ensure that it is truly useful for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent work with respect to this. He is absolutely correct to say that this measure should be extended to parliamentarians so that there is accountability. We often come across situations or instances that we learn of, and there should be a pathway for parliamentarians to raise these concerns, file a complaint and have the matter investigated. There has to be open, transparent accountability in this process.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is obviously in favour of Bill C‑20, which will introduce mechanisms, that is, an independent organization, to handle complaints.
Several years ago, in 2004, there was the Arar case that made it clear we needed an independent organization. In 2022, there are still complaint management mechanisms and organizations that are not independent. There is some independent oversight at the RCMP, but not at the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.
I would like to ask my colleague why the government, after a number of years, has still not taken action to ensure that complaints are handled fairly and independently and that there are no abuses, particularly with regard to the CBSA.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in this place acknowledging that we stand on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation, and essentially this building sits on Algonquin land. To them, I say meegwetch.
I am very pleased that we have seen another incarnation of Bill C-20. The fundamental essence of this legislation, for those who may just be joining the debate, is to ensure that two really significant federal law enforcement agencies have mechanisms for civilian complaint.
Those two agencies are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency.
The Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP interact with Canadians and foreigners on a regular basis. The RCMP has had a public complaints commission for many years. It has been inadequate. Initially, it did not have powers to subpoena, to find out from RCMP officers what really happened in any event. The ability to summon witnesses is terribly important.
The powers of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP were weaker, but it is unbelievable that we do not have a single entity to handle complaints against the CBSA.
I do not know about my colleagues in this place, but certainly through COVID I had a lot of reasons to be concerned about the structure of the Canada Border Services Agency and the degree of powers granted to individual officers. It will be beyond the scope of this act to deal with some of these issues, so I place them before us now as we go through second reading debate.
This is concerning for all of us. I should not speak for all of my colleagues, but I have a hunch here, because I talked to many of them, regardless of party, during the period of time that we were trying to help Canadians come home to Canada. For instance, those married to permanent residents, not Canadian citizens, had to make their pitch at the border to a Canada Border Services agent, whose decision was final and discretionary to a particular officer. This created no end of misery for Canadian families. I do know that cabinet at the time passed an order in council to try to alleviate the problem, but it is still the case that an individual officer can make a decision on the spot about anyone.
My stepdaughter was once going into the United States to take up a new job that she had in California. She had all her paperwork, but the Canada Border Services agent did not like her. He said he did not believe her and did not think she had a job, and he sent her back. There is no appeal. There is no place to go with that. We need to take a broader look at the Canada Border Services Agency.
Some constituents, who were not my constituents, asked me for help. They happened to be a couple I know from Cape Breton Island, where my family lives and where I am from. The couple was at the New Brunswick border with Maine. When they drove up to the Canadian kiosk to say they were going home, the border agent told the wife she could go home because she is Canadian, but her husband could not go home because he is still a permanent resident. They had to leave one spouse at the border with all the luggage, while the other was allowed into Canada because they were not allowed to go back into the U.S. together. These kinds of things are nonsensical. We need to look at the Canada Border Services Agency and make some policy choices and raise some other issues.
We certainly know that we want, as a matter of policy, which I have heard from many people in the House today, the CBSA to be focused on stopping the smuggling of guns. We want the CBSA focused on stopping the smuggling of contraband drugs too. We do not particularly want the CBSA at the border to terrorize racialized people from other countries. We do not want it thinking that its number one job is to find people whose citizenship is not quite right and whose paperwork as a permanent resident is not quite right, and get them deported as quickly as possible.
We have a lot of complaints about the CBSA and there are concerns about racial profiling in the RCMP. There are complaints that need to be heard. However, I really want to emphasize the extent to which the CBSA, in the past, has brutalized Canadians. I will give one example, because it comes from my own experience. I was just discussing it with the member of Parliament in whose riding it happened before he was the MP for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
An indigenous man, born in the state of California, came across the border in the 1980s or 1970s with an indigenous woman from Penelakut Island, from the Penelakut nation of Vancouver Island. They married, they had kids and they had grandkids. There is a thing called the Jay Treaty, but obviously the CBSA had never heard of it. It gives additional rights to indigenous people crossing borders.
In any case, for some reason, CBSA agents decided in 2013 to show up at the door of Richard Germaine from Penelakut Island. They had not sent a note saying that they noticed he did not have all of his paperwork done to be a Canadian permanent resident. They just showed up four days before Christmas and arrested him. I am not exaggerating a bit. They put him in leg irons in the back of a van and drove him off Vancouver Island, taking a long ferry ride, to Vancouver, where they placed him in a cell.
I have seen the cells now, thanks to Senator Kim Pate, who likes to take other parliamentarians on tours of prisons. They are in the basement of the Vancouver airport. The people put there are rarely there for more than 24 hours before they are summarily deported. Since the time that I toured that facility, they have moved to a different facility for the deportation of foreigners.
This was a railroading; this was fast. This was taking someone from his home, a grandfather, right before Christmas in front of his wife, who was a residential school survivor, and sending him for deportation without due process, because, well, that was what the political mood wanted to do.
We desperately need this legislation. I will be supporting it to get it through second reading and get it to committee. The CBSA, for a long time, has had a high number of complaints, and these have been noted by the Auditor General. They are complaints of racism, homophobia, transphobia and rudeness. It is an agency that desperately needs oversight. I want to make sure that I say, as other speakers have said, that there are wonderful agents in the RCMP and wonderful agents in the CBSA, but this is crying out for reform.
I will be presenting amendments to Bill C-20 because I want to make sure that it is as rigorous as possible and as fair as possible to the people who experience these issues at the border with CBSA. We also need to do much more to examine systemic racism within the RCMP. We need to do much more to pay attention to that. What if people do not feel like they can make a complaint?
We need proactive anti-racism programs in the RCMP. We also need to take a very close look at so-called wellness checks, as in the case of Rodney Levi, a member of the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation who in June 2020 was killed by an RCMP officer.
Local complaint commissions, efforts at inquiries and coroners' reports are not really where we want to start the efforts to ensure this does not happen again. The place to start efforts to ensure this does not happen again is specific anti-racism training and specific training to root out misogyny within the RCMP and CBSA, and ensuring that we protect the agencies that are created to protect us. We must take steps to ensure that our RCMP and CBSA agents are protected themselves.
We need to make sure that the process set up under Bill C-20 is robust and fair and does its best to ensure that our law enforcement agencies meet our values as Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very interesting speech, in which she explained how the CBSA's existing complaint management system can result in injustice, especially toward certain minorities that may be targeted.
Just before that, my colleague from Kingston and the Islands said that, every time someone rises to talk about Bill C‑20, they are just wasting time and delaying passage of the bill.
Does my colleague think she wasted our time with her speech?
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to the words of the member today, and I appreciate the words around being treated fairly and with respect. My question for the member is regarding the LGBTQ+ community, which we spoke about in the House today. This relates specifically to respect and being treated fairly for those who have been misgendered by the RCMP.
I would like the member's thoughts on how this would allow persons who have been misgendered to file a complaint, which right now is not available to them.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech, in which she mentioned all the work our border officers do.
We can all agree that the complaint or oversight mechanism is a good thing for those whose rights were violated. Does the member think it is also important to consider the people who work at the border to safeguard our rights? They have been mistreated and are under a lot of pressure because their numbers have declined.
How is the government planning to consult these workers and listen to their perspective to make sure they do not have to bear a greater burden or be put under even more pressure?
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Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-20, an act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments.
I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois supports this bill at second reading. This bill would give citizens recourse against the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, which can, on occasion, abuse its authority.
There is currently an independent oversight mechanism in place, but its mandate covers only matters of national security, so it needs to be expanded. Citizens who wish to file a complaint must do so directly to the CBSA, but the information is not public and, because the mechanism is internal, it is not totally neutral and objective.
As a result, there is no external review body to deal with public complaints against the CBSA, and that is what this bill seeks to correct. The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C‑20 at second reading because we believe that an independent complaint process is both necessary and good for the public. As my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles said, it was in 2004, 18 years ago, that Justice O'Connor recommended that an independent process be put in place to handle public complaints against the CBSA.
For example, in early January 2020, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found significant flaws concerning searches of travellers' electronic devices, which demonstrated the importance of having an independent body to review complaints. The bill must be referred to a committee quickly so that it can be studied and the concerns of different groups, including unions, can be heard. I will come back to this later to explain what this will change, and I will speak about the perspective of unions and victims.
First, this bill seeks to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act to change the complaints process for citizens and provide the opportunity for travellers to file complaints against CBSA officers.
This bill is similar to Bill C‑3, which was introduced in the 43rd Parliament, and Bill C‑98, which was introduced in the 42nd Parliament. Both died on the Order Paper for the sole reason that they were never a priority for the government. All parties supported Bill C-98, but we never voted on Bill C‑3. We are wondering if this bill will now be a priority.
Bill C‑20 contains a number of things. It replaces the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a new body called the public complaints and review commission, or PCRC. This new body will be mandated to review and investigate complaints concerning the conduct and level of service of RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, personnel. It will also conduct reviews of specified activities of the RCMP and the CBSA.
The bill authorizes the chairperson of the PCRC to recommend the initiation of disciplinary processes or the imposition of disciplinary measures in relation to individuals who have been the subject of complaints. It amends the Canada Border Services Agency Act to provide for the investigation of serious incidents involving officers and employees of the CBSA.
The most important point of this bill is that it enables this new body to review the CBSA's activities and to investigate public complaints involving both officers and employees. Under Bill C-20, the public complaints and review commission can receive complaints from the public about the RCMP or the CBSA, but the complaints will generally be sent directly to the RCMP and the CBSA first for an initial investigation. If the complainant is not satisfied with the investigation of the RCMP or the CBSA, then they can ask the PCRC to look into it. Basically, here is what that means.
In such a case, the PCRC could present its findings and make recommendations. The RCMP or the CBSA would have to respond in writing to the PCRC reports by the deadlines set out in the acts and regulations. An external mechanism will therefore be put in place.
What is more, complaints related to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will not be dealt with by the PCRC. However, the PCRC will forward any such complaints to the appropriate organizations.
The PCRC will be made up of civilians who are not former members of the RCMP or the CBSA. This is an independent external process. Another thing about this bill is that the response timelines for the RCMP will be codified, because many felt that the RCMP responded too slowly to the reports of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or CRCC. The bill will therefore replace the CRCC with the PCRC and a deadline will be imposed.
The bill also requires the commissioner of the RCMP and the president of the CBSA to submit an annual report to the Minister of Public Safety outlining what the organizations have done during the year to address the PCRC's recommendations. The minister will be required to share the report with the House of Commons and the Senate within 15 days.
There will also be a more targeted collection of information to determine whether racism against certain groups is an issue. It will be documented. The bill also calls for a public education and information campaign to inform travellers of their rights.
The PCRC will be responsible for tracking serious incidents—such as a death, serious injury or violation of laws—and making them public. It may send an observer to ensure that CBSA and RCMP investigations are conducted impartially. The PCRC may review, on its own initiative or at the request of the Minister of Public Safety, any RCMP and CBSA activity that is not related to national security. The reports would include findings or recommendations on RCMP and CBSA compliance with legislation and directives, and the adequacy, appropriateness, sufficiency or clarity of RCMP and CBSA policies, procedures and guidelines.
One difference from Bill C-3, which was a similar bill introduced in the 43rd Parliament, is that the PCRC will be established by a specific piece of legislation, whereas in the previous version, it was established by amendments to existing laws.
The PCRC will not be able to compel the CBSA and the RCMP to take disciplinary action, but both agencies will be required to report to the minister to justify their response to the recommendations, and these reports will be made public 15 days after the minister receives them.
The bill aims to create an independent process for reviewing complaints and the work of the Canada Border Services Agency. This new entity, the public complaints and review commission, will also replace the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This new commission, the PCRC, will deal with both the RCMP and the CBSA.
The new entity created by Bill C-20 will make it possible to file complaints directly with the CBSA and directly with the PCRC, depending on the complainant's preference. The complainant decides. If an individual is not satisfied with the response they get from the CBSA or the RCMP, they can ask the PCRC to review a complaint that has already been filed.
The process is nevertheless long and complicated. There is a good chance that most individuals will give up before the end of the process. For example, if an officer makes a sexist or racist comment towards a traveller, filing a complaint with the CBSA, waiting for a response and then sending the complaint to the PCRC could be more complicated and demanding for most travellers than just ignoring the comment, which is quite sad. The committee will have to examine whether the process proposed by Bill C‑20 is adequate or if it should be revised.
Creating this new external body is necessary, according to Mary Foster, from Solidarity Across Borders. In 2019, she said that “making a complaint to the CBSA about the CBSA doesn't really lead anywhere”. Having the option of challenging the findings of an investigation is therefore essential to maintaining public trust.
All parties supported Bill C‑98 in the 42nd Parliament, but, as I said earlier, a vote was never held on Bill C‑3.
Now we are once again discussing a bill that is good for the public because the existing system does not include an adequate complaint mechanism for people. Civil liberties groups have long called for the creation of an independent complaint-handling body like the one for the police.
For example, under the Access to Information Act, the Canadian Press obtained a list of complaints that travellers submitted directly to the CBSA.
According to the documents, in 2017-18, nearly 900 complaints were filed, about 100 of which were deemed founded, including cases of travellers being on the receiving end of border officers' racist or rude comments. Complaints against the CBSA are currently handled internally, with little transparency. That is the problem Bill C‑20 may fix.
Second, from the union's perspective, the Customs and Immigration Union's national president, Mark Weber, is concerned that Bill C‑20 could put more pressure on the labour-management relationship, which the union says is already strained. We have to keep that in mind.
He says that officers are placed on leave without pay, sometimes for a year or more, pending the outcome of investigations. He also notes that customs officers frequently work overtime and can be exhausted, which does not help. We need to ensure that customs officers have adequate resources, which the Bloc Québécois often asks for, considering the government's lack of interest in our borders. We have been asking for this frequently and for a long time. The Bloc Québécois would like the union to be involved in the process that leads to passing Bill C‑20, particularly in committee.
The staffing shortage at the CBSA is a well-known problem. This is causing delays and tension between officers and travellers. The government will also have to address this problem.
The CBSA has a great deal of power, including the power to detain and search Canadians and to deport people. It is therefore incomprehensible that the CBSA still has no external investigation mechanism.
In its legislative summary, the Library of Parliament cites the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-Canadian citizen who was arrested during a layover in New York on his way home to Canada.
In 2004, a commission of inquiry into the Arar case led by Justice Dennis O'Connor suggested creating a new civilian agency to oversee the activities of both the RCMP and the CBSA, as I said earlier.
In other words, 18 years later, the CBSA still does not have one. Only the RCMP has this external oversight mechanism. However, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency is already responsible for overseeing national security activities, and only national security activities.
I want to make it clear that the Bloc Québécois is not putting the blame on CBSA or RCMP officers as a whole, nor is it putting the CBSA on trial. Rather, we feel the government is responsible for the lack of oversight over the CBSA and the lack of transparency, which is inappropriate for such an important agency. We think the Liberals and the Conservatives should be held to account for tolerating all this for so long.
As I said—
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