44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 9, 2023
- 08:46:40 a.m.
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I call this meeting to order.
Good morning, everyone, on this early Friday morning. Welcome to meeting number 71 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
We will start by acknowledging that we are meeting on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Therefore, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Friday, November 25, 2022, the committee continues consideration of Bill C-20, an act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments.
Today we have two panels of witnesses.
With us in the first panel, for the first hour, we have the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We have Michelaine Lahaie, chairperson, and Joanne Gibb, senior director, strategic operations and policy directorate.
Ms. Lahaie, you have seven minutes for an opening statement. Please go ahead.
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- 08:48:06 a.m.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today.
Bill C‑20 will expand the mandate of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission—or the CRCC—to include not just the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, but also the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.
I believe the CRCC is well placed to take on an expanded role based upon 35 years of experience in civilian review of law enforcement, and expert knowledge of the complaint and review process.
I’m pleased to see that the proposed legislation to establish the Public Complaints and Review Commission, or PCRC, incorporates a number of previous recommendations the CRCC made to the Minister of Public Safety and this committee.
These recommendations include the following.
One, we recommend stand-alone legislation. Having the PCRC enabling legislation in a stand-alone statute reinforces its independence.
Two, we recommend statutory timelines to respond to PCRC reports. I am encouraged that Bill C-20 includes statutory timelines for the CBSA and the RCMP to respond to PCRC reports. Any system where accountability is critical must include clearly set out timelines that are publicly available and reported on.
Three, we recommend stakeholder engagement and public education. Bill C-20 makes public education mandatory. If adequately funded and properly resourced, it will ensure that those who want to access the complaint review process are aware of its existence, know how to access it and know what they can expect.
Four, we recommend annual reporting on the implementation of PCRC recommendations. Requiring the CBSA and the RCMP to provide an annual report to the minister outlining the status of implementation of the PCRC's recommendations increases transparency and reassures the public that they are held to a high standard of public accountability.
However, I would recommend that the committee examine the timing of that reporting in comparison to the timing of the PCRC annual report. Ideally, the PCRC would have an opportunity to analyze the implementation report and include any observations or concerns in its annual report to Parliament.
While I am heartened that the bill before you will establish an enhanced independent review and complaints body for the RCMP and the CBSA, I suggest there is an opportunity to further strengthen the oversight regime by making some amendments.
These amendments include, first, diversity and inclusion. In order to ensure diversity and inclusion in PCRC membership, I recommend amending clause 3(1) to include due consideration by the government of indigenous and racialized representation. Similar provisions exist in other federal legislation.
Second is on data collection. I recommend broadening the language of proposed paragraph 13(2)(f) so that the PCRC must report on demographic data, which includes but is not limited to race-based data. This will allow the PCRC to collect, analyze and report on trends across complainant demographics.
Third is on systemic investigations. Greater accountability is achieved through effective oversight not only for public complaints, but also through reviews of systemic issues. That is why I have long called for the removal of the condition on the initiation of specified activity reviews, or what we refer to as systemic investigations. Such investigations have yielded important RCMP-wide changes, but in order for the CRCC to initiate a systemic investigation, I must give notice to the minister that sufficient resources exist for conducting the investigation and that the handling of public complaints will not be compromised. In my experience as chairperson, both the public complaint process and systemic investigations are equally important to RCMP accountability.
Last is on chair-initiated reviews of a public complaint. At present, the CRCC must wait for an individual to re-engage with the public complaint process if they are dissatisfied with the RCMP's handling of their complaint. In the absence of a request for review from the individual, the process stops. Currently, if the chairperson is dissatisfied with how a public complaint has been handled by the RCMP, the CRCC would have to launch its own investigation of the same complaint. This is resource intensive and can take a year or more to complete. For reasons of efficiency among others, I recommend that Bill C-20 include a provision that would allow the chairperson to initiate a review of a finalized public complaint. Such an authority would permit the PCRC to examine some or all of the allegations contained in a public complaint.
Just as the chairperson can currently initiate a complaint with or without a public complaint being made, the authority to initiate a review would further enhance accountability.
In closing, Bill C‑20 provides a robust mandate for the review of the CBSA and the RCMP. With appropriate funding, the PCRC will provide a much-needed independent public complaint mechanism for the CBSA, systemic investigations of the CBSA and an enhanced accountability regime for the RCMP.
I’m pleased to answer any questions. Thank you.
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- 08:54:18 a.m.
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Thank you, Ms. Lahaie.
We'll start our first round of questions with Mr. Motz.
Go ahead, please, for six minutes.
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- 08:54:27 a.m.
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Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you both, Ms. Lahaie and Ms. Gibb, for being here today.
I'm pleased with some of the recommendations you have to strengthen this bill.
First off, with my background, I completely support the idea of having public oversight of law enforcement. I think it's absolutely necessary to maintain trust in that institution.
I do have some concerns and I'll get to those in a minute.
Currently, what are your timelines for getting complaints resolved using the CRCC, on average?
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- 08:55:06 a.m.
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Do you mean on average using my own resources?
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- 08:55:13 a.m.
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Yes, I mean with what you have going right now.
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- 08:55:15 a.m.
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It depends, obviously, on the complexity of the complaint. When we looked at Boushie, the time to get the report to the commissioner was around 20 months. It was a very complex investigation.
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- 08:55:31 a.m.
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On average, what are you looking at? Is it a couple of months, three months or five months?
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- 08:55:35 a.m.
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For a standard complaint, you're looking at six to 12 months.
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- 08:55:39 a.m.
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How many people resources do you have at your disposal?
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- 08:55:50 a.m.
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At the commission right now, we're sitting with between 85 and 90 staff. We have a lot of students right now for the summer.
Our staff consists of lawyers, investigators, policy officers, communications analysts and our administrative staff.
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- 08:56:04 a.m.
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What would your budget be now, approximately?
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- 08:56:06 a.m.
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We recently were given program integrity funding, so my budget is sitting at around $15.2 million.
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- 08:56:12 a.m.
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If the things you're recommending improve the PCRC coming up, how do you reconcile the fact that now we're going to add the CBSA to this? The complaints against the RCMP and the complaints against the CBSA I don't see diminishing any time soon, unless there's some drastic change.
Do you feel that your budget allocation of $18.6 million for the first six years and $19.6 million thereafter is adequate? How many new people are you going to have to step up to handling those two?
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- 08:57:02 a.m.
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The funding that's been attributed to this particular bill is actually not just for the PCRC. There is also funding that is going to CBSA, as well as to NSIRA. What I will tell you is that the total amount of funding that is being given for this bill is less than what we submitted at the lower end when we put forth our proposal for financing.
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- 08:57:27 a.m.
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I would agree. One of the concerns I have is that we're underfunded. We might still face the same issue we've had previously in that we don't have enough resources to meet the timelines as set out in the proposed legislation. We would certainly be open to any submission you would have to our group on where you think that needs to go.
One of the things that I think people still have some confusion about, Ms. Lahaie, is how the CRCC handles complaints now, what role the RCMP plays in that complaints process, and with the PCRC how that will be different moving forward.
Basically, what I'm getting at is what threshold has to be met for a public complaint to be handled by the RCMP detachment, where it originates, or before the PCRC, the new commission, steps in. How do you see that working so that the public understands there is some confidence they can have in this particular process?
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- 08:58:37 a.m.
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What I would share with you is that right now, about 90% of public complaints are made to the commission. There was a point in time when it was about 60%, and 40% were going to the detachments. Now the majority of public complaints are made to the commission.
When a complaint comes in, we have a look at that complaint. In most cases, we send them to the RCMP for investigation. The reason for that is it's a resource-based decision. Before we received our program integrity funding, my budget was $10.5 million.
My choice has been to focus on complaints that are coming from individuals who are marginalized and who are vulnerable. That has been my focus.
The majority of public complaints, 90%, go to the RCMP for investigation.
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- 08:59:27 a.m.
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Do you see that changing moving forward, Ms. Lahaie?
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- 08:59:31 a.m.
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With additional funding, I would like to be able to take on more investigations myself, absolutely.
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- 08:59:35 a.m.
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We heard from the CBSA union that part of the issue that happens there is a breakdown between management and frontline staff, and sometimes management has some issues. Does the PCRC see themselves being involved, maybe in a complaint process against management, and how do you see that happening?
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