:
I see quorum, so we can begin.
It's our privilege to welcome Minister Blair, for the first time but likely not the last time, to the meeting of the public safety committee.
Before we invite Minister Blair to address the committee, I want to raise an issue with the presentation of the supplementary estimates.
I've now asked about three or four people to correlate or explain the votes requested and the numbers that are being asked of us.
For instance, the amount for the Canada Border Services Agency in vote 1b is $971,827, but the amount for the Canada Border Services Agency in the table of expenditures is $3.4 million. Similarly, with CSIS, it's a vote request of $13 million, and then it's $12 million. It goes on. The only number that correlates with the vote request is that of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police external review committee, which is $639,278 in both instances.
This is sometimes more mysterious than electing a pope. Why estimates are presented this way, I have no idea. However, over the course of the next little while, if those who can explain this would do so, I'd appreciate it. Members, particularly new members—but members generally—are being asked to vote on estimates that don't seem to correlate with the other explanations.
With that caveat, I'm going to call upon Minister Blair to address us with his remarks.
Minister Blair.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good morning, honourable members.
I'm very pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to appear before this committee. I had the privilege of coming before you in a previous capacity, when I was the minister for border security and organized crime. Today is my first appearance, as the chair mentioned, in my new capacity as the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
I'm here today principally to present our supplementary estimates (B) for the Public Safety portfolio. To help explain these numbers, I have the tremendous benefit of being joined by some outstanding public servants. I am joined by ADM Monik Beauregard, representing the Deputy Minister of Public Safety Canada this morning; Commissioner Brenda Lucki, the commissioner of the RCMP; John Ossowski, president of the CBSA; Michelle Tessier, who is here representing CSIS director David Vigneault; Anne Kelly, our commissioner of Correctional Services Canada; and last but not least, Jennifer Oades, president of the Parole Board.
Mr. Chair, I am very proud to have been entrusted with the responsibility for this portfolio by the . I feel sometimes as though I've spent my life getting ready for this job. I'm proud of the professionalism and dedication of all the officials, and all of the members they lead, who work so hard to protect the safety and security of Canadians each and every day.
The threats that Canada faces are numerous, complex and always evolving. As a government, we are committed to ensuring that those who work in the Public Safety portfolio have the resources they need to respond swiftly and effectively. These supplementary estimates that we present to you today reflect that commitment. They also reflect a steadfast commitment to keeping Canadians safe while safeguarding their rights and freedoms. The portfolio as a whole is requesting adjustments for this fiscal year resulting in a net increase in authorities of $75.6 million. In my opening remarks today, I will provide a broad overview and highlight some of the key items for the portfolio organizations, starting, if I may, with Public Safety Canada.
The department is estimating a decrease of $48.9 million, or 5.1%, from the authorities that are available to date. The biggest contributing factor is a transfer of $52.9 million from the Public Safety portfolio to the RCMP for the first nations community policing service. These funds are intended to pay for the policing services that are provided by the RCMP in accordance with agreements with Public Safety, the provinces and territories, and first nations. This decrease is offset to some extent by some additional funding for the department.
For example, in these estimates, Public Safety is seeking an additional $3.5 million in funding following one-time federal payments to the City of Toronto and the City of Burnaby, B.C. More specifically, $1.5 million was provided to the City of Toronto this past August. As you may recall, the city was experiencing a very significant surge in gun violence and street gang activity. As a result, one-time funding was provided for immediate support to the Toronto Police Service to combat gun and gang violence and to keep our communities safe. The federal contribution, by the way, was matched by the municipality and by the province, because all three orders of government recognized the urgency and immediacy of the need for help. In September, $2 million was provided to the City of Burnaby to bolster the city's public safety and emergency preparedness capacity. This was specifically in response to the unique situation of being located at the terminus of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
The department also anticipates receiving transfers from other federal organizations, including just over $750,000 from DND for the Anishinabek Police Service to police the former Camp Ipperwash; $300,000 from Canadian Heritage for Canada's anti-racism strategy; and nearly $231,000 from Transport Canada for investments in important search and rescue coordination efforts across the country.
If I may, I'd like to turn to the supplementary estimates of other portfolio organizations. I'll start with the RCMP, which is seeking an increase of $106.5 million, or 2.7%, over authorities to date. Some of the more notable items include a request for additional funding of $27.5 million to help maintain the RCMP's force generation capacity at Depot to maintain 40 troops, and $24.7 million for the contract policing program to address changes to its costs and revenue collection. The RCMP is also anticipating a net increase of nearly $50 million in these estimates from other federal organizations. For example, the transfer related to the first nations community policing service, which I mentioned earlier, accounts for the vast majority of this net increase.
Other notable transfers include almost $789,000 from Public Safety to help the RCMP build law enforcement training capacity to combat the scourge of drug-impaired driving; $400,000 from Transport Canada for policing of the Confederation Bridge in the Northumberland Strait; and $2.2 million from the RCMP to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to support the expansion of biometric screening in our immigration system.
If I may now turn to the CBSA, the agency's supplementary estimates reflect an increase of $3.4 million, or one-tenth of a percentage point over the authorities to date. Of that amount, the CBSA is seeking $500,000 to support the new multi-year immigration levels plan for 2019-21. This plan builds on the 2018-20 levels plan and features an increase of 800 protected persons to the 2019 target. As you may recall, Mr. Chair, the Government of Canada committed to welcoming 330,800 immigrants in calendar year 2019. This included 800 vulnerable women and girls from global conflict zones.
The CBSA also requested $500,000 to fulfill its obligations under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act. These funds will support the enforcement of sanctions-related inadmissibility provisions, including operational intelligence and inland enforcement activities.
The CBSA's estimates also reflect a number of transfers to and from other federal organizations, including $2.1 million from IRCC to share the costs of the air carrier support centres, which assist commercial air carriers in determining whether passengers possess the documentation required to travel to Canada; $1.7 million from the RCMP to administer the import requirements under the Firearms Act; $900,000 to Transport Canada to establish the passenger protect program operations centre, which will support the program's centralized screening and the resolution of airline calls from any potential matches; and finally, $800,000 to Global Affairs Canada to help support departmental staff who are located at Canadian missions abroad.
Moving on to the Parole Board of Canada, it's seeking an increase of $1.7 million, or 3.4%, in these estimates. That increase can largely be explained by a request for $1.3 million in additional funding to implement measures related to expedited pardons for simple possession of cannabis. When an application is submitted as complete, the average processing time for a cannabis pardon application is seven days.
Finally, Mr. Chair, estimates for CSIS and the RCMP external review committee are also included in your documents today.
These are just a few of the items in this year’s supplementary estimates (B) for the organizations in my portfolio, Mr. Chair. As you can see, it’s a vast portfolio and it spans all aspects of keeping Canadians safe—from national, cyber and border security to policing and combatting crime and to emergency preparedness and beyond.
I'd like to take the opportunity to express my utmost confidence in the skills and abilities of all employees and members of each of these organizations that make up the portfolio, and in their leadership. I will always do everything I can to ensure they have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs.
With that, let me once again say how pleased I am to have had the opportunity and privilege of making my first appearance before this newly constituted committee. I look forward to the opportunity to work with all of you over the course of this parliamentary session.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are now happy to answer the questions of the committee members.
:
Thank you, Minister Blair.
I will go back to my earlier remarks. The pluses and minuses between the ultimate request and the amount to be voted on are not publicly available until you referenced it in your speech, and only there partially. I take objection to the way in which the numbers are presented. They're based upon publicly available information that members were able to read up until 8:45 this morning. It's very difficult to follow the bouncing ball, if you will.
I wonder whether you have any chart or summary of the numbers on the votes as to how you get from $971,827 to $3.4 million. I'm sure it's available, and I'm sure it makes sense. I'm sure it adds and subtracts, but there isn't a person at this table who is being asked to vote on these numbers who could actually tell you how that number is arrived at.
I don't want to disrupt the normal flow of questions here, but if between now and when we are asked to vote, you or your officials can march us through the numbers so that the votes we make at the end of today will actually be votes that are understood by the members, I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
With that, I'm going to turn to Mr. Paul-Hus, please, for six minutes.
Thank you, Minister and team for being here.
There are two parts to my question, Minister. You have promised to ban certain undisclosed firearms at a cost of millions, if not a lot more, hundreds of millions, maybe into the billions of dollars. You've also promised to implement Bill . Your own bill, Bill C-71, which you voted for, would prevent you from arbitrarily classifying firearms. Are you waiting to implement Bill C-71 because you want to use that power to reclassify firearms, something you voted against? That's number one.
Number two, how much is it going to cost to fully compensate the law-abiding Canadians, to ban the firearms that you've classified as military-style assault rifles and handguns...that you plan to give to municipalities? How much money are we talking about for those? Don't you find it kind of convenient for you that you haven't implemented Bill , because then you are allowed to do what you can't do otherwise under that legislation, which is to classify firearms?
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Thank you very much, Ms. Damoff. Those are very important questions. It is in my mandate letter to ensure that all of our employees and members benefit from training on bias and eliminating bias and racism from all the services that we provide. I think we have a greater responsibility in the country, which is to address hate and racism in all its forms, including anti-indigenous racism.
I will also say just briefly that I did meet with that family. What was also very apparent to me was that we need to be very thoughtful about victim support services very broadly, because the pain of that family was quite apparent in the meeting I had with them.
With respect to first nations policing, I'm actually very proud that within my mandate I have been directed by the to make additional investments and improvements. It's apparent that we need to invest in the first nations policing program. If I may, let me speak to that.
We are currently exploring how best to advance these commitments to ensure that police officers and services all have the necessary tools and resources to do that. These commitments build upon previous investments that we've made of $291 million over five years—which is a commitment we made in 2018—for the first nations policing program to improve officer safety.
Within these estimates—if I may bring it back to the estimates—we're seeking a transfer of $52.9 million that will go to the RCMP from Public Safety Canada for the first nations community policing service. This will pay for police services that are provided by the RCMP, because first nations policing is provided in some jurisdictions by indigenous police services, and in many others by the RCMP.
Through these estimates, we are seeking $167 million for the first nations program overall.
This is a critically important question. No victim of sexual assault should be treated with anything but respect and dignity and compassion. We have seen the impact and the reluctance that many people have of coming forward because they're fearful of how they will be perceived and the experience of the criminal justice system. I can tell you that the RCMP's goal is to strengthen public trust overall in policing, but also to ensure that we encourage and support victims of sexual assault to come forward and report these serious crimes. One of the important parts of preventing them is to make sure that those who engage in such activity are held to account and that we provide good supports for people who have been victimized.
In their December 17 report “The Way Forward: The RCMP’s Sexual Assault Review and Victim Support Action Plan”, which the commissioner presented to us, they outlined concrete steps to, first of all, strengthen police training and awareness, enhance victim support—I spoke about that a little earlier—increase their investigative accountability and improve public education and communication.
In my personal experience, I remember that many years ago an absurd number of sexual assaults were deemed to be unfounded, and it was because if there was not substantive evidence that the assault had occurred, police services were determining them to be unfounded. Quite frankly, that's the wrong measure. If there is overwhelming evidence that it did not occur, then it may be unfounded, but in the vast majority of cases, that evidence doesn't exist. It's absolutely critical that victims of sexual assault be treated, as I said, with respect, with compassion, and provided with the supports. Even if they don't want to pursue a criminal investigation, we still have a responsibility to them, to provide support services, to help them recover from the trauma of their victimization.
First of all, let me say that money laundering is a significant priority for our government, and it's a priority for me. I worked in this area for a very long period of time.
If I may, instead of reflecting back on things that have happened in the past, closing out integrated proceeds of crime units, etc., I'd like to think about how we go forward. I've had a number of discussions with B.C. officials, for example the Attorney General David Eby. Dr. Peter German, who was formerly the commanding officer in British Columbia, has done a very comprehensive report for them and identified some key areas where improvements can be made. We've been working very closely with them.
Let me give you some examples.
Because it is a budget discussion, in budget 2019, we announced $68.9 million in a program, which involves $20 million ongoing, to fund the RCMP to strengthen their federal policing capacity, including their capacity to combat money laundering.
We have announced additional money to form an information management and information technology infrastructure and digital tools to provide our law enforcement officials with the resources and access to the technologies they need.
Also, we brought forward measures in the budget implementation act last year—significant and important measures—to reduce the opaque nature of beneficial ownership in federally regulated corporations, for example.
One of the things that organized crime and money launderers hate is sunshine by creating transparency. We also convened a meeting with financial ministers from across the country, because the vast majority, more than 90%, of corporations are regulated by provinces. We're working with all the provinces to bring about a greater transparency to beneficial ownership, which will help those investigations.
Additionally, we also brought forward measures in the budget implementation act to create a new offence of recklessness. We know that police services across the country were having difficulty—and prosecutors particularly were having difficulty—in making the nexus between the proceeds of crime and the predicating offence. We've made those criminals more vulnerable to investigation and prosecution.
There's a great deal more work to do, but we are working with our provincial partners and with our federal authorities through the RCMP's leadership. It's a whole-of-government effort, to make it more difficult for individuals to money launder in this country. Organized crime is entirely motivated by profit. When we take that profit from them, we reduce the impact of organized crime for all Canadians.
Thank you very much. That was an important question.
:
Thank you, Chair. It's okay.
Minister Blair, welcome to the committee. Thank you for being here and for all that you do in keeping our communities safe.
Minister, I know that as a GTA member of Parliament and a former Toronto police police chief, you are very familiar with the region of Peel. In their 2018 annual report, Peel police stated that gun violence has been a major problem for the region. In 2018, the police seized 459 firearms and investigated 504 potential shootings, an increase of 18% over 2017.
Minister, as the member of Parliament for Brampton West, I've personally met families and have read stories of the tragic end path of gun and gang violence in our communities. I know there's no one simple solution. We need a comprehensive and holistic approach, and I know our government has made significant investments to combat gun and gang violence specifically in the GTA.
Can you elaborate on those investments and the impact in our communities? This is for the sake of my constituents who constantly ask me how the federal investments that we make flow into our municipalities, into our regions and into our communities like Brampton.
:
I'll try to be very quick, Mr. Chair.
First of all, in 2017, we committed $327 million to provide funding to police services right across the country. That includes the RCMP, CBSA, and also municipal and indigenous police services across the country. Of that, $214 million was specifically allocated to municipalities. I can speak to the federal dollars, and that might be even more appropriate, Mr. Chair, because we did make investments in the RCMP to increase their capacity to conduct investigations in their jurisdictions of responsibility, because organized crime investigations into the gangs responsible for smuggling, stealing or diverting these guns are an important part of their work.
Under the agreement, we have tried to work with the provinces across the country to provide that funding. We do that by providing, for example, $65 million to the Province of Ontario. It is then Ontario's responsibility to determine how best to allocate that within their jurisdiction. As we know, there were some difficulties in getting that flowing efficiently. The money was made available to the province, but getting it out....
I was very pleased to meet with the Ontario ministers in Brampton in front of the Peel Regional Police headquarters in your area, where we announced the additional $54 million that they agreed to accept. They announced at that time 17 different projects they're investing in. That money is now beginning to flow.
It's important to support the police, but it's important to do more. We've listened very carefully to communities, and we have in our platform.... I don't want to get ahead of the budget, but it is our intention to make significant new investments in communities and in kids, because we've also heard that it's not just an issue of policing, but you have to address the social conditions that give rise to this violence.
We'll be making significant investments, and we intend to work more closely and directly with communities and municipalities to make this money flow, not just more quickly but more effectively, to get it where it will have the best account. I also think we have a responsibility to produce good public value for these investments for Canadians, and we need to be able to demonstrate the return on that investment. The best way to do that is to deal more directly with the organizations responsible for making those investments.
Of course, that's not all we're doing. We've also heard the importance of interdicting the supply of guns that are coming into our community, so we'll be making efforts to strengthen gun control laws to keep guns from being stolen by requiring stricter storage measures to keep them from being diverted and by providing the police with authorities and resources to detect and therefore prosecute such offences. Also, we've made, and continue to make, very significant investments at the border in CBSA officials and also in technologies and in our investigations to deal with those organizations and individuals responsible for smuggling guns into the country.
We are doing work to interdict the supply of guns, but also doing work to reduce the demand for guns. All of those investments are important and necessary.
There are two types of parole officers: those working in institutions and those in the community.
This is how things work in institutions. The ratio is one officer for every 25 offenders in minimum security institutions, one for every 28 in medium security institutions, and one for every 30 in maximum security institutions.
For community parole officers, we use a resource allocation formula. This formula calculates the time these officers need to do their job, that is to draft reports, supervise offenders in the community—there are different models of supervision—and to travel to carry out this supervision. This tells us how many resources are required in the community. We work with our union partners and review the formula annually.
We want to establish a similar formula for parole officers working in institutions. We conducted a survey in collaboration with Statistics Canada. We are working on creating a formula that is similar to the one used for community officers.
As for training, parole officers have initial training of four and a half weeks. After that, all parole officers receive one week of training a year.
Commissioner Kelly, I was listening to your comments, and also looking at the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General does not describe a respectful, healthy climate at Corrections Canada.
You may be making changes now, but the fact of the matter is that, in the Auditor General's report, nearly half of the employees stated that they felt they would fear reprisals if they made a complaint of harassment, discrimination or violence from another employee or from management. Half of the employees felt that there would be reprisals for doing that. As well, 60% said they had serious concerns about civility and respect in the workplace, and 67% felt that the organizational culture was a serious or significant concern.
That doesn't describe to me a healthy, respectful workplace for employees. This is not new. This has been reported for several years in a row. I really wonder how this is going to be fixed between now and March. That sounds very optimistic. Do you have enough money to do that?
You say you don't need any more resources for the parole service, yet the Office of the Correctional Investigator just told us last week that there was a 1:1 ratio of employees to offenders in the prison service, and on the parole side, a ratio of 1:6.5, or thereabouts. He felt that there were insufficient resources for parole.
Could you try to square some of these circles? I'm confused about how this healthy and respectful workplace has these kinds of problems described by the Auditor General.
I want to talk a bit more about the passenger protect program that we've put in place.
I served on the public safety committee in the last Parliament when we studied Bill . One of the first meetings I had when I was elected was with a young man who was on the no-fly list because his name was the same as someone's on there. Sadly, that young man died by suicide before he saw the changes we made in Bill C-59, which put in place the framework and then the funding to implement it.
Unlike the United States, which put in a redress system right away, the previous government put in place a no-fly list without the framework and resources to allow people like this young man and others—whom I think almost all of us here have probably met with—who share a name on the no-fly list.
There is funding that's going to be flowing to this. What impact will that have, in particular for those no-fly list kids to be able to get their names off the list? Some of those kids aren't kids anymore. I was speaking to a couple of them at an event last year who are now adults and are being viewed in a very different way than when they were six years old and their name was on a no-fly list.
I wonder if you could talk about the impact this funding is going to have on those individuals.
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I have a couple of things as well to start. It's not about getting their names off. I think a lot of the individuals you're referring to are very likely not listed but just happen to have a name that is a very close match to somebody who is listed.
That being said, the Canadian travel number program, which is associated with the enhanced passenger protect program, will allow us to allocate a travel number to everybody who applies.
We have been doing a lot of outreach, for example, with the no-fly list kids and other stakeholder groups in Canadian society, and those who are interested are very aware of the progress of the program and that a Canadian travel number program will be established.
When we roll this out, it will allow anyone who feels they have had issues travelling in the past to apply for a number. If the issue is linked to the no-fly list, the SATA list, that number will allow us to deconflict ahead of travelling, 24 to 48 hours, to work with CBSA and the transport operation centre to deconflict that passenger from the number to the flight manifest and then be able to recognize that the person is not listed and allow that person to do what we all do, which is check in electronically and then just sail through the airport when we get there.
That is what the program will allow us to do. Of course, if the person who applies is listed, then another mechanism kicks in, which is already in place. For those individuals who happen to be listed, it is because they have met the threshold to be listed, and in those cases there is a recourse process for them to follow.
I'll also clarify that in Bill we have brought in a legislative amendment that allows the minister to also tell parents whether their children are listed. Before that, the minister would have been contravening the law by telling anyone.