:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to the vice-chairs and committee members, good afternoon and thank you for inviting me to join you today.
I'd like to begin by extending my thanks for your indulgence of me last week when I was scheduled to appear before your committee and, unfortunately, because of rather long votes that went on and then an overlap with a very important cabinet agenda that I had to address.... I'm grateful that you were able to accommodate the rescheduling of my attendance here today.
I'm also pleased to be joined today by the senior officials responsible for the agencies and departments of my portfolio. Specifically, I'm joined by Chairperson Jennifer Oades from the Parole Board; Director David Vigneault from CSIS; Commissioner Anne Kelly from the Correctional Service of Canada; Commissioner Brenda Lucki from the RCMP; and President John Ossowski from the CBSA.
For all of those who are new to this committee, I'd like to welcome all of you to your new roles and also extend my very sincere good wishes that we will have many opportunities to work together in the best interests of all Canadians. I fully anticipate that this will be perhaps only the first of many opportunities where I'll be asked to come before your committee. I look forward to those opportunities.
I also appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about some of the issues facing us, although we'll canvass that in greater detail in your questions.
I'd like to begin my remarks today by reiterating all of our collective thoughts with the families and friends for the tragic events that took place in Quebec City over the weekend. We know that it was certainly a terrible tragedy for the families, but also for the people of Quebec City. It's important, I think, for Canadians not only to recognize the historic significance and importance of Quebec City, but also to recognize that it is one of the safest cities anywhere in the world. For that community to have its sense of safety and security so terribly wrenched from them was indeed a tragic event. The individual responsible has now been charged.
I also want to take the opportunity, if I may, to offer my very sincere admiration to all the first responders—the medical responders and the police—who took very effective and immediate action. I want to acknowledge them. We reached out, of course, to Quebec and to the Quebec City police to assist if necessary, but this was apparently not, as we've learned from the police, a national security event. Rather, it was just a terrible tragedy.
I also want to acknowledge that since I was last given my mandate in the fall after the 2019 election, the world has changed rather significantly. In short order, the government was required to shift its focus. Although we are still very much in the business of governing—and, in my portfolio, keeping Canadians safe—much of our focus was, by necessity, shifted to the pandemic response. That remains a key priority for the government, and it is a key focus of my ministry.
We have taken very significant and unprecedented action to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Canada. We have, of course, taken very significant actions to protect our borders, and I'll be happy to answer any questions the committee may have about that. Beginning as early as January 26, we began putting in place screening measures at our airports to stop the spread of COVID-19, and then, over the course of the ensuing several weeks, we took the unprecedented but necessary step of actually closing the American border to all discretionary travel, while at the same time working hard to make sure that we maintained vital supply lines and the movement of essential workers and essential goods. I have some updates that I can provide this committee if there is time, Mr. Chair, which I think will assist the members in understanding the effectiveness of the measures that have been taken.
We continue to review those decisions on a regular basis in consultation with both our domestic and international partners, the provinces and territories and particularly the United States. We have, as I'm sure you're aware, recently announced a scaling up of the federal public health presence at the border. We are now covering 36 points of entry that account for 90% of all traffic into Canada, and that's a total force of 190 public health officers, which is up from the 18 we were at when the pandemic first began.
The Canada Border Services Agency has been working very closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada, including on strengthening compliance and enforcement efforts on mandatory quarantine and isolation orders.
Here, Mr. Chair, you will indulge me if I take this opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary work of our border services officers. We've asked them to do a job that was, frankly, unprecedented and even inconceivable in the weeks and months prior to the closing of that border, and they've responded extraordinarily well. They've done an extremely difficult job. It's a daily issue. MPs from across the country have reached out to attempt to resolve issues at our border, but our border services officers, in my opinion, have done an exemplary job of maintaining the health and safety of Canadians while continuing to adapt to a rapidly evolving situation.
With respect to legislation, I want to advise this committee that we have an ambitious agenda in the year ahead. As you know, in my mandate the asked me to serve as the Minister of Public Safety in part because I bring some experience to the issue of keeping communities safe, having spent many years on the front lines of policing. A number of issues remain a significant priority to us. I would mention in particular that firearms-related crime remains very high in Canada. We've actually seen an unacceptable and very worrisome increase in gun violence in many of the communities across Canada. We are determined to address that gun violence as a priority.
As the committee is aware, on May 1 the government took very significant and decisive action in an effort to protect Canadians and strengthen gun control by prohibiting over 1,500 models of firearms that were not designed for the legitimate activities of hunting and sport shooting but rather were designed, with their intent and effectiveness, as tactical weapons for combatants to shoot other combatants. We also put in place an amnesty to give the existing owners time to come into compliance with the law. We are providing a temporary exception as well for indigenous persons exercising section 35 constitutional rights.
We have signalled our intent to implement a buyback program as part of the legislation that we will bring forward. I would like to reiterate our commitment to ensuring that effective owners and businesses are compensated fairly while at the same time making sure that the implementation and management costs of such a program are responsibly enacted and sustainable. We are working with Parliament, provinces, territories and first nations to get this right for law-abiding gun owners and businesses.
I've also been very clear, and it's clear in my mandate, that the Government of Canada will strengthen Canada's gun control framework. That's why we will be introducing legislation in the near term to introduce a red-flag regime to reduce cases of intimate partner violence and suicide by temporarily removing firearms from individuals.
Mr. Chair, I take your point, and there are a number of other things I could speak to, but I want to move ahead quickly on two things. I want to speak to the focus of our government and this committee in making progress in policing and justice reform. All Canadians need to have confidence that the justice system is there to provide justice for them. We know that black Canadians and indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and we are prepared to make significant actions in both investment and legislation in order to change that. I'm happy to speak to those issues.
Finally, if I may, I would also like to speak to some of the actions we are taking with respect to individuals who are involved in hostile activities by state actors that threaten the safety, security and interests of Canadians. I want to be able to assure this committee that we take these matters very seriously and that all of our national security apparatus is focused on remaining vigilant against those threats and taking appropriate action to protect Canadians.
Mr. Chair, given our time constraints, I'll stop my remarks there. I hope to be able to explore a number of these and other matters with the committee in response to your questions.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Angelo.
These are perhaps the greatest challenges facing government. I think one of the things the pandemic has revealed to us, along with some very difficult situations that we have faced in Canada and right across North America as well, is the existence of significant systemic and structural disparity in the outcomes for indigenous people, poor people and racialized people in our criminal justice system.
It's one of the reasons that in the throne speech, we made it very clear that we will introduce legislation and make investments. Both of them are very important in taking action to address the systemic inequities in all phases of the criminal justice system.
I think it's important to recognize.... People often focus on one element of it, but what we have seen is that there are structural and systemic issues within the broader criminal justice system, from diversion to sentencing, rehabilitation to records, that are having an outcome for Canadians who are indigenous or from racialized communities.
Let me just give you some examples of the things that I believe are necessary for us to reform. You mentioned criminal records. We know that when people apply for a pardon for their criminal record, almost 75% of them have never spent a day in jail, but they have that criminal record. Although they may have received a conditional sentence and not been sentenced to any period of incarceration, 30 and 40 years later, that criminal record is having an impact on the quality of their life and their ability to succeed as Canadians. We are looking at ways in which we will make “record suspension”, as it's now called, or “pardons” as it's more commonly referred to, more accessible. Part of that is the impediment of cost.
Another issue for a lot of people is the bureaucratic thing of having to make application, significant background checks. For many people, I think it is fair to say that the pardon regime, or record suspension regime, that has been in place in Canada has made it inaccessible, particularly to people in lower-income margins, racialized communities and indigenous people. We are looking at significant reform to make those pardons more accessible. There are a number of very important ways, I think, that we can do that.
We are also looking at issues of sentencing. I think it's an undeniable fact that in our prison system, there is a very significant and unacceptable—disproportionate—number of indigenous men and women and racialized people, particularly young black men. It's grossly out of proportion. I believe there are issues within the criminal justice system that we need to look at systemically. We're dealing with things like training and reform for all of the justice participants, to make sure that there's anti-racism training and that they understand the influence that bias can have on them.
There are some systemic and structural changes that we need to make as well. We will do all of those things.
It's a very important question, because we have a duty of care to people who are in federal custody. As you've noted, in the first wave of the pandemic, the infection went into five different institutions, including in your riding via the federal training centre there.
Correctional Services Canada took very proactive steps. They worked first of all with the Public Health Agency of Canada, but also with the provincial and regional health authorities. They took a number of very significant steps.
First of all, they made changes in limiting the number of people coming and going from the prisons, and that had an impact on the prison population as well, which they worked very hard to accommodate. They actually brought in health experts to do infection control measures and workplace health and safety audits. They were one of the very first institutions in the federal government to make the personal protective equipment available both to inmates and to workers in the prisons.
They implemented a very robust testing regime, in the first place, in all of the federal institutions. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that in all of the provincial institutions, but they did it federally. As a result of their excellent work, in a very short period of time—by mid-June—they had eliminated all ongoing infections in the correctional institutions. They have remained a vigilant regime of protecting the inmates and the people who work in those institutions to keep the illness out.
When, for example, a corrections worker contracts the disease in his own community—not in the institution—because of the rigorous regime and the testing regime they've put in place, we've been able to very effectively keep that illness out. It's not a guarantee. We know that's a vulnerable population, but I think Correctional Services Canada did some extraordinary work, which, quite frankly, we have shared with others. There were lessons learned in that work of infection prevention and control, the workplace health and safety audits and the measures that took place in personal protection and in testing and tracing, which were extremely effective in keeping that population safe.
I thank all the witnesses for being here tonight.
Thank you also, Minister, for being here. It is a pleasure to meet with you again.
I have to say that it's rather curious to ask you about your 2019 mandate letter, when we had a new Speech from the Throne in 2020. I guess the priorities are the same. The good news is that you've already had almost a year to implement your commitments.
I am particularly interested in your border protection strategy. You have committed to working with the United States to modernize the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. The pandemic has shaken that up a bit, and understandably so. It's all the more reason to be concerned about border management.
I want to go back over the chronology of events, because the few days between the border closure and the time it was requested—also the time when the World Health Organization, or WHO, declared that there was a global pandemic—could have made all the difference in stopping the spread of the virus in Quebec and Canada.
I remember telling the House that Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport was a real sieve. It was the mayor of the city of Montreal who had to go there with employees of the Direction régionale de santé publique to inform travellers arriving from Italy and other countries around the world where the epidemic had surged. There was no quarantine information or personal protective equipment. It took some time before measures were put in place.
Why has your government been slow to close borders, especially with the U.S.?
:
Thank you very much for the question.
Quite frankly, I'm a little shocked at the suggestion that we were slow to close the border. I've actually gone back through Hansard, and Hansard keeps an excellent record of all of the questions that were put to the government. I can't find a single incident where anyone in any part of the House recommended closing the border with the United States.
Frankly, we were working really closely at the time primarily with British Columbia, which was very concerned about a high rate of infection in the State of Washington. I can advise that as a direct result of those conversations, the and I reached out to the Americans and began a conversation with them about restricting non-essential travel. We also engaged with them in a very important discussion about maintaining essential supply lines and the movement of essential workers back and forth across the border. From that first conversation when we reached out to the United States, until the and the President of the United States announced it, it was less than 24 hours.
I believe we moved with incredible alacrity and speed to do that. It is the largest undefended border in the world—some 6,000 kilometres. As well, there are very many points of entry. Our officials were able to respond with remarkable speed in essentially shutting that border down very effectively to non-essential travel. It was done with I think remarkable speed. If one looks at the timing of that and compares it with actions that were taking place in other parts of the world with respect to border closures, you will see that Canada and the United States were at the forefront of that effort.
:
The border will remain closed as long as it is necessary to restrict non-essential travel from the United States or from other places of the world. We put those restrictions in place to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
I communicate regularly, and I know the president of CBSA communicates regularly, with the union representing CBSA officers.
As I noted in my opening remarks, I think they've done an extraordinary job in implementing very significant new restrictions in the exercise of their discretion to keep us safe, and I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the work they've done.
I engage very regularly with my counterparts in the Province of Quebec and right across Canada in our provincial and territorial discussions. We work very closely. The order in council that closes the border is for 30 days.
We continually assess conditions on both sides of the border and the effectiveness of the measures we put in place and will continue to keep that border closed until the circumstances change significantly enough to facilitate a change at the border border that would not compromise the health and safety of Canadians.
I know everybody wants to know for how long it will remain, and I think this is reasonable, especially when we see the conditions in the United States, and the very significant surge in the virus that's taking place right across that country. I believe it's very much in Canada's interest to maintain those border restrictions, and we will do that as long as it is necessary to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
Thank you, Mr. Blair and your fellow witnesses who came with you, for your presence tonight. You have a lot on your plate, so I'll get right down to business, starting with the RCMP and the mass murder in Nova Scotia back in April, which was a great tragedy.
Everyone was expecting an immediate public inquiry to be called, and in fact there were noises about that in the days following the tragedy, and of course there were questions and suspicions about the history of the perpetrator's connections with the RCMP. People wanted to get to the bottom of all that, as well as the response that took place in the communities.
It took a very long time and then eventually there was going to be a review and no inquiry. The suspicion was that the government, particularly the federal government, was interested in avoiding too much scrutiny of the RCMP, and the public of course, the victims, wanted to get to the truth and thought that a public inquiry was the best way to do that.
Why did it take so long to make a decision and why did you do a review and not an inquiry? Was there any hint of trying to protect the RCMP from scrutiny in that decision-making process?
:
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Minister for being here.
Minister, the Eglinton West Crips were taken down recently by a joint police investigation. They seized 31 firearms; seven kilograms of cocaine; two kilograms of fentanyl; two kilograms of meth; other drugs including heroine, oxycodone, Percocet and MDA; along with $300,000 in cash.
How many of those arrested were licensed firearms owners, and how many of the firearms were legal in Canada?
Minister, no, I'm not going to ask you to answer that because we already know the answer. You and I, as well as all Canadians, know that the answer to that question is “none”. None of those arrested were licensed firearms owners, and none of those firearms were legal in this country.
Since coming into government in the last five years, your government has spent over $4 billion more on public safety departments and agencies than in the previous five years, yet with all that extra funding, since 2015, every crime statistic tracked by Statistics Canada has increased. The crime rate is up. The crime severity index is up. Gang shootings are up. Gang homicides are up. Domestic violence is up. Drug use, drug addiction and drug overdoses are up. Police resource challenges are up. Border security concerns are up. Cybercrimes are up; and I could go on.
Canadians have lost trust in you and your party to protect them, regardless of the huge sums of taxpayer money that you continue to pour on the problems. Your plan is obviously failing, Minister.
Why is your massive spending failing to protect Canadians and reduce crime, as they expect their governments to do for them?
:
Minister, that's not at all what I said and that's not at all what I asked.
I'll move on to the next question for you.
Angus Reid's poll, before the pandemic, suggested that half of Canadians said crime has risen in their neighbourhood in the last five years. Two in three Canadians don't have faith in the criminal courts. There is a 30% increase in people reporting that they were victims of crime. Recent reports and news show that Canadians in downtown Vancouver no longer consider it a safe place to live. They're asking where their public leaders are and why they aren't doing more.
In Toronto this year, there have been well over 400 shootings and nearly 200 people killed or injured. So far this year, shootings are up 10%, alongside a 20% increase in shooting deaths. Clearly your policies are not working, as I said previously, and your plan is failing Canadians across the board.
Given that fact, what new plans are you and your government proposing that will finally address the issues around rising violent crime rates, gang crime, gang violence and the killings that plague our communities? Minister, what is a plan that will actually improve public safety across this country?
:
Thank you very much, Glen.
These are very important questions, and I really appreciate your giving me an opportunity to speak to them.
First of all, I believe that financing and supporting an effective police response to deal with guns and gangs in our community is important. You didn't, but we do. We made that investment.
We also said that we were going to strengthen gun control in this country. By the way, if you want to quote various public opinion polls, Canadians overwhelmingly support strengthening gun control. We have taken some fairly significant steps to remove weapons from our society that have no place here.
We're going to do more, Glen. We're going to bring forward new legislation that will strengthen our response at the border, for example. That doesn't just mean new offences, new authorities and new penalties. It's new investments, $89 million, that we've invested and continue to invest in the RCMP and our border services officers to make them more effective in countering the firearms smuggling into this country. These are offences that you, on the committee a couple of years ago, referred to as paper crimes that shouldn't have a penalty. I disagree.
We're also going to make it more difficult for people to gain access to firearms through criminal diversion and theft. We're taking steps to strengthen our gun control in this country to make it more difficult for criminals to get access to guns. I believe that effective gun control is an important element—
Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here.
Minister, the numbers coming out of the correctional services are dismal. There are rising numbers of indigenous and black Canadians in prison. SIUs are not functioning as they were legislated and intended. Dr. Doob presented absolutely horrific stats on the SIUs. The correctional investigator highlighted a number of issues that continue to need attention: employment training programs, patient advocates, the use of dry cells and more.
Having been on this committee for five years, I too find it frustrating to ask CSC the same questions time and time again, without change. Earlier today, I asked Dr. Zinger about implementing targets and mandatory reporting for CSC. He responded that the mandate letter provided to the commissioner was good but that it needs timelines and further refinement.
I'm wondering, Minister, if you would consider updating her mandate letter to provide those timelines and put targets in place.
:
Pam, these are really important questions.
Commissioner Kelly is on the line. I'm reminded that I have all of the agency heads here with us today. I don't want to take their opportunity to respond, but I am in agreement with you that it's important. I think if you want to achieve something, what's measured is what's achieved. I think there needs to be clear transparency so that people can see....
I want to also commend the work of Dr. Zinger. I work very closely with Dr. Zinger. I've known him and worked with him for a number of years. I think his advice and his observations are very important and very helpful. I listen very carefully to what he has to say.
Very clear expectations need to be defined in a number of different areas, and not just in corrections but right across the entire public safety portfolio. I think we need to have timelines clearly defined. We're working through that, Pam. I'm in agreement with that. I think it needs to be open and transparent.
I believe, by the way, that the commissioners do as well. They want to be effective. They see the challenges, frankly, of many of our systems within the criminal justice system producing really bad results for indigenous people and racialized people. We know we need to do better.
Mr. Minister, allow me to return to the issue of borders, particularly official entry points, such as Roxham Road, which is still open although the borders were closed. You will understand that it was completely unacceptable that asylum seekers could continue to enter the country while the pandemic was well underway here.
It was the perfect opportunity to permanently suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, which makes it more advantageous for migrants to cross the border illegally than legally.
The agreement may be suspended unilaterally if six months' notice is given. It is also possible to suspend it for three months, and it is renewable without restriction. Instead, your government preferred to rely on the July Federal Court decision, which struck down the agreement on individual rights grounds. You asked the court to extend the agreement or else immigration delays and backlogs would occur. The asylum seekers responded that this was speculation, as their numbers had decreased significantly due to the pandemic.
Can you confirm that this number has decreased? If so, why did you invoke the court's decision?
Some of the things that we've been looking at, obviously, have been to update our de-escalation and crisis intervention training and recertifying that training annually. I've been leading a discussion with the various police chiefs across the country on our intervention model.
We've created two task forces. One will be looking at a standardized framework for intervention. The second one is in response to mental health or wellness calls. That is, again, to share best practices and to find the best ways to deal with such calls, because they are obviously on the increase. We are looking at our datasets. We've recently put many of those statistics on our website, such as the use of physical intervention on our calls for service, and we added employee diversity.
We're looking at anti-racism training—to be mandatory—but it will be slightly delayed because we are going to co-develop that anti-racism training with the people who are most impacted by that and getting a lot of input to create that training. But in the meantime, we have rolled out cultural and humility training, and all senior managers have taken it. It's rolled out to all employees, and it will be mandatory for each and every employee.
We are looking at race-based data and, of course, you've heard of our rollout looking at body-worn cameras. Right now, we are implementing those body-worn cameras in Nunavut. We're testing them, and they will be out soon in Nunavut, but we are doing a request for information so that we can get the most modern technology in those cameras across the country.
We have established an Office for RCMP-Indigenous Co-Development, Collaboration and Accountability that will reach into the communities.
Of course, we're continuing to implement our national and divisional reconciliation strategies. We want to increase the use of restorative justice, especially with a focus on pre-charge restorative justice. We want to advance equity, diversity and inclusion within our organization as well, and we've completed an equity and diversity inclusion strategy.
We also are looking at strengthening timelines for public complaint processes and updating our cadet training program to reflect all of these changes, including adding in the “blanket exercise”, as well as a trauma-informed approach to dealing with victims.
We've created a missing persons module that is specifically targeted at the subject of the missing indigenous women file, so the cadets will learn not only about the actual file and how to investigate, but also about the cultural sensitivities that go with those people most impacted by such crimes.
:
I'm ready to go. I'm sorry. I just forgot to turn my mike on.
The Chair: Okay. We're getting technologically challenged here.
You have five minutes, Mr. Van Popta.
Mr. Tako Van Popta: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Blair, for joining us, and thank you to all of the other witnesses for taking the time to join us this evening.
Mr. Minister, you said in your opening remarks that your ministry pivoted to a COVID response when the World Health Organization declared this to be a pandemic. I want to ask you a question related to that. Were you made aware of the cancellation of the health pandemic early warning system that had been in place in Canada since the 1990s and had put Canada in a good position to defend against the SARS and the H1N1 outbreaks?
Sadly, it was cancelled six months before the COVID-19 pandemic. Was that your decision, Minister?
:
Thank you, Minister, for the answer.
Commissioner Lucki, I think that within the last six months and since your last appearance, we've seen a continuing issue with racism permeating the RCMP. One of the conversations that I've had over the last several weeks is about why is there one set of rules for people who are racialized, indigenous or black, and a certain other set of rules for others. We saw that clearly in the way the RCMP handled the issue of the fisheries in Nova Scotia.
Madam Commissioner, we need a direct action plan. I know you've outlined several things the RCMP is doing. However, as I indicated the last time I spoke, the situation is urgent. We have seen extraordinary work; for example, the chief of police in Peel just signed up with the Ontario Human Rights Commission—a significant game-changer in the way policing is going to be undertaken in Peel. I think there are very concrete steps available for the RCMP to take in Canada.
When can we expect direct and concrete action on racism? This is the issue of our time in my opinion, even more so than the pandemic. I think it's one where relative silence is problematic. Can you give us some specific timelines, please?
:
You raise a couple of very important points. I'll try to answer them very quickly.
First of all, you refer to the business executives coming in at the border. Business executives are not exempt unless they are engaged in, first of all, essential work. We've actually defined for the entire country, all the provinces and territories, what constitutes essential work. It's based on the 10 critical infrastructure sectors that have been identified in the economy. They must be engaged in essential work. As well, the purpose of their travel must be essential. So they must be qualified for entry by being on that list, but then it's up to the border service officers to determine the essential nature of their transit into Canada.
Now, with respect to compassionate cases, it often involves such things as attestations, doctors' reports, and other evidence that frankly is not able to be evaluated by the border service officers, some of it for privacy reasons. So we've established a process. This is very important. If it's for qualification under a family reunification, those processes are managed by the immigration department, the IRCC. If it is a compassionate reason, for not family related but rather for other types of relationships, such as somebody coming to visit a relative who may be dying of a terminal illness, then that's managed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. That process enables officials to determine the eligibility of that person for exemption. That eligibility is predetermined and presented to the border service officer, who then can allow that individual in. It's actually a very robust system that we've put in place.
We talked about systemic racism in policing, but there's also, of course, well-known systemic racism in the prison system in our country under the Correctional Service of Canada. Tom Cardoso's story in The Globe and Mail's last weekend identified clear racial discrimination in risk assessments, leading to longer sentences, fewer rehabilitation programs, less access to programs and harsher treatment within prison.
We also had Anthony Doob's report a couple of days ago that underscored the systemic discrimination and gross failure to meet our obligations under the Charter of Rights in the use of solitary confinement, now called SIUs. These things continue to be discovered, layer after layer, and upended. When are we going to see actual changes that will reduce the prison population of indigenous people and people of colour? When are we going to see these fixes being done?
I want to ask the minister that, not the representatives of the CSC. They have 19,000 employees for 12,500 inmates, down from 14,000 a few years ago. Why is there not action taken? Why are we waiting for oversight after oversight to reiterate the problem without a solution?
:
Minister, you and I both know there is no such thing as military-style assault weapons in this country. They've been banned for 40 years. To misguide and mislead Canadians is disingenuous on your part.
You didn't answer my question about how many are actually banned, because either you don't know.... If you don't know the answer to that question, then how are Canadians supposed to know, given that the firearms reference table is not even available to them, but only to law enforcement and retailers.
I want to move on to the next question.
In June, in the House, I asked you how many times you had changed the list of banned firearms. You told me that it was none. Clearly, that was untrue. I asked you how many .22-calibre firearms you had banned. You didn't answer the question. I then asked you how many shotguns you had banned. You said, “we did not prohibit any shotguns”. Again, that was clearly untrue. In fact, the May 1 firearms ban now includes over 80 .22 low-calibre rifles and over 60 shotguns. Additionally, you've banned over 300 single-shot rifles used for hunting and target shooting.
Minister, you have made numerous statements that you know are factually inaccurate. This entire debate requires truth, honesty and to be fact-based, not deliberate misguided or misleading statements and fearmongering.
Can you please explain to the Canadian public how .22-calibre rifles, pump-action rifles, break-open single-shot rifles and shotguns can possibly be categorized as military-style fully-automatic rifles? Why mislead the House, the committee and Canadians, Minister?
:
Thank you very much. It's an important question.
Pam, I want to be really clear. We're not talking about body cameras as a panacea and a response to the myriad of issues and concerns that have been identified. One of the concerns that we heard very clearly is the need for accountability. There is a very strongly held belief, and I believe there is evidence for it, that the best evidence of a transaction or an interaction between the police and any citizen is video evidence. We've seen the value of that video evidence. It has revealed cases that otherwise would never have come to light. Ensuring that there is an accurate record of that interaction is an important element of accountability.
However, the camera in and of itself doesn't do anything unless we also have regimes of fulsome accountability that are transparent, fair and timely. In earlier discussions, we talked about the importance of putting those systems in place. We're absolutely committed to putting in a far more robust system of oversight and accountability, and making sure there is the best evidence of those transactions is also an element of that.
There is also some suggestion I believe that when there is an accurate record of the interaction between the police and the public, people tend to behave a little better—ideally. I think that's hopeful.
We saw some of those terrible tragedies in the United States. For example, the George Floyd incident likely would not have come to the public's attention without the video evidence that was available. That, quite frankly, has changed the world and changed our society. Video evidence is compelling, and I believe it is the basis for very strong reform.
I want to assure you that we've been working with Iqaluit, with the territories and the provinces. I believe there are a number of measures that we can take.
I also want to assure you that although body cameras are one element of improving accountability, they do not take the place of all of the other important work—of improving training, hiring, and the relationship building and the work we must do in communities to connect with people. That involves a number of different policing models, and, as I mentioned, a new legislative framework for dealing with indigenous policing. There's a great deal of work to do.
Although it's one element, I think there's value in the body-cam rollout. We're seeing that in police jurisdictions right across Canada, and it will include the RCMP. However, it's not all that we need to do. Certainly, it's not in any way an alternative, but in addition to the things that need to happen.
The Chair: You have a little less than a minute.
:
That's okay, Minister. I'll move on to a couple more questions for you. Because you had said it was a mistake, I had wondered what directions you had given.
For more clarity, last week, when I asked about the UPS executive coming to Canada, your colleague, , said that exemptions are granted after extensive consultations with Global Affairs, along with public health agencies, the provinces and territories.
On the one hand, there seems to be an assertion that decisions are made individually by CBSA agents on a case-by-case basis. The other minister, however, says they are made after extensive consultations with multiple groups. I guess it's fair for Canadians to be confused.
I have questions about Canadian citizens themselves, and a couple of examples. Canadians who make a wrong turn and end up at the border are being forced to quarantine when they turn around and go home. Canadians who simply need to deal with a visa issue are given papers saying that they were never in the U.S.A, but CBSA still instructs them to put their plans on hold and quarantine for 14 days.
A colleague told me about an elderly man who went too far and ended up at a border crossing by mistake. The U.S. border officials politely told him to turn around. He didn't leave his car, but when he came to the CBSA officials, he was told to go home and quarantine for 14 days.
It's fair for Canadians to be asking specifically for clarity about the double standard and the inconsistency. Why are elite American billionaires granted quarantine exemptions and are able to travel the country freely, yet Canadian citizens, in a variety of situations, are being told to put their lives on hold and to quarantine in their homes?
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For us, obviously, education, vocational training and employment are key factors for the safe and successful reintegration of offenders.
I just want to share with you that, of the offenders who have an identified need for an upgrade to their education, when we look at 2017-2018 and up to now, the percentage has actually been increasing. It's the same for the offenders with an identified need for vocational training. Our percentages have been increasing.
The other good thing is that when we look at the results related to an upgrade in education prior to the end of the sentence for indigenous offenders, that also has been increasing. For indigenous offenders it's actually 74%, compared to 65% for non-indigenous offenders. This is certainly an increase. The same applies to women. There's been an increase from 64.7% to 80%.
I heard what the OCI had to say. Definitely we offer a number of kinds of vocational training, with third party certification. I do want to stress that in 2019-20, it was probably the most we've offered. Almost 18,000 certifications were earned by male offenders, of which 5,000 were for indigenous men. There were 2,500 for women, of which 1,000 were for indigenous women.
Our vocational certifications cover a significant breadth of types of employment. There are certifications for safety, construction, horticulture and manufacturing. Definitely CORCAN is working very hard to expand the breadth of services we can offer.
There's another thing we're looking at and are quite excited about. We discussed it at our executive committee just two weeks ago. It's to establish a virtual approach to deliver critical CSC correctional programs digitally. Certainly COVID-19 has shown us that we need to move more into digital services. Definitely CSC has its challenges, but this is where we're moving to.
We're also ready to launch a digital education pilot at one of our Ontario institutions. I will admit that it's been in the works for quite some time, but now it's going to be launched. I'm looking forward to the results, because this is something we're going to be looking at expanding.
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My next question is for Commissioner Lucki.
Commissioner, perhaps I alluded to this the last time you were here, but we've had a significant number of witnesses who talked about this.
There have been many calls for the reconstruction of the RCMP to remove contract policing. We've certainly heard this call from numerous witnesses, who mentioned that the RCMP is too big, that it has too many roles, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to govern, and that the RCMP needs to get out of contract policing.
We have seen disappointing shortcomings in this, even just recently in the RCMP's failed approach to advancing indigenous reconciliation. In fact, we have seen quite the opposite.
Could you comment on whether you think the current RCMP contracting model is a good idea, considering your mandate to advance indigenous reconciliation, or whether you think it should be removed?
Minister, I agree less with my Conservative colleagues on your commitment to firearms. You promised to ban assault weapons, but we see that some models are still on sale. I am thinking, for example, of the Remington ACR, which has aspects quite similar to the AR-15. There's also the SKS, which looks a lot like the AK-47, except that it has a fixed magazine. These weapons are still unrestricted at the moment, and many others fall between the regulatory cracks.
The problem is that your government has chosen to legislate on the most popular or frequently used weapons, instead of clearly defining what assault weapons are and banning them all at once. You are reacting to tragedies, such as the one that occurred in Nova Scotia, instead of acting preventatively and taking the time to do the right thing.
By banning the most frequently used models, people may turn to other models that can do the job just as well. Don't you think this makes your measure completely useless?
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Jack, these are important questions.
First of all, with respect to Dr. Zinger's report on sexual violence and sexual coercion in our institutions, that's completely unacceptable. He did make recommendations for us to consider legislation, and I actually thought that the public safety committee, all of you, might find the opportunity to really contribute to that discussion, to make sure that we take an appropriate and comprehensive response to that. It's entirely up to the committee, by the way. I'll leave it to all of your good judgment whether or not you think that's an effective use of your time. We're still quite prepared to deal with the issue. There are a number of other ways, as you've suggested. I actually have a great deal of respect for the input and the contribution that parliamentarians can make to this, and I thought it might be something worthy of your response.
I also don't agree that the CSC has been non-responsive, but at the same time, I really value the work of the correctional investigator. He and I speak quite frequently, and I'm absolutely committed to ensuring that we do the things that are necessary to produce better outcomes for people in our correctional institutions and that we fulfill our duty of care to keep them safe while they are incarcerated in our federal institutions. I work very closely with the federal investigator. I very much value his advice and his work. I will also tell you that from my work with the Correctional Service of Canada and Commissioner Kelly, I believe them to be very sincere in their desire and in their effort to produce better outcomes. I cited earlier in the discussion the extraordinary work that they did in the pandemic to keep their inmates safe. I believe that they are making progress, and I am prepared to support them in that work based on the excellent advice we receive from the correctional investigator and, hopefully, with good advice and input from the public safety committee as well.
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That brings our evening to a close.
I want to thank Minister Blair and all of his officials for spending these last two hours with us.
I particularly appreciate the change in the threat posture with respect to the Government of China. I have long taken a public position that we have to treat China differently, so it was encouraging to hear the minister's comment.
Colleagues, you also know that we don't have Jean-Marie David as our clerk tonight. Jean-Marie has been reassigned away from this committee, and we now have a new clerk, Mike MacPherson.
Welcome, Mike, to the committee and thank you for keeping us on track.
Finally, colleagues, I just want to say that we keep getting all of these assignments and work piling up. Unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to see if I can squeeze out two hours next week for a virtual meeting even though the House is not sitting, just to try to work into the backlog.
With that thank you, colleagues, and Minister, and your officials. Good evening.