44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2024 10:00AM
moved:
That Bill C-20 be amended by deleting the short title.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and lead off debate today on Liberal Bill C-20. This bill seeks to create an independent commission for the RCMP and for the CBSA to address complaints that the public may have about their treatment.
The Liberal government has been talking about the importance of getting the legislation passed for quite some time. I find it curious that similar legislation has died in two previous Parliaments. We certainly hope to see the legislation come through in this Parliament, because it has been far too long that this legislation has been allowed—
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Mr. Speaker, I will continue with my remarks.
It is vitally important that we debate the proposed legislation. As it came out of committee, there were numerous concerns that we, as Conservatives, raised in the amendments to the legislation; they were not addressed. Certainly, it is not enough to impede the legislation, but it is critically important that we have a debate on it and see it come through.
I find it curious that the NDP-Liberal government, which told us last fall how important it was to get the legislation passed, has dithered. The legislation came out of committee in November, and we have had months to bring it forward for third reading debate. Here we are in May, and the government has finally brought it forward. Therefore, we do not take it very seriously when the NDP-Liberal government talks about how important it considers the legislation to be, while it is only bringing it up in May.
Our RCMP and CBSA officers make incredible sacrifices, and we need to do the very best we can to ensure that they and their families are safe and protected. They are consistently putting their lives in danger every day. It is in the interest of the public, as well as the brave members of the RCMP and CBSA, that complaints be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. This is crucial to guard against potential abuses of power and to maintain Canadians' trust in their agencies.
Canada has the largest undefended border in the world, and the lack of resources for the CBSA to perform its role to the fullest extent is seen in the rising crime in cities, such as Montreal and Toronto, and across the country. Illegal firearms are being smuggled through our porous border and used every day in horrific crimes. Even in rural areas, including in my riding, in towns such as Bon Accord, crime is on the rise after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government's soft-on-crime policies.
Unfortunately, it seems that the government is more focused on targeting law-abiding Canadian firearms owners and hunters than on fulfilling promises to implement a policy and provide resources for our border. There, we find rampant illegal activities, such as auto theft and gun smuggling; it is at a point where the fastest-growing export in this country is stolen vehicles.
At the public safety committee, we heard the Liberals continually attempt to distract from their miserable record on crime. Amidst this ongoing auto theft crisis that is impacting communities across the country, desperate Liberals have resorted to blaming car dealerships, small businesses, for the rise in car thefts. It is clear that they do not want to talk about the facts, and the fact is that auto theft has risen to unprecedented levels as a direct result of the Liberals' soft-on-crime agenda.
We can all agree that the proposed bill is important for maintaining public trust in the RCMP and the CBSA. However, we cannot have productive debates unless we discuss the tremendous strain that is currently being placed on our brave men and women. Our law enforcement agencies, much like the Canadian Armed Forces, are suffering from significant recruitment and retention issues. What exactly is the government doing to ensure that these brave men and women feel valued and supported in their role?
Of course, the public should have a right to an independent and effective complaints commission to hold the RCMP and CBSA accountable for their actions. However, when we are not providing the resources for frontline police officers, the CBSA and other first responders to do their job effectively, it is no surprise that we are seeing mistakes. Our law enforcement personnel are under tremendous pressure as they deal with the impacts of the crime wave that is occurring across this country. When mistakes happen in the line of duty, it is frequently because these exemplary men and women are being pushed to their limit, overwhelmed by the crisis the government has created.
In fact, the National Police Federation put forward very commonsensical amendments that it wanted to see in this motion. Its members are concerned because RCMP officers are often being pulled off the front lines to do bureaucratic paperwork and deal with complaints, when complains should really be dealt with by an independent commission. Unfortunately, the proposed bill has some flaws, because it would still maintain a requirement for extensive bureaucratic red tape for RCMP officers in providing information and supporting these investigations, which would pull our resources off the front line.
We want to see an independent commission that does its job and that is resourced and staffed. In this way, RCMP officers and CBSA officers could focus on the front lines and not the back lines.
Let us talk about drug use. Our law enforcement officers are expected to act as social workers. They are confronting daily crime and disorder that the government's drug policies have inflicted on our communities, and we know this is causing a mental health crisis within the ranks.
On violent crime, we have heard at the public safety committee that the chiefs are fearful for the safety of their officers, especially since violent offenders are able to continuously terrify communities as a result of the “bail, not jail” provisions of Liberal Bill C-75. It should come as no surprise that the government does not want to have these conversations. Its record on crime is miserable.
Since this government came to power in 2015, Canada has become a massive importer of illegal firearms from the United States, a massive exporter of stolen cars to Africa and to the Middle East, and also has become an exporter of fentanyl across the world. It is shameful. While implementing this soft-on-crime agenda, the Liberal government has taken very little action to ensure that the brave men and women who choose to serve their communities and their country feel supported and respected in their work.
Everyone who goes through a border crossing should be able to go without facing discrimination or unfair treatment by border agents. Bill C-20 would allow people who have had negative experiences and who feel that their rights have been violated to submit complaints formally and to have them reviewed within a six-month period. I think it is critically important that we talk about this six-month period because we have seen some cases that witnesses have brought forward, where people made complaints, and those complaints were not addressed for months, and in fact, some complaints were not addressed for years. In some tragic cases, the complainants actually passed away before they could get responses to their complaints, and we do not want to see that happen. Of course, sometimes it is unavoidable, but we need to set standards to ensure that these complaints are being dealt with in a timely manner.
Currently, CBSA is the only public safety agency in Canada without any independent oversight body for public complaints. Establishing an independent review body would foster and would enhance public trust and confidence in Canada's law enforcement and border services institution, which I think is something that we can agree is desperately needed in this country.
In closing, we know that the NDP-Liberal government has ignored its promises and has put off this critical legislation for years. It failed to deliver this important change; although, we hope this change will soon be delivered. It would help Canadians to renew their trust in our public safety agencies. It is a trust that I know many Canadians have, but when they see things like the police complaints commission not operating effectively or not being in existence in some cases, I think it causes some people to have some doubts about the transparency and accountability in the system.
How is it that so many Canadians had to face nothing but endless bureaucracy, when for years, we could have had legislation and a system to streamline the process for public complaints and could have established an oversight body for the CBSA?
The government has had plenty of opportunities to deliver and to fulfill its promises over these last nine years, but it failed to do so. If we have proven anything to Canadians it is that the promises of the NDP-Liberal government are just empty words, and years go by before any meaningful action or promise can be accomplished, if at all.
To perform their jobs effectively and to deliver the best possible service to Canadians, the RCMP and the CBSA require an efficient complaints process. While common-sense Conservatives are supportive of this effort, we believe that the Liberal government needs to do more to support our brave men and women in uniform who support our communities. My Conservative colleagues and I will continue to advocate on behalf of Canadians and to ensure that the highest standards are being met within the CBSA and the RCMP.
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- May/3/24 10:17:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, time and time again, this is what the NDP-Liberal government does. It holds its legislation until the last possible minute, and then it tells members of Parliament that we cannot have a debate on it. If we do want to have a debate on it, then we are filibustering the legislation. We cannot have that. In order to effectively represent the will of the Canadian people and in order to be effective parliamentarians, we need to have opportunities to debate this legislation.
The Liberal government has allowed this legislation to die on the Order Paper in two Parliaments. It allowed this legislation, which passed in committee in November of last year, to sit on the Order Paper and to not come to debate until May of this year. It is clear that the Liberal government is not taking this seriously. It does not want to have real debates in the House; it just wants to railroad its legislation through. Common-sense Conservatives will not allow that happen. We will stand up for our Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. We will stand up for robust debate in the House, and we will never apologize for that.
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- May/3/24 10:19:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we recently had shocking testimony at the public safety committee that the CBSA has not scanned any containers leaving the port of Halifax. We know that Canada's ports have become a haven for organized crime, shipping not only stolen Canadian property, primarily Canadian vehicles, but also drugs, which are being manufactured in Canada, all across the world. The fact that the current government has not given the appropriate resources to law enforcement and to the CBSA to do their jobs effectively, to protect Canadian properties and to keep our country from becoming a haven for organized crime is unacceptable. There is no excuse from the government.
The Liberal government has had nine years to fix this problem. It has risen by over 100%; car thefts are up over 100%, since 2015, under the NDP-Liberal government. It is unacceptable, and we are definitely not satisfied. We are going to fight to make sure that we fix our borders. We need to secure our borders to prevent Canadians' property from being exported abroad.
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Mr. Speaker, I do enjoy working with the member at committee as well. There are definitely opportunities for collaboration. I am a collaborative kind of MP, but this is part and parcel of what we have seen from the NDP-Liberal government. We have a New Democratic Party that is more aggressive about passing government legislation without proper review and debate than the Liberal government is. The NDP-Liberal government just wants to railroad things through.
We have to remember what happened last fall. Canadians wanted answers about Paul Bernardo's transfer from a maximum-security to a medium-security prison. The NDP-Liberal government refused to allow Canadians to get those answers. We, as Conservatives, were open to having even one meeting on this, but instead, the NDP-Liberal government was desperate to cover that up and desperate to not have a conversation. The government kept the committee dragged out for months so that Bill C-20 was delayed until November.
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- May/3/24 11:46:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the crime, chaos, drugs and disorder that he has unleashed on our streets. After nine years, the Prime Minister's radical experiments with legalized hard drugs is turning our hospitals, beaches and schoolyards into one giant drug injection site. Our children are witnessing drug abuse, discarded needles and overdoses as they play and learn, and the Prime Minister's taxpayer-funded drugs are now ending up in the hands of our children.
When will the Prime Minister stop treating our communities like his own personal woke petri dish and end his radical experiments on Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberals stand in the House today and say it is a waste of time to be debating this very important legislation. It is not a waste of time for all the civil society organizations that have very serious concerns about the bill, concerns that were not fully addressed at committee.
The National Police Federation, union officials and working people are concerned that, if there is an unfounded allegation against them, they are off work for a year and are not going to get paid. Conservatives put forward amendments to try to ensure that they would get back pay if the allegation was unfounded. The Liberals defeated them. That is why it is so important to have debates on this in the House.
I would draw the attention of the House to the parliamentary secretary himself. He is saying that these are ridiculous motions. On November 26, 2018, he himself moved a notice of motion to delete the short title of Bill C-87; again, on March 6, 2017, the parliamentary secretary put a motion on notice to delete the short title of Bill C-22. The Liberal parliamentary secretary is being a hypocrite in the House. He has done this on numerous occasions, and he should be ashamed.
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