Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules, previous order or usual practice, if Bill C-50, An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy, is adopted at second reading:

1.it stand referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology;

2.the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources be authorized to examine and report on the subject matter of the bill; and

3.during its consideration of the bill, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology be authorized to take into account any public document or evidence received by the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources during its study of the subject matter of the bill, as well as any report from that latter committee on the subject matter of the bill.

[Translation]

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate), pursuant to notice of May 9, 2024, moved:

That, in accordance with rule 10-11(1), the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs be authorized to examine the subject matter of Bill C-20, An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments, introduced in the House of Commons on May 19, 2022, in advance of the said bill coming before the Senate;

That, for the purposes of this study, the committee be authorized to meet even though the Senate may then be sitting or adjourned, with the application of rules 12-18(1) and 12-18(2) being suspended in relation thereto;

That the committee submit its final report to the Senate no later than June 13, 2024; and

That the committee be authorized to deposit its report with the Clerk of the Senate if the Senate is not then sitting, provided that it then be placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting following the one on which the depositing is recorded in the Journals of the Senate.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 172, which seeks to authorize the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs to conduct a pre-study of Bill C-20. This bill would create a new public complaints and review commission for the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.

The bill would significantly strengthen independent oversight and the handling of complaints for the RCMP by establishing clear deadlines, reporting requirements, including disaggregated data, and sanctions if the review procedure is not followed. The bill would also create the first independent complaints and review process for the CBSA.

[English]

Bill C-20 would fill a long-standing, glaring gap in our law enforcement landscape, finally providing genuine, independent recourse to people who feel they’ve been wronged by a border official.

Many senators will be aware of how long this chamber has been clamouring for such a mechanism. It was notably recommended by a report of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs in 2015, and it was the subject of a bill proposed by former senator Wilfred Moore, first in 2014 and again in 2016.

In 2017, former Clerk of the Privy Council Mel Cappe wrote a report for Public Safety Canada analyzing the options and considerations with regard to the establishment of a review body for the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA. One of his main recommendations was that a single agency cover both the CBSA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP.

In keeping with that recommendation, the government introduced the former Bill C-98 in 2019. That bill was adopted by the other place in June of that year, but died on the Order Paper in the Senate.

After the 2019 election, the government reintroduced the legislation, but that bill was sidelined when COVID-19 hit and everyone’s priority became dealing with the pandemic.

In March 2022, when then Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino was here for Question Period, Senator Cordy highlighted some of this history, including the work of former Senator Moore. She asked when Parliament would, “. . . finally achieve what I think is an extremely important policy?”

The beginnings of an answer came two months later in May 2022 when the government introduced its legislation a third time. The new version was amended — and I would argue improved — in several ways, notably to strengthen review mechanisms for the RCMP and to require reporting of disaggregated demographic and race-based data. It’s that bill — Bill C-20 — that is the subject of this motion.

Our colleagues in the other place have completed committee study of Bill C-20, and are currently debating it at report stage. It seems on track to get to us in June, meaning that five years since senators last had a bill before us to establish independent review for the CBSA, we will finally have another opportunity to achieve this long-standing objective. I think we all understand that if we wait until we receive the legislation to start studying it, our odds of passing it before the summer would be low.

My motion, therefore, proposes that the National Security Committee begin a pre-study now. That would give us the best chance of passing Bill C-20 before we rise for the summer break.

Colleagues, this leads to the natural and legitimate question of why we shouldn’t just wait to deal with Bill C-20 in the fall. I think the answer to that is twofold and relates firstly to the substance of the bill and secondly to the history of this file.

[Translation]

The substance of this bill concerns basic rights and freedoms, but especially, CBSA’s authority to infringe on them with relatively little accountability. Colleagues, more than six million people enter Canada every month. In some months, that number doubles. These millions of people from across Canada and around the world interact with a border officer without the protection of any kind of independent monitoring or complaint mechanism.

Most of these interactions occur without incident and most officers are competent professionals. Travellers arriving at the border, however, are in a vulnerable position. They necessarily relinquish some of their privacy and mobility rights to an officer who wields a great deal of power under the circumstances. Travellers who feel mistreated need a better option than to take their complaints to the CBSA itself, or go to court.

[English]

A review mechanism is needed to help protect the many millions of travellers who submit to questioning and examination when seeking entry into Canada. There are also thousands of people deported or detained by CBSA every year, and these are individuals even more vulnerable than travellers at the border. Some of their most fundamental freedoms, including freedom of movement and the freedom to be in Canada, are largely in the hands of the CBSA.

Every day that goes by without adopting Bill C-20 is another day that people on the vulnerable end of this power imbalance have nobody to complain to about mistreatment or discrimination other than the CBSA itself.

On the one hand, we could say that this issue has existed for years; what’s another few months? On the other hand, given the chance to fix a long-standing problem involving fundamental rights and freedoms, we could choose to simply fix it now.

This brings me to the history of efforts to establish an independent accountability mechanism for the CBSA. The CBSA was created in 2003. In the 20 years since, calls for independent oversight have come from many quarters.

As I mentioned at the beginning of these remarks, those calls have often come from the Senate of Canada. Members of this chamber have made recommendations and proposed legislation in this regard more than once.

[Translation]

However, such calls have also come from experts and lobby groups that, for years, have been asking Parliament to address this issue as a matter of urgency. Indeed, implementing independent oversight for the CBSA without delay was a recurring theme in testimony and briefs to the committee studying Bill C-20 in the other place. Amnesty International wrote, “Amnesty welcomes the introduction of Bill C-20” and noted that “independent oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency” is “long overdue.”

The Canadian Council for Refugees wrote, “we welcome this bill as a long overdue measure.”

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers wrote, “The establishment of an independent oversight mechanism for the CBSA is desperately needed and long overdue.”

[English]

The Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne declared his support for Bill C-20, noting that he also supported the government’s first attempt to get this done five years ago. The National Council of Canadian Muslims told the committee that:

. . . one of our key battles over the last two decades has been in calling for oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency.

In other words, many people have been pushing for a long time to make this happen.

It’s also true that many people in successive governments and parliaments have missed opportunities to make it happen much sooner. I would argue that doing our best to move quickly on this bill now is a matter of respect for the advocates who have worked so hard for so long.

To be fair, many stakeholders, including some of those I quoted, recommended amendments to Bill C-20. After hearing their testimony, the committee in the other place did, indeed, amend the bill in several ways. A pre-study would allow senators to hear from stakeholders to understand to what extent the House of Commons’ amendments addressed their concerns and be in a position to potentially proceed expeditiously if senators are satisfied.

Essentially, my argument boils down to this, colleagues: Bill C-20 is about protecting fundamental rights and freedoms. It’s Parliament’s third try in five years to get this done, and stakeholders have been telling us for years that it’s urgent. Even if the National Security Committee does a pre-study, we still may not manage to pass the bill by the summer, but let’s at least get started rather than foreclosing the possibility.

Colleagues, this leads me to make a few points about what this motion does not do. It does not prevent thorough study. The committee could hear the same testimony it would hear during a regular study. This is especially true given that the House of Commons committee has already completed its clause-by-clause study, so in all likelihood, we know exactly what the bill will look like when it comes our way.

This motion does not tie the committee’s hands. If, having completed the pre-study, senators on the Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs, or SECD, feel that they have more work to do — more witnesses to hear from, more analysis to undertake or amendments to make — they will be free to do so when we receive the bill.

This motion does not commit us to passing the bill before the summer or, indeed, ever. A month from now, if enough senators feel that we’re not ready for the question and Bill C-20 should be amended or further debated, then that’s what will happen. This motion simply gives us options. Without a pre-study, we would essentially be precluding the possibility of passing the bill before the summer. With a pre-study, we would be keeping that option open. It’s as simple as that.

Let me address one final point. Some senators have mentioned to me — I’m sure we will hear this in debate — that Bill C-20 has been in the other place for two years, and they’ve wondered why we should treat it with urgency when our colleagues in the other place up the street haven’t seemed to do so. That’s a fair question to which I will offer two answers.

First, I do not speak for all members of Parliament so I am not entirely sure why Bill C-20 has taken them this long, other than observing that a minority Parliament is a complicated institution and it is not uncommon to find bills moving more slowly than the government would like. From the government’s perspective, however, Bill C-20 is the third try in five years to get this done, and that is probably the best indication of the government’s commitment to this file.

Second, and most importantly, as senators, we can and should make up our own minds about what deserves to be treated expeditiously. Senators, you are free to be annoyed with our colleagues in the other place for moving too slowly. You are free to pin the blame for delay on the government, the opposition, on neither or on both, but our main consideration has to be what’s in the best interests of Canadians.

For years, we’ve been hearing that there is a crying need for an independent review of the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, and for more effective review of the RCMP. We’ve been hearing that this is especially important to the communities that are most affected by systemic racism and discrimination.

We’ve seen promising legislation get waylaid, first by an election and then by a pandemic.

The calls for action have come from experts and stakeholder groups, as well as from within our ranks here in the Senate, including from former senator Wilfred Moore, who worked so hard to advance this cause; from the senators who wrote the 2015 report of the Committee on National Security and Defence, including Senator Dagenais, who was on the committee then as he still is now; from Senators Jaffer and Oh, who co-authored an article in 2017 calling for proper independent oversight of CBSA’s immigration detention practices; from Senator Cordy, who raised this issue with the minister in 2022; and from Senator Omidvar, who has championed this cause for a long time and who is continuing her advocacy as sponsor of Bill C-20.

It has been a long and winding road to get to this point, but here we are. However annoyed or frustrated you may be about the various causes of delay over the last 20 years or the last 20 months, the choice before us is a stark one, and it is simply this: Do we pass the motion and preserve the possibility of adopting Bill C-20 before we rise, or do we reject the motion, conceding right now that the project of creating an independent review mechanism for the CBSA will be delayed again by another three months or more?

I urge honourable senators to make the first choice. I encourage you to pass this motion, to keep our options open and do everything that we can to institute independent review for the CBSA and improved review for the RCMP as soon as possible.

Thank you.