Speaking Notes for The Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Appearance Before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security
2019-20 Supplementary Estimates “B”
Ottawa, Ontario February 27, 2020
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Honourable Members of the Committee.
I had the pleasure of appearing before this Committee on multiple occasions in my previous capacity as Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction.
Today, I’m honoured to join you for the first time in my capacity as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
I’m pleased to be here to present the Supplementary Estimates “B” for the Public Safety portfolio.
To help explain those numbers in more detail, and to answer your questions, I’m pleased to have alongside me:
- Rob Stewart, Deputy Minister, Public Safety Canada;
- Brenda Lucki, Commissioner, RCMP;
- John Ossowski, President, CBSA;
- David Vigneault , Director, CSIS;
- Anne Kelly, Commissioner, CSC; and
- Jennifer Oades, President, Parole Board of Canada.
I’m proud to have been entrusted with responsibility for this portfolio by the Prime Minister.
And I’m very proud of the professionalism and dedication of my officials, and the employees they lead, who work so hard to protect the safety and security of Canadians.
The threats we face 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 reflect that commitment.
They also reflect our steadfast commitment to keeping Canadians safe, while safeguarding their rights and freedoms.
Mr. Chair, 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 with Public Safety Canada.
The Department is estimating a decrease of $48.9 million, or 5.1 percent, from the authorities available to date.
The biggest contributing factor is a transfer of $52.9 million from Public Safety to the RCMP for the First Nations Community Policing Service.
Those funds are intended to pay for the policing services 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 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 cities of Toronto and Burnaby, B.C.
More specifically, $1.5 million was provided to the City of Toronto this past August in response to increased gun violence and street gang activity.
This one-time funding provided immediate support to Toronto police to combat gun and gang violence and help keep our communities safe.
And in September, $2 million was provided to Burnaby to bolster the city’s public safety and emergency preparedness capacity, given its unique situation being located at the end point 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.
Let me now turn to the supplementary estimates of other portfolio organizations.
I’ll start with the RCMP, which is seeking an increase of $106.6 million, or 2.7 percent, over authorities to date.
Some of the more notable items include requests for additional funding of:
- $27.5 million to help maintain the RCMP’s Force Generation capacity at Depot at 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.
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.
Turning now to the CBSA, the Agency’s supplementary estimates reflect an increase of $3.4 million, or one tenth of a percent, over authorities to date.
Of that amount, the CBSA is seeking $500,000 to support the new Multi-year Immigration Levels Plan for 2019-2021.
This plan builds on the 2018-2020 levels plan, and features an increase of 800 protected persons to the 2019 target.
As you may recall, the Government of Canada committed to welcoming 330,800 immigrants in calendar year 2019, including 800 vulnerable women and girls from global conflict zones.
The CBSA is also requesting $500,000 to fulfil its obligations under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act.
These funds would 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 of 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 about any potential matches; and
- $800,000 to Global Affairs Canada to help support departmental staff located at Canadian missions abroad.
Moving on to the Parole Board of Canada, it is seeking an increase of $1.7 million, or 3.4 percent, 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.
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.
It’s a vast portfolio that spans all aspects of keeping Canadians safe: from national, cyber and border security, to policing and combatting crime, to emergency preparedness and beyond.
I have the utmost confidence in the skills and ability of employees in each of the organizations that make up the portfolio.
And I will always do everything I can to ensure that they have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs.
With that, let me once again say how pleased I am to make this first appearance before this newly constituted Committee.
I look forward to working with you over the course of the parliamentary session.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Committee.
We are now happy to answer any of your questions about these estimates, and the collective work of the portfolio.
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