Brent Cotter
Chairperson
[Speech transcript]
Thank you, Jennifer (Jennifer Smith, CACOLE President), for those kind remarks. It does sound a bit like a guy who couldn't hold a job, though.
On a slightly more serious note. I do want to thank Mr. McLeod (Hon. Tim McLeod, Saskatchewan Minister of Justice) for the thoughtful remarks that he prepared for us today. I'm a son of Saskatchewan, and I'm greatly honoured to be here again and speaking with you today—and welcoming you, as well, to a really wonderful province.
I also just wanted to say, on behalf of my colleague, our new vice-chair of the CRCC, Roxanne (Gagné) and the team that have joined us here from the CRCC that if we didn't seem to be around as much as you might have hoped in the last little while, we are back.
It was appropriate, I think, for us to have a land acknowledgement and I wanted to extend my thanks for that. But I'd like to say something a little bit deeper. To kind of convey, I think, the meaningfulness of both the challenge and opportunity presented by our partnerships and relationships with Indigenous people in the country generally, but in Saskatchewan specifically. And I'd like to tell you two stories.
They are really historical and I think identify a challenge that we are all, I hope, working hard to address in rebuilding the relationship and achieving reconciliation.
In 1885—I promised it would be historical—the Government of Canada sent the armed forces out to Saskatchewan to quell the first and only perceived rebellion in Canadian history.
It was the Battle of Batoche. It took place roughly an hour north of here—some of you will be familiar with it, some not—when those soldiers came out at the direction of the Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald. Interestingly and kind of ironically, they came on the railway built to bind this country together. The railway wasn't completely built to British Columbia at that time, but they rode the railway more or less to Regina, disembarked there and marched north to crush this rebellion of a Métis community and small Métis government in Batoche. First, they encountered Chief Poundmaker, an historic chief of the Poundmaker First Nation, and his, let me call them, forces—warriors. They were defeated by those warriors.
In fact, Chief Poundmaker instructed his warriors not to pursue the armed forces' people who were retreating in that area, a bit west of Batoche, and to not engage in a massacre. Ironically, at the end of the Battle of Batoche and after the Métis were defeated, Chief Poundmaker himself was charged with treason. He was convicted, sent to jail, and subsequently released. Died a broken-hearted man. One of our most distinguished First Nations leaders.
With respect to the Battle of Batoche, I think it's fair to say that a small rump of fighters for the Métis were no force to resist the Canadian armed forces of the time. . . . Three of the soldiers were instructed to guard the church at Batoche. There wasn't a lot of action right in that area and they spent a few days at the church.
For reasons mysterious and not particularly honorable, they decided that they wanted to take back some battle pride, and so what they did was that they took from the church. The recently consecrated bell, the Bell of Batoche—some of you may have heard of the Bell of Batoche—and took it away with them to Eastern Canada after the battle as spoils of war, as it was referred to. It was on display in a legion hall eventually in eastern Ontario, for quite a long time.
Subsequently, and I think this is a fair description of it, some Métis leaders from Winnipeg slipped into the town where the bell was and broke into the legion hall and—in their language, since I met with them at one point in time—liberated the bell. Many thought "stole," but their language was liberated. The bell apparently was brought back to, and hidden in, north Winnipeg.
I was in the government at the time and tasked to try to recover that bell and have it returned to the good citizens of Batoche. I spent some days in kind of greasy restaurants in north Winnipeg—now, not all the restaurants in Winnipeg are greasy, but these ones were—negotiating the return of the bell, and to tell you the truth, unsuccessfully.
But I am happy to say that some years later and some years ago, the bell was returned to the people of Batoche and it is on display there as a monument to reconciliation, I think. But that's a pretty tough story if that's embedded in your understanding of this place. This place that was First Nations land—homeland of the Métis. That was the location and objective of what felt like, I'm sure, at the time, a civil war.
So, we have hills to climb in overcoming our history. There's lots more difficulty that flowed in the decades that followed that. And in a personal way, I wanted to just tell this other story.
My father, who's deceased now, was the Mayor of Kamsack, Saskatchewan, for a period of time. Mr. McLeod will know it on the east side of the province, close to the Manitoba border. I would say this before I preface the next remark. My father was the finest person I've known in my life. In the time that he was the mayor of Kamsack, which was only a few years, with First Nations communities all around Kamsack—there are three reserves within 10 miles of Kamsack—there was not one time when there was a First Nations person in our home. There were two profound solitudes. Not evilly intended, but it was the way it was in the sense of two very distinct communities. It is hard work culturally, emotionally, psychologically to overcome those kinds of solitudes. And it is our job, I think, standing on this land to do our best to achieve it.
So let me turn now a little bit to what my remarks are intended to be.
First, I wanted to say a special acknowledgment with respect to the Mitchell-Lewis Award. It will be presented on Thursday morning to a distinguished contributor to civilian oversight in our country.
Last year, it was presented in absentia, if I may say, to Kate McDerby, a member of my team, our team at the civilian oversight agency in Ottawa. And I wanted to take a moment to congratulate her and hope you might join me in doing the same.
Interestingly enough, the Mitchell-Lewis Award was presented for the first time a decade ago, in this city, at that time to Robert Mitchell, whose name appears on the award.
So, I spoke at CACOLE a few years ago. Having left—maybe escaped, I thought—civilian oversight. I was about three years into my appointment and I was asked to come and say a few words at CACOLE in, I think, 2023—reflecting on my experience as the Chair of the Public Complaints Commission of Saskatchewan and as one-time president of this association.
Now, after they kicked me out of the Senate, I'm honoured to be one of you again. I hope you missed me, though I doubt it. People have been very kind to me, but I have the power of hearing their inner voices and their inner voices have said with one voice: not you again. But I am happy to be back. I'll just share one other thought with respect to my remarks and it will give you a platform against which to judge them.
I served for a period of time as a Deputy Minister for about a dozen years in the Saskatchewan government and served for about 20 or 25 years as a law professor. So, an academic and a senior bureaucrat.
It is said about academics that they, especially when they specialize, they get to learn more and more about a narrower and narrow amount of things. Until they become real experts drilling down into the center of the earth on a very narrow topic.
Deputy ministers, in my experience, tend to know a little bit about more and more and more—stretched out, you could imagine, into the horizon. Taken to its logical conclusion, academics end up knowing everything there is to know about nothing. Deputy Ministers achieve the ability to know nothing about everything. So, you can decide at the end of these remarks whether I'm in one or another of those categories.
I intend to speak about two things today, two sets of things. The first is the general state of civilian oversight in Canada. Looking forward, the second is a proposal that we begin meaningful conversations to measure where we are. And here I'm particularly speaking to civilian oversight bodies and authorities—my colleagues—to measure ourselves against a set of principles that must guide our work. Both of these, I think, are good news stories for the most part. But the second part will offer up a challenge for each of us who engage in civilian oversight. I've given these remarks the informal title, Civilian Oversight: Looking forward. Looking in the mirror.
So, to begin, I'm fully aware of the challenges we face as oversight bodies in supporting the kind of public accountability in Canadian law enforcement that ultimately helps to deliver the best possible policing to Canadians, supported by Canadians. I think it's fair to say we are doing well on both fronts—policing and police accountability. So, it is mostly a good news story.
The quality of policing in our country is of a very high caliber. Among the best in the world. A recent survey found that 73% of Canadians have high regard for the police. There is room to improve.
But let me tell you, as somebody who mostly spent their time in the world of law, lawyers would give a lot to have an approval rating of 73%. The quality of police oversight as well in Canada is high. Demand for civilian led accountability is on the rise. And the role you play, the role we play, has never been more essential. So, I think it's important to take a moment to acknowledge that. One has to be a little bit careful about patting themselves on the back.
For a period of time, I worked with a minister of finance in the Government of Saskatchewan. It was an NDP minister, Mr. McLeod, so I don't want to disparage your government. She was a friend. But when things went well in the Ministry of Finance, she used to give herself such a pat on the back that I was afraid she might separate her shoulder.
For us, I think, though, it's fair enough that we should acknowledge and give ourselves a pat on the back for good work that we have done in a world of police oversight showing that it has been worth it and must continue.
This has been, I think, especially true at the CRCC, where the work without some degree of leadership has carried on at a high level of professionalism during the time of absence of leadership. And I just wanted to extend my appreciation and thanks and admiration for your work. The team from the CRCC mostly sat in the first row to give me a sense that there was an audience if nobody else showed up. So, I want to thank them for that as well.
It is sometimes said, and I think seen, that there are tensions between law enforcement professionals who serve our communities and then the agencies that provide oversight. Others have stated, and a sentiment with which I agree, in this regard:
"Although both sides may have goodwill, tension between the reviewer and the reviewee is inevitable. There will always be tensions within democratic states, between security professionals and their overseers. If there are no tensions, the oversight system is simply not working."
I think that's true, but it also comes down to this. The work and relationship between our police services and our civilian oversight agencies is and must be iterative and mutually reinforcing. Independent, professionally conducted oversight strengthens professional policing. And I think it's fair to say that the role we play as police leaders and as oversight professionals in preserving and enhancing the quality of law enforcement in this country has never been more essential than it is in these uncertain and sometimes fraught times.
In this regard, and as a sign of the importance that oversight agencies provide in the dual relationship, Canadians are asking for more oversight, not less. Citizens through their legislatures and parliament are asking us to provide as professional, effective and comprehensive oversight as possible. To help law enforcement achieve its own ideals.
This is no small undertaking. Here's a bit of what is happening in the country, and I don't promise that this is in any way comprehensive. And much of this you already know.
In the last few years independent serious incident teams, under various names, have been established throughout the country and are providing outstanding professional oversight when it comes to serious police-involved incidents.
Work by many of you in this room has helped to achieve this. And you deserve acknowledgment for this hard work. I'm particularly delighted to observe the achievements in Saskatchewan under Michelle Ouellette's and particularly Greg Gudelot's leadership. I note as well the progress being made in Alberta under its new legislative structure to deliver oversight in a province-wide, coordinated way.
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have coordinated in the provision of certain services under Erin Naus and Rebecca Butler's leadership. And although Roxanne is no longer with the Manitoba IIU, it continues under excellent leadership there. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the good work of my old friend Randy Doyle, the king of Newfoundland and Labrador.
And I also want to acknowledge the leadership that has been provided for a very long time out of British Columbia and Ontario and Quebec, about which I know a bit less, which provinces have had high-level regimes for many years and whose leadership have often been stars in the firmament of civilian oversight in our country.
These are factors I think that inspired myself and Roxanne to return to the participation in this world, to be part of a group of smart, dedicated people who care about what they're doing and believe that we can make a positive difference. Professionals who, through the power of independent review and investigation, are making sure that people are properly served and treated fairly by the police.
Which brings me to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. As many of you will know, legislation was passed at the end of 2024 to evolve the CRCC into a new agency with a new name. That new name is the Public Complaints and Review Commission. Adopting the existing model of RCMP oversight through primarily review. The PCRC will take on the duty of independent civilian oversight of Canada Border Services Agency officers throughout the country, for the first time extending independent civilian oversight to border services.
I was in the Senate at the time that this legislation was reviewed and adopted, and I'm pleased to say it was embraced by the vast majority, almost unanimously by parliamentarians in the Senate and the House of Commons.
This, in my opinion, is a huge vote of confidence from citizens acting through their parliamentarians in both civilian oversight of law enforcement and the CRCC's ability to deliver on both its existing and this new future mandate.
I had a special vantage point for the consideration of this legislation. I attended all of the Senate committee hearings considering the bill and I was not surprised at all to see the way in which the Commission rose to the challenge by helping to shape the very legislation that will govern its new and expanded mandate.
And there is more. I think it's fair to say, to our surprise, legislation was introduced in Parliament at the very end of April, a month ago. That will establish a new financial crimes agency for Canada. Some of you may be familiar with this. And the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission in its new iteration will be tasked to provide oversight of the law enforcement dimensions of the new federal crimes agency.
But let me repeat a point that I think I've already made on the subject of law enforcement agencies. Allow me to do give credit where credit is due. Despite many challenges—and I'll mention a few in a moment—and room for improvement, we are fortunate in Canada to have the quality of policing we have and the quality of police leadership.
Across the country, for the most part, we see professionalism, restraint, and commitment to public service demonstrated daily in one of the hardest jobs this society asks people to do.
Most interactions between the police and the public are resolved without incident, as many of you will know. The RCMP reports that 99.9% of its occurrences are resolved without the use of force or intervention options.
That being said, challenges remain for Canada's police agencies:
- Overrepresentation of some communities in the criminal justice system.
- Trust among Indigenous and racialized communities as an issue.
- Police resourcing and recruiting is improving but still well below where it should be, that is despite the very hard work that so many of you do on that front.
- And I'll note that complaints about the RCMP filed through our agency continued to be on the rise as they are, I think, for many police services around the country.
I would be remiss though, I think, if I didn't speak a little bit about the resourcing challenges faced by civilian oversight agencies. Governments in this country have been, in general, moderately responsive to the important role played by our oversight agencies. But I think it's also fair to say—and I say this in part based on personal experience in Saskatchewan and now in Ottawa—that we have been consistently under-resourced in relation to our mandates.
Let me give you one small example related to the CRCC. It was established in 1988. It had a staff of 44 and a budget of 5.4 million dollars in 1988.
Today 5.4 million dollars would be roughly 13 million, just counting for inflation only.
Today, in 2026, our budget is less than 13 million. In 1988, they handled roughly 400 complaints. This year we will handle 6,000—an increase in work of 15 times what was done when the agency was first established, with essentially, in today's dollars, less money.
Now, there have been efficiency gains. We make people work harder, as they remind me from time to time. But there is also more complexity in the challenges that get faced in dealing with complaints.
We are one of the more fortunate agencies in the country as well, I hasten to add, as many of you in civilian oversight know, and I felt when I was doing work in Saskatchewan. But the task is an important one and it ought to be appropriately resourced.
I want to turn now to my second theme, if I may, which is essentially a discussion of a couple of the principles that are highly relevant to civilian oversight and some thoughts that we should apply our minds to, in relation to them.
I won't draw extensively on a wide range of principles that govern civilian oversight, because I want to zero in on two.
But you can—you will be familiar with many of them at least as well as me. Independence, accountability, transparency, professionalism, integrity.
I want to focus in particular on two themes, independence and a component of accountability in the time that I have left. And in one respect, related to accountability, I want to focus on what I will call comprehensiveness and seamlessness.
So, with respect to independence, I want to acknowledge, without labouring extensively, it is critical in our democracy for police to have operational independence. Many have written about this.
I met with the Assistant Commissioner for the RCMP in Regina yesterday and among a wide range of delightful chat with Assistant Commissioner McNeil, he reminded me of this point about operational independence. I don't want to dwell on that, but focus as much as I can on civilian oversight agencies.
In any democracy, public trust depends on citizens having confidence in the police and that the police are subject to meaningful scrutiny in the exercise of the special authority we provide them. And that those agencies be able to do that work free of outside influence.
So, I think it's useful not to just say the word independence, but to examine, critically, the components of it. And here I'm going to pose six questions related to this type of independence.
The list of questions is not comprehensive, but it's a pretty good place to start. I think.
First, should our agencies be creatures of executive government or is it critical to our independence that we be creatures of our parliament or our legislatures?
British Columbia is an example of the latter. But as far as I know, hardly any others of us are. I don't know the answer to this question. Most bodies that are creatures of legislatures exercise authority over the executive or members of the parliament or legislature itself. We exercise such authority, but it is an indirect way in relation to police agencies. And in fact, most of them are not, or at least not directly, creatures of the legislature.
At the same time, creatures of the legislature tend to experience a less vulnerable process when it comes to budgets. Which are often left to the whims of that part of the executive, to which we relate, and in some cases get traded off for other priorities.
A second question.
What about independence in the appointment and tenure process for civilian oversight leaders?
I think myself that this is a more critical piece of the independence puzzle than most appreciate.
I think it's fair to say to achieve independence, this process needs to be transparent and merit-based. This is where I hold up the mirror to myself. And you might do the same, wondering, how did this guy ever get into this job?
It probably argues for a process that is closer to the legislative officer process of appointment. Rather than selections made by the executive or even a cabinet.
On tenure, one of the trickiest parts is the issue of renewal. Especially if it is within the authority of a particular cabinet minister or cabinet itself leading to perceptions and oversight leadership. Desirous of renewal. Will be too beholden to its political masters.
It explains, I think, why judges' independence is secured by appointments at pleasure where their removal is only on the basis of noticeably bad behaviour or failing health. And only on the recommendation of judges themselves.
Do we need such a model? To ensure independence in civilian oversight? I'm not so sure. To some degree it compromises accountability in the sense that underperformance by civilian leadership becomes harder to address.
I have more points to make on this, but I do want to also acknowledge that discussing principles and achieving their highest goals sometimes feels a little bit academic or theoretical and I'm reminded of the story about the Irish physicist, some scientist academic somewhere who, on observing fat little bumblebees, overweight and whatnot, flying said, "Yeah, well, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?"
Well, the bottom line here is that we need to be prepared, I think, to pursue the highest level of principles, but be prepared to accept what I will call constraints on the ideal.
Turning to a few more points I have about independence. To be independent, oversight agencies need to be adequately resourced. Like I've made that point already.
This is another example perhaps of constraints on the ideal.
Another, does independence require that the oversight agency's legal mandate be set out at a distance from the police, and particularly in legislation that is distinct from policing legislation?
This may be more a matter of perception than reality. Our agency, the CRCC, is receiving its own legislative mandate as we transition to this other agency.
But my impression is that the independence or lack of independence would be unaffected on the ground by the change.
Nevertheless, we can say to the public that it makes us more independent, which is perhaps a confidence builder, though I'm not entirely sure that much will change on the ground, so to speak.
Fifth of six questions—the list does come to an end: Does independence require that civilian oversight authorities have independent investigative capacity?
As you will know, many of us are review agencies, and that is predominantly what the CRCC is. As has been the case with leading serious police-involved incident agencies, we have moved significantly to a model of independent investigative capacity and away from the perception and reality of the police investigating the police.
The question is, is this an essential aspect of civilian oversight of serious incidents? And I think the answer has proven to be yes.
And then, that poses the question of whether it ought to apply to complaint-based agencies themselves as well.
I note that in his review of police oversight in Ontario, Justice Michael Tulloch, now the Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal, recommended a move to much greater investigative capacity for complaints agencies in Ontario.
I don't know if this is the answer to the question, but it's an important one to ask in my opinion.
Last on my list: Does independence require a much greater role for civilian investigators evolving from a model where predominantly police officers either retired or seconded to an agency do the investigation?
I'm sympathetic to this argument of more civilian-trained investigators, but I do acknowledge that there is the risk of trading off expertise for greater, perhaps perceived, independence.
A question that I think needs to be answered.
I'm near the end. I just have two or three more points to make on what I will call comprehensiveness and I'll get to those in a second.
My firm belief is that we should undertake a project together with the advice from the communities of interest that have a legitimate stake in civilian oversight, a project that would define and refine the elements of independence that are relevant to our work—and in some cases crucial to it—and to champion those elements in cases where our respective agencies are structured, if not poorly, at least in suboptimal ways.
So, my last set of remarks relates to this aspect of accountability. Here, I'm focusing on what I will call comprehensiveness and the degree of seamlessness in which we operate.
Here, I think it's fair to say that each of us have mandates and boundaries that we must respect. Naturally, these jurisdictional and operational limits create, or have the potential to create, gaps in a truly comprehensive effort both within our own jurisdictions and nationally at improving police accountability in our country. I think it's our implicit duty as a national association dedicated to law enforcement oversight to identify and do what we can to address these gaps.
Let me mention a few.
Inconsistencies and differences in oversight mandates and jurisdictions. The challenge of handling joint force operations and the oversight of joint force operations. Differing rules on authority and timeliness to complete work and to obtain evidence from police agencies, different charging structures among agencies, varying thresholds among jurisdictions when it comes to defining things like serious injury.
Another example from our own operation is that we do not have a mandate to address conduct by RCMP reservists. There are geographical and cultural disparities that shape who gets access to accountable policing and there is a lack of national standards sometimes in relation to data collection and centralized databases that would make tracking easier.
In that respect, the work can often be what I will call internal in addressing the comprehensiveness gap. Each of us can look for gaps in our own work and come together to solve them for good police and citizens everywhere in the country, often by relying on models next door that might be actually slightly better.
Second part of comprehensiveness in this discussion is what I will call seamlessness.
It's a function of our country as a federation that, for much of what we do, the constitutional authority for our work resides with provinces and territories.
I love the federal nature of our country. And I wouldn't have it any other way. But from the perspective of comprehensive civilian oversight and particularly seamlessness, it does create risks. I've mentioned a few momentarily ago.
In my view, on this seamlessness question, jurisdictions bumping up cleanly against one another so nothing falls through the cracks.
I believe we have a collective duty in the world of civilian oversight to try to align our oversight agencies and systems as closely as possible to be seamless.
Whether that is cooperation in the alignment of jurisdictions or sharing of information when one matter falls from one jurisdiction to another, or strategies for joint investigations. This will make our work better and will make civilian oversight better for all and for all our citizens.
This requires us not to be defensive but does require us to look in an organized way into the mirror critically and ask whether and how we can adjust our work to ensure that we achieve, what I will call, success in the national project of civilian oversight.
The CRCC does not own this mandate. We all do. It is a national, not federal agenda. But I do say this. And I do say this commitment of Roxanne's and my agency and our team, we are keen to move forward on such a project and within the limits of our resources are willing to work on. Essentially agreed-upon investments, whether that be research or consultations or dialogue or better ideas than I could identify to help make this happen. I hope that you might embrace that project as well.
Let me end on this note.
After the tragic events surrounding the Battle of Batoche, as I mentioned, Chief Poundmaker was arrested, charged, convicted of treason, and sent to jail. He died a broken man, but he is said to have declared this in his latter days. And I quote, although he didn't say it in English:
"I think of the old man who sat beside the trail and it grew over and he could never find his way again. We cannot sit beside the trail. We must go forward, into a better future."
For me, this is a metaphor. Sitting beside the trail is resting on our laurels. Rather, we must go forward. I hope we will take the opportunity to do so together.
Thank you, merci.