Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[Steve Palmer]

The Canadian Police Research Centre is a federal government organization. We receive all of our funding from the federal government.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Fine. Do the members of your organization, or do you, on occasion receive benefits such as travel to conferences or even items of equipment from the companies that make this kind of device?

[Steve Palmer]

We do not. We pay our own travel; we are very careful not to accept funding from companies for things such as travel. Normally we will buy the equipment we are evaluating and testing. Sometimes it is customer or industry supplied. We have not received any equipment from Taser International or any funding from Taser International.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

When you buy these items, you use the money that the government gives you.

[Steve Palmer]

That is correct.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Have you noticed a significant increase in taser use by police forces in recent years?

[Steve Palmer]

We as an organization do not track the quantity of use of force, so I can't give you an accurate response.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

In the police forces with which I am familiar and for which I was responsible, taser use is constantly documented. A report must be filed each time it is used.

Are you in a position to keep records of taser use for all of Canada?

[Steve Palmer]

If we were requested to do that, certainly we could take the information from the police services, tabulate it, and provide such a report.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

From what I have read, there is one situation in which it is believed that a taser can contribute to death, and it is often when the person is said to be suffering from excited delirium. What are the symptoms of excited delirium?

[Steve Palmer]

Excited delirium is a set of symptoms that can be severe agitation, sweating, violent behaviour, and the inability to process signals and respond to commands and questions from a police officer or anyone else. We consider it a medical emergency, and I think one of the greatest successes since our last report was the police community and the emergency medical services community starting to work together and treating this as an emergency, and we're starting to see lives saved.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Do you think that it should be made clear that tasers must not be used in cases of excited delirium?

[Steve Palmer]

In our report, when we looked at it, we didn't make any stipulation based on the peer review one way or the other on excited delirium. It is seen as an effective tool in rapidly subduing somebody in that state. So we didn't comment against it.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Smith, does your company sell tasers to civilians?

[Tom Smith]

Yes. We sell to civilians in the United States and have since 1994.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Do you not think that tasers should be used only by people who are fully trained, not only to recognize the circumstances in which they should not be used, but also those in which they should be used as a last resort, just before a firearm is used?

[Tom Smith]

You have to remember that in the United States our citizens are allowed to buy firearms. The taser is completely illegal to be sold in Canada. So in the United States we felt that for somebody like my wife or my mother to be able to access the technology like this to protect herself when she didn't want to have a firearm, we made appropriate accountability of the technology so that we could make sure it was used properly.

Again, on where the product is used in terms of use of force by law enforcement, that is set by the experts, the law enforcement community, relative to the other tools. This is one tool in the tool box. There is no perfect solution, and they will establish when and where it is used. And as far as training is concerned, we provide a DVD and manuals and material to train.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

So you do agree that they should be used only by people who have been trained.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That will have to be your final question.

Go ahead. You may answer.

[Tom Smith]

Again, you can in the United States obtain a firearm and not have any training. So in our context, we do provide visual material through a DVD and written material through a manual that comes with it for training, and we do make the effort to try to train them, but like with other available devices, there's nothing mandatory or required.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Priddy, would you like to go next?

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Palmer, for being here today.

I think this session and this review was brought about by the tragic death of Mr. Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport, although many other factors were attached to that as well. But I think it has galvanized people's concern about tasers across the country, which was already beginning to grow. I often refer to it as “taser creep”, because I am seeing more and more use of it in situations that, at least as they're described, do not seem to me to be the next step below using a gun.

Mr. Smith, when you're selling the taser, I don't believe you make a recommendation on where it should go in the continuum of force. Is that correct?

[Tom Smith]

Yes, that is correct.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Where would you place it?

[Tom Smith]

Again, I would tell you that 86% of the agencies that use our technology place it at the point of active resistance, when the physical threat of violence or somebody getting injured is going to occur. That is where it is typically used.