Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Palmer, can you answer the same question, please?

[Steve Palmer]

We agreed that it was an intermediate weapon and therefore it could fit where the police services saw was appropriate. We don't set policy ourselves; we allow the police services to do that.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

But you do make recommendations.

I was in the room with Mr. Dosanjh at the time the tasers were approved in British Columbia. I think most people understood tasers to be a last resort before an officer would use a gun. You tell me it might be an intermediate weapon. Other police forces might tell me it's somewhere else on a continuum of force. I think citizens are concerned that they don't know whether the level of force is consistent across the country.

Mr. Kennedy reported in December and made 10 recommendations about taser use. Could you please tell me how many of those recommendations have been acted on?

Mr. Palmer.

[Steve Palmer]

Again, I haven't been tracking the outcomes of Mr. Kennedy's report; we're busily working on our own report.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay. I must admit that answer causes me some concern--that Mr. Kennedy has done this review, and while you may not have to follow all the steps in it, there's not some coordination going on between looking at the work that has already been done and the work you're currently doing. So when you say it doesn't have an impact, that concerns me as well.

You may be confronted by police officers and police chiefs or attorneys general at the table, but you also have a health minister and a former nurse at the table. My concern is whether either Mr. Smith or Mr. Palmer, or both, recommend positioning after the taser has been used. I think we know that about 10% of people walk around with cardiac arrhythmia, which may never cause them any problem, but it could under these circumstances. When people are in a prone position you have a buildup of acidosis, so people should be repositioned very quickly.

What kind of medical support--because it seems fairly inconsistent to me--does Taser and the research centre recommend?

Mr. Smith, first, please.

[Tom Smith]

Again, we don't have a recommendation. That comes back to the department and how they are going to dictate policy in terms of post-taser application. Other than getting them into custody, if it's medical--medical personnel and so on--their policy is going to determine what they do.

In terms of acidosis, this peer-reviewed study looked at the fact that the taser does not make somebody more acidic during the application of the taser. In fact, the early use of that can end that confrontation where they are exerting and maybe becoming more acidic.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

The research I've read says it also depends on the position they're in. We have seen people in prone positions with additional pressure placed on their back, which I think is not any medical personnel's recommendation about the position someone should be placed in.

Mr. Palmer, would you like to comment on whether you make recommendations to police forces about what to do after tasering, or before tasering, in terms of notifying paramedics or EMS?

[Steve Palmer]

The evolving best practices are to get the subject away from the prone position as quickly as practical and also to get EMS on the scene in areas where they are in the excited delirium syndrome situation. Other than that, it's monitoring.

I want to come back to your other question on Mr. Kennedy's report. As you are aware, there were a couple of recommendations in that report relating to the Canadian Police Research Centre, and we're certainly actively involved in pursuing those.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

My city probably has the largest police force in the country. There are almost 400,000 in the city of Surrey, which is policed by the RCMP. But many are obviously policed by their own police force.

Do you think you would find any consistent gathering of data about when tasers are used and the result on the person? Would you be confident that we would be able to tell the kind of use they are seeing? I have heard that the information gathering is inconsistent and that there is no guarantee that there will be documentation afterward.

So even if we were to ask you, as Mr. Dosanjh or Mr. Ménard said, if you could gather that information, do you have any confidence that information is even out there?

[Steve Palmer]

Use of force reporting is a provincial responsibility.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

It's somebody else's.

[Steve Palmer]

My understanding is that most provinces now are requiring that police services provide reports when forces use them.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

But you have no idea whether it's in a consistent manner or not.

[Steve Palmer]

No, I do not.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Smith, do you get reports back about taser use and impacts?

[Tom Smith]

The data that we try to collect in Canada, for example, is what we have been able to get out of the publicly available media. Most departments, as Mr. Palmer represented, keep that data, and they're reluctant to provide it, especially to a manufacturer.

So most of the data we receive is obtained publicly in Canada. In the United States, a lot of departments do submit that information, but again, it's certainly not a standard practice.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I'll just close by saying that it concerns me that a company that would make a weapon that, if not causation lethally, could be a predisposing cause would not be able to receive back information about the impact of that weapon, because how would you know how to change its use?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll now go over to the government side. Mr. Norlock and Mr. MacKenzie, I think you've agreed to share your time.

Mr. Norlock, you may start.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I have just a couple of follow-up questions as a result of some of the questions that were given and some of the answers also.

This question is for Mr. Smith. There was some question with regard to the money you've spent on police officers lobbying on your behalf versus.... My question is this: how would you compare the amount of money that you may have spent on police officers--either directly employed for product purchased or developed by them, or designed and sold to you--versus the amount of money that your company has spent on lawyers?

[Tom Smith]

First, let me be clear that we have not paid any law enforcement officers to lobby or to sell the product. They were paid for their time to train other officers in the use of force, similar to the standard that's set for all other uses of force.

I would tell that you we've spent a great deal more on legal fees in the last several years than we have on training fees.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Yes, give us an idea of how much you spend on legal fees.

[Tom Smith]

We spend right now between $1 million U.S. and $1.5 million U.S. per quarter on legal, so between $4 million U.S. and $6 million U.S. per year.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I think you've answered this, but I'm going to ask you directly: do you pay police officers to lobby their civilian decision-makers in order to purchase your product?

[Tom Smith]

No, we do not.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I have some questions for you, Mr. Palmer. You mentioned Mr. Kennedy and some of his findings. Are you connected in any way with the RCMP?