Public Safety Committee on May 7th, 2013

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay. Good.

I don't know how much time I have left, but perhaps you can make some more comments about the guards and matron program, particularly with your reference to aboriginal populations or remote populations. I wonder if you could just expand on that a little bit.

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

The guards and matrons program is from Manitoba west, which we do under a competitive contract. It's to provide jail guard services on a part-time basis, because there's no need for full time all the time in many communities. But it's all north of 60...and south as well; Doug will expand a tiny little bit on this.

Basically, the RCMP detachment will select the person to be hired. We do the HR process, the hiring process, the payroll and all of that, the administration of it, and they provide the training. It is local employment provided to aboriginal people.

Can you expand, Doug, a little bit?

[Col Douglas Briscoe]

I think this is another area where we can work in conjunction with a police force to enable them to get on with the other core policing activities they have, such as crime prevention.

I think this has been an amazingly successful program, with the RCMP identifying selected individuals in these communities and giving them the training, and us taking care off all the back-end support.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm curious, why just Manitoba west? We have a new consolidated courthouse going up in Thunder Bay, federal and provincial, and it might be a good opportunity for commissionaires to be there.

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

In the Atlantic provinces, the program does not exist yet. However, we are in communication with the RCMP to see if we can do it there the same way as in Manitoba west. In Ontario, such a program does not exist.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Leef, please, for seven minutes.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both our witnesses.

Do you have a breakdown now of your per-officer costs for training, uniforming, other services, in comparison with...? We've heard figures on the cost per officer to equip, train, and put them in the field for policing services. Do you have that breakdown?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

I don't have the details here, but I can give you some information. We'll gladly provide more details.

For example, to uniform one of our guards, it's about $500 to start, and about $150 year after year.

In terms of licence costs, in most cases that's paid fifty-fifty. It's about $45 a year to operate as a security guard.

Now, for training, ongoing training, our basic course is nine days. In most cases this is relatively economical, because they're not an employee yet, but for courses after that, the guards will be paid for it. We have a number of courses that range in length from four days to ten days, so it is fairly substantial.

Within the private security market, we certainly train more. I mean, honestly, truthfully, you cannot really compare the Corps of Commissionaires with any of our competitors in terms of training and all the programs we have.

As for putting a price tag on that, an exact price tag, I don't have that with me.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Many of your employees would already come into the Corps of Commissionaires with a pretty substantial training history, in some cases.

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

In some cases, but in other cases not.

As I said, we have a workforce of five generations. We have the 19- and 20-year-old kids, and when I say “kids”, I mean young adults who are in their last year of college, in police foundations studying to become a police officer, or at university, especially in the summer. We hire a lot of them part time.

They know zero about security when they come to us. They're starting their work lives. We're there to develop their leadership and management skills as well.

With a more seasoned employee, it doesn't have to be a veteran from the military; it can be a veteran from a police service agency, or someone who was in the banking world or some other walk of life.

[Col Douglas Briscoe]

I would just add one other thing. We are Canadian General Standards Board compliant in our courses, and we also monitor and audit our training using ISO 9001:2008, so there's a cost associated with those two elements as well in training our people for the workforce.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Are there any roadblocks? You're talking about moving into that sort of non-core policing business, and I know you're undertaking that in certain areas. Are there any barriers that are sort of stopping you from really exploding onto that market with policing? If so, are they legislative? Are they cost issues? Is it just a matter of breaking down some of the barriers with police services that may not want to transition over to that change?

If there are barriers, do you have any recommendations for the committee that we could be involved in to help transition these things or to make it easier to deploy some of the more economical strategies and overcome some of the barriers that you might be able to articulate for us?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

There are a few barriers. I can think of probably two major ones.

One is the image that private security has projected in the past. Keep in mind that up until recently our industry was not regulated in all quarters of the country. If it was, it was not really enforced very well. We have made a lot of headway. When I say “we”, the provinces have made a lot of headway. It's not as comprehensive as I and the corps would like yet. There's not enough enforcement. The industry has certainly started to shake things up and it is now producing a much better guard out there. The image we have projected is one that we are addressing as well to demonstrate to police service agencies and police service boards that we have changed and we have evolved.

Another barrier—I'll be very honest with you—is that certainly police associations certainly will see us as a threat, because instead of thinking of us as a complement to the police service agencies, they see us as taking jobs away from them. This is not the intention at all of private security. We are not police officers. We will never be police officers, but we certainly can help ease the work burden—never mind the financial burden—that police agencies are under. If we can do that, they may be better able to redistribute some of their officers, some of their workforce, in areas where they don't have enough. I'm thinking about cybercrime and organized crime. Police agencies would love to have more resources. If we do a bunch of less-demanding jobs for them, they will be able to refocus.

So there are two major barriers, but change is always a threat, of course, in any organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Captain Guindon and Colonel Briscoe.

Just to carry on with Mr. Leef's line of questioning, there are areas where you feel you could relieve the municipal police forces of certain duties and, therefore, free up their resources to do other things like investigating cybercrime and so on. Maybe you've mentioned this already, but could you just name some specific tasks for which you feel this could be done? I imagine there are many, because at one point I think you said that commissionaires do 60 separate functions across Canada, so I'm wondering what some of those areas would be in which you could step in for the local police.

Also, I'm just curious. You said that if a veteran comes to you and wants to be a commissionaire, it's almost certain there will be room for them. Did I misunderstand that?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

No, you didn't. As long as they can be employed and they meet our criteria of a clean criminal background and a few other things, yes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

That's wonderful, because I've known some veterans who are quite young and who, for various reasons, are having trouble getting gainful employment. I think you provide an extremely important service by allowing veterans who may be at loose ends to find steady, gainful employment that then allows them to build up a record of employment and that may allow them to pursue other career avenues as well. I think that's wonderful.

As you know, in many communities, we see that in addition to the police they have private security companies that operate cars and may respond to alarms that go off, sometimes accidentally, in people's homes during the day and so on. Are the Commissionaires involved in that kind of service as well? Do you provide security patrols for certain communities in Canada?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

We do provide mobile security patrols and mobile alarm responses, mostly to our clients, but we also have a Homewatch program. We do some of that, but we're not big in that sector. There are a few companies who are very, very big.

Yes, we do that. Here in Ottawa, you may have seen our cars on the road. We respond to about 1,500 alarms a month, and we have a bunch of mobile patrols. In fact, we're just starting to patrol all the bridges from here to Gatineau. It's the same thing in Pembroke.

So yes, we do all kinds of weird things, but to go back to your original statement, you asked us for a few examples of what we could do. The list is exhaustive, but I'll give you what I think is a prime example: crime scene security. When there's a crime at a house or building, in order for the investigation to take place, the area has to be secure. There's the yellow tape that you see across the premises, but there's also a watch that has to be there to make sure that anybody who's not allowed to enter the facility or the premises doesn't cross the line.

Well, number one, I'm not sure that having up to three or four very well-trained police officers and three or four police cars watching and making sure that nobody crosses that line is a police duty, which police officers don't really like to do—and they've told me that—and, number two, you pay premium dollars for that officer to be there.

This fits perfectly with private security. That's what we do. That's one of our core expertise. That is an example.

Yes, at the end of our testimony, there's a list of things that we do across the country, but it's spotty, of course. It's not huge. We want to expand it.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Have you approached a municipal or any police force suggesting that you could do crime scene security or monitoring?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

We have, but now we're putting in a program such that we will coordinate our approach nationally as well as locally. We've realized that we can do a lot more for our veterans by going into this line of business and also do a lot more for police agencies to provide better security of our people as well.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

What has the response been from police forces to your idea that you could provide security at crime scenes? Have you had any reaction yet?

[Capt(N) Paul Guindon]

In some quarters it's positive and they're open to discussing it. In some quarters, which I know very well, it has taken two to three years to get the dialogue going. In other parts, it's a sheer necessity, and they're saying that they can no longer do this and are asking what we could do. So yes, it is improving, but we have a lot of work to do.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Excellent. Thank you.

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

We'll now move to Madame Michaud.