Public Safety Committee on June 13th, 2013

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much.

We'll now turn back to the opposition side, to Mr. Scarpaleggia for seven minutes.

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

Chief Levesque, you mentioned at the outset that your core funding had been cut. Did I understand that correctly?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Yes, we had funding for two police officers, and it was cut at the end of March.

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

What was that core funding? Was it the federal component, the police fund funding, or did your city cut funding to your force? Can you clarify what this funding was?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

I'm sorry; I was referring to PORF, the police officers recruitment fund, not core funding.

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

Ah, okay.

You mentioned that it would be possible to get civilians to do such things as collect needles instead of having to send an officer to do that task. Is there anything that would stop your force from creating a special unit, a civilian unit, to do that kind of work?

You're sending officers, and you said it would be less expensive to send non-officers. Is there a reason that you can't, within your force, set up your own group of non-officers, of civilians, to do that work? Do you need special permission from the province to do so? What stops you from cutting costs that way now?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I don't see picking up dirty needles and used needles as a police function. I would never—

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

I understand that—

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

I would never entertain starting a unit that was solely civilian or otherwise that was responsible as the lead agency for doing that kind of work.

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

What you're saying is that it's costing you money to do this. How would you go about getting out of that business, if you will? What do you need to do to ensure that this is not your responsibility?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Mr. Chair, what we're seeing is that the organization, Superior Points, that runs the needle exchange program here will do that type of work during the day. They're a civilian-based agency.

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

Okay, so it's being done.

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

It's the after hours situation in which people—

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

Are you trying to address that issue? It seems to be in limbo: you don't want to do it, and you don't think it's right for you to be doing it, but there's no end in sight for your force's doing it.

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Without funding to the organization to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I don't see it changing. We're a 24/7 operation and that's who gets the calls.

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

Okay, good.

You mentioned that child exploitation investigation should be moved from the local level to the national level. Did I understand that correctly?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Here in Ontario we have a provincial strategy for most types of crimes. There needs to be more of a national strategy on this, because it is not just provincial, municipal, national, it's international, and it's growing exponentially.

I met with the OPP head of that unit earlier this week, and the amount of child exploitation and child luring that's going on, even for me—I'm a 27-year veteran—is mind-boggling.

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

So right now you don't have access to federal resources, whether it be databases or technical assistance from the RCMP. You don't have access to that right now. Is that what you're saying?

If you're saying it needs to be moved up to a national level, does it mean you're not getting help at the national level, just the provincial level at this point?

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I have two officers who belong to our computer crime unit who are part of the provincial strategy on child exploitation and child luring. I wouldn't say we don't have the resources of the RCMP when required, but they are not part of the task force. Certainly here locally we have an excellent relationship with the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police, and we will request their resources quite often.

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

But they should be part of your local task force, essentially, is what you seem to be saying.

[Chief John Paul Levesque]

That would be a big help because they do have far more resources than we can ever come up with.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Coldren, in terms of smart policing, how would you envisage this working?

Each police force would have a researcher. I won't say a team of researchers because then it gets expensive, but they would have someone who would try to quantify the costs of actions and the benefits that would flow from those actions.

What you seem to be saying is within a police force you would need a position dedicated to that kind of analysis, somebody who is, and I think you used the word “embedded”, if I'm not mistaken. Is that how you see this rolling out? Every police force in the country would have at least one person, and that person, being a researcher, would have access to the latest studies on policing, whether they had been done at a university, or at some kind of national, regional, or state think-tank. Is that what you're suggesting?

[Prof. James R. Coldren]

I think about this in several ways.

It's important to think about increasing and enhancing the analytic capacity of police agencies generally. Again, my experience is in the States primarily. The large majority of police agencies in the United States of America are actually small to medium-sized, and I don't think it would be practical for each individual agency to hire a Ph.D. trained researcher.

There's an interesting interplay between a researcher—an academic or a trained researcher—and a crime analysis or intelligence analysis function in a police agency. In some cases, the analysis function in the agency is quite strong so the reliance on the researcher is not so great. In other cases, the crime analysis function in a police agency is actually quite weak, and then external assistance probably would be more needed.

I think it's the analytical capacity that's at issue here, and I would argue—I argue quite frequently—that police leaders should invest more in research and analytic capacity, and that will in fact produce efficiencies.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much, Professor Coldren.

We will now have a second round of five-minute questions. We will begin with Mr. Rousseau.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

Mr. Coldren, as I was listening to you, I realized that we are not doing enough to measure the effectiveness of our police forces, since it is not part of their culture.

I am going to preach for my own parish now. I studied labour relations, work organization and resource management. One of the big mistakes organizations make is often the lack of holistic analyses and approaches and, I would say as well, of resource planning. The management of resources is not only financial management, but also the management of material attributed to human resources. But there is not enough monitoring of that.

There are three questions I often ask myself in my capacity of manager. What are our human resources doing on the ground? Are they efficient and useful? Are they doing a good job?

I will leave you whatever time is left over to convince my colleagues. This study is ending and I think that my main conclusion is that resources are not being managed well, be they human or material or financial.