Evidence of meeting #27 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prevention.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Sometimes it's not about public safety investments. It could be other parts of government investing, getting a positive result with possible offenders, etc.
I just—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Excuse me, Mr. Norlock, the bells are now on.
I know we're into a good line of questioning and I certainly appreciate the input from our guests. Of course, we have bells and, unfortunately, we're not in control of our own time destiny. We hope to be able to get back here shortly to continue. Should we, of course, run over our hour of allotted time, we have other witnesses to hear from. We hope to be back here in time.
We will suspend and hopefully get back in time to continue on.
We are suspended.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Colleagues, we will resume our study on social finance.
For the second hour, we have with us, as an individual, Dr. Gregory Jenion, professor in the criminology department or Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Welcome, sir. We're pleased to have you here at this committee.
You'll have up to 10 minutes to make a statement, should you wish. At that point we'll open up the floor to questions.
4:35 p.m.
Dr. Gregory Jenion Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
4:35 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
I have prepared a statement, so maybe I'll read that first.
4:35 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Excellent.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today.
I understand this committee is looking at how social finance can be related to crime prevention in Canada. I will begin by providing some background information on the larger context of sustainable crime prevention efforts and practices.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its compendium on the standards and norms in crime prevention, states the following:
There is clear evidence that well-planned crime prevention strategies not only prevent crime and victimization, but also promote community safety and contribute to the sustainable development of countries. Effective, responsible crime prevention enhances the quality of life of all citizens.
Many countries look to this compendium as being foundational to their own national strategy. As this committee knows, Canada is a signatory to the guidelines for the prevention of crime.
In 2007 Public Safety Canada’s publication, A Blueprint for Effective Crime Prevention, stated this:
There is no single approach to crime prevention. A wide array of interventions is needed to maximize effectiveness. Accordingly, the NCPC adopts the position reflected in the United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Crime....
The UN guidelines go on to state this.
Cooperation/partnerships should be an integral part of effective crime prevention, given the wide-ranging nature of the causes of crime and the skills and responsibilities required to address them. This includes partnerships working across ministries and between authorities, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, the business sector and private citizens.
However, these guidelines are short on “how to’s”. For example, there is no information on how wide collaboration with the community in the form of partnerships would be carried out or maintained, or how to conduct initial diagnostic analysis to identify and frame community concerns.
Researchers have drawn attention to the many obstacles involved. As Professor Hastings has stated, the first difficulty involves the lack of agreement regarding the causes of crime and the targets of prevention; the second difficulty involves the level of confidence people have in the solutions proposed for crime problems; and the third difficulty arises from differences in emphasis on the importance of the community.
Lack of such detail encourages a search for where these guidelines are currently being played out. The British experience is often heralded as a successful model. The tenants of the British experience with crime prevention can be found in numerous reports that span several decades, including the Cornish, the Gladstone, and the Morgan reports.
The Morgan report, in particular, “explored ways in which inter-agency crime prevention could be made normal business” and under what administrative arrangements. The key recommendations of that report were that crime prevention would be the responsibility of local area authorities and that this would be made a statutory responsibility.
The pinnacle of the British experience was the Crime and Disorder Act, and this is when the Morgan recommendations were finally realized. This statutory authority moved crime prevention past the natural threats inherent to such an endeavour by providing an obligatory and accountability structure foundational to the sustainability of the effort. Crime prevention moved beyond lip service and the good faith intentions of individuals to a more secure sustainable platform.
Canada is without similar legislation.
The Horner report is a good place to review substantive report recommendations in the Canadian context that are akin to the Morgan report in the British context. Although emphasis on statutory responsibility is limited, most of the foundational pillars from which the national strategy is derived can be found in the report’s recommendations. It should be noted that not all of the report’s recommendations have come to fruition.
One of the recommendations was directly related to funding, and I quote,
The Committee recommends that a share of the monies forfeited as proceeds of crime be allocated to crime prevention activities and that the federal government allocate 1% a year of the current federal budget for police, courts, and corrections to crime prevention over a five year period. At the end of five years, Canada should spend 5% of the current federal criminal justice budget on crime prevention.
It is clear that the Horner report originally envisioned a much larger financial contribution to national crime prevention than what is currently being spent and allocated in this area. Therefore, it was not surprising when I reviewed prior testimony by Mr. Shawn Tupper before this committee when he stated this: “Governments do not have the level of financial resources required to fund these programs in a long-term, sustainable way.”
With a limited time remaining, and having this broader crime prevention context in mind, I would like to summarize by saying that whether we're talking about social innovation through social finance or some other progressive partnership program, in the absence of a statutory framework that encompasses obligation, accountability, and transparency, along with a substantially larger financial commitment by the federal government to municipalities, I would echo other colleagues in the field who state that for the moment it would be naive to assume that progress towards crime prevention is inevitable.
I would be happy to take any of your questions.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Fine. Thank you very much, Professor Jenion.
Now over here we will start with Mr. Payne, please.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for coming, Dr. Jenion.
My question is through you, Chair, to the witness.
I was looking at your comment regarding governments not having the level of financial resources. However, I notice in your statement that you didn't finish the actual quote, and if you don't mind I'll just read that into the record here:
Governments do not have the level of financial resources required to fund these programs in a long-term sustainable way. Leveraging new partnerships that can sustain successful projects once government time-limited funding ends is key to ensuring the public safety needs of the communities we serve. Our aim is to implement effective and efficient social innovation programs that can become sustainable.
It's interesting. We've actually heard from a number of organizations that have talked about these new innovations, bond programs and so on. It's interesting that there are people who can actually think outside the box.
To me, there's innovation here. There are opportunities for organizations. We've heard a number of our colleagues bringing forward some of these innovations. If we think about Habitat for Humanity and the homes they build, one of my colleagues specifically talked about that in a project in his riding. I would like him to restate that at some point in time here.
I don't know how much time I have, Mr. Chair.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I guess one of my questions is what you think about innovation Are you prepared to look at that? Is it way beyond what you think we should be doing?
Obviously the federal government has some opportunities. I think that would be a great opportunity for us, as a government, to look at some sort of pilot project to work with other organizations to see what we can do in terms of these activities. We've heard organizations that have been quite successful in that, including the John Howard Society.
4:45 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I could address the question, I have actually reviewed a report that was delivered to you called “Social Impact Bonds: Overview and Considerations”. I believe it was mentioned earlier in your meetings. Of course, it was a very sombre kind of look at the social bonds. Many times in there you read words like, “there is an element of risk”, “they are unproven”, “the results aren't fully known.”
I don't think these things are something that should be disregarded in any way or not pursued, but to think that they would be in some way the key to sustainability of the overall crime prevention effort, to me, is not real.
The other thing that concerns me is looking at things like the chart on figure 1 for the social impact bonds. It's a report that you have. Point number 6 says, “Evaluation advisor monitors ongoing progress of the preventative program...”. Well, who are the monitors? Who are the overseers, and what type of commitment to transparency and disclosure do they have? I think that would be very important if things like this were to go forward.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I think there certainly are opportunities for organizations, and we did hear from a number of presenters. Deloitte was one of them and they did suggest a whole key of questions that needed to be looked at and figured out ahead of time. You can't go in without some plan on this whole issue.
The other important thing to recognize is that governments can't do everything themselves. We don't have all the answers. There are other people outside who have other experience. They can bring some great ideas to government and if we sit back and say, “No, I'm sorry, that doesn't fit”.... I think we need to be able to look at them and we need to be able to try them out.
We just talked about CoSA. They were here just a couple of weeks ago, and they talked about what they had done with outside investors, and in this case it was funding from NCPC. Mr. Tupper talked about the potential of that. It could be one of these organizations that could potentially be providing funding and there could be some other community organization that would be prepared to help in that.
I think if you establish a set of conditions and rules around this whole process—obviously there has to be an audit and there has to be some way to measure the performance—there's an opportunity to look at these things rather than just to say, no, it's not possible. So in my view, that certainly is a real opportunity to do some sort of pilot project. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't even look at that opportunity.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to Professor Jenion for being here today. I know that you have both academic and practical experience working with the City of Surrey on their crime prevention strategies. In your opening statement, you commented on the need for a substantially larger financial commitment to municipalities.
Would you like to expand on that idea?
4:50 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, if I may?
4:50 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
I saw first-hand municipalities struggling with crime prevention and where to get their money. Most of the protective service budget for the City of Surrey goes towards police and fire services. In my dissertation, I look beyond what works to an examination of various strategies at the municipal level. While I was interviewing some of the bureaucrats and managers for the City of Surrey, I pointed out that they noticed a tremendous cut in federal funding just for the police contract services they had in the last 20 or 30 years.
But independent of all that, there was no money within those fire-police budgets at the municipal level for even a crime prevention manager. When I first started writing about the Surrey crime reduction experience and the policies that they came up with, they were fortunate enough to hire somebody named Lance Talbot, whom they later lost to BC Transit, in part because the salary was a lot higher.
So funding is an incredibly important issue at the municipal level.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Would you say it's at the municipal level where we get the best bang for the buck out of crime prevention? Is that your conclusion?
4:50 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Well, I don't think those are my words. I think that if we look at the United Nations compendium, it's clear that they have stated—and Canada has signed onto this—that crime prevention is best undertaken by local area governments, and that would be the municipalities.
I think that not only does the UN report say that, but if we go back to the Horner report, it also clearly states that municipalities need to be a central part of crime prevention in Canada.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
In your opening statement, you talked about the lack of a legislative framework that would deal with questions of obligation, accountability, and transparency for these “innovative projects.” It's a concern that we have tried to raise here.
Can you say a little bit more about what the concerns are with accountability and transparency?
4:50 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Sure. I think the first thing is just dissemination of information.
The very first stop for the United Kingdom outside of the Cornish report that I call a key milestone is the Gladstone report, which is basically a fairly dry report. It's a methodological contribution, but that report in the British setting stated clearly that in order to not continue to spin our wheels or to repeat the mistakes of the past, we had to take an evidence-based approach, and that in doing so, the next step was to disseminate our findings widely.
I think first and foremost, when we talk about accountability, we talk about dissemination of that information with transparency. Outside of that, I think it's also important to note that the Crime and Disorder Act places a statutory responsibility and obligation on people. It actually states by law what they have to do. It's not creating another level of bureaucracy to oversee crime prevention efforts. It's instead telling those who are responsible what they must do under the law.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
In the discussion we've had, I think we often run together non-profits, charitable organizations, and for-profit corporations. In the discussions we've had examples from all of these. Would you see that different concerns or different levels of accountability would be needed for these three categories or can they all be treated the same in these projects?
4:50 p.m.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
When I worked with the City of Surrey and sat on that board, I also had the opportunity to interview non-profit organizations, charities. Some faith-based ministries were very nervous about government involvement in their activity. Their activity is very important, in my mind, given the fact that they carry out all sorts of relationship types of programs, drug and alcohol recovery programs, all of which are relatively unknown to the general or broader sector of society, but I think that it is substantial. They're resistant, however, to having too much government interference in their programs, so I think that obviously there would have to be some differences in areas like that.
Maybe I could go back to the performance indicator comment that was made earlier. I think that we don't want to just be governed by performance indicators because sometimes there are dangers and pitfalls in those as well, and that's why accountability has to go beyond just the performance measure. I think that down south our neighbours right now are struggling in their veterans kind of affairs scandal that they've had with how performance indicators have pushed some to massage those numbers, I think, in the form of wait lists down to the south. So I think we want to be cautious of that if we merely state that performance indicators are what we mean by accountable.