Evidence of meeting #6 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 officers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
Thank you.
You mentioned that your report was adopted unanimously in British Columbia. I am wondering if there has been any action taken since towards any benchmarks being established.
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair, British Columbia Justice Reform Initiative
I know it's been discussed. I don't know of any actual formal benchmarks that have been put in place. There have been two justice summits held, one in the spring and one just last week. That involves not just members of the Ministry of Justice, but also members of the bar, judges, and others involved in the justice system. I'm optimistic that, coming out of that process, you're going to have publicly embraced benchmarks and performance measures for the system.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
When we talk about efficiencies in policing, I've noticed in my time on this committee that people will tend to point to court appearances and paperwork as cost drivers. But as a layman looking at this, I'm assuming that the court appearances and paperwork have always been a big part of police work and ensuring that the task is complete. I'm wondering why people point to those as new cost drivers.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair, British Columbia Justice Reform Initiative
I think there have obviously been changes in the numbers of all of these things. For example, I know that at one point in British Columbia the average number of appearances per charge was in the high teens. So you were getting cases that were coming before a judge 17, 18, 19, 20, or 25 times, and then resulting in a stay or a guilty plea. So where you used to have two or three appearances before a case's resolution, you were then getting up into the high teens. So we're having system-wide numbers that are pretty staggering. For example, in British Columbia, almost half of all the charges now are breach charges—that is, breaches of court orders, or breaches of terms of release. That's a dramatic change in what's been happening in the system, and each of those requires an appearance, and each of those requires a charge in the case of breaches. So I think what we're seeing is that similar things are happening, but they're happening in much higher numbers in terms of appearances. As I said earlier, the length of some of the appearances, in terms of actual trials, has gone within our lifetime from very short and fairly expeditious hearings to very long hearings.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
Thank you, Mr. Cowper.
Mr. McPhail, you mentioned Bill C-42 and the establishment of a new civilian panel. You referenced it as something that will drive costs. I took it that way. Forgive me if I took it in the wrong context. If that's the case, why do you see this new civilian panel driving costs higher?
12:45 p.m.
Interim Chair, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
Sorry, I may not have explained that adequately. Actually, I believe that Bill C-42 would allow some cost reductions. For example, for the various investigations into the G-8/G-20 complaints in Toronto, under Bill C-42, the new CRCC would have been able to work jointly with some of the provincial review bodies rather than our having multiple investigations. So I believe Bill C-42 will enable some material cost savings.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
Thank you very much. I appreciate your providing that clarity, because I clearly misunderstood that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to all witnesses.
Starting with you, Mr. Cowper, given the explosion of mandatory minimums that are being imposed by changes in justice policy in Ottawa, my question to you is, what other policies, from a government perspective, would cause greater delays?
Why I mention what's happening with the mandatory minimums is that I think we're taking away the discretion of judges, who are trained and have experience with sentencing provisions. But when you impose a mandatory minimum and there's no choice, then defence counsel is going to fight that case longer. It's going to take more court time. It's going to take more judges. They're going to fight it to the bitter end because there's no other choice, and there will be less plea bargaining. In your remarks you mentioned that 98% of the cases end up in pleas or stays. I think that's going to rapidly change with some of the policy that is coming out of Ottawa these days.
What are your thoughts?
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair, British Columbia Justice Reform Initiative
Well, there are two things.
First of all, I think there is a very inconclusive debate about the longer term consequence of mandatory minimums for charges. The evidence is mixed. For example, the defence bar tends to adapt itself to what's possible. Mandatory minimums often have the effect—and certainly it's the experience in the States—of actually increasing the sentences for offenders and not necessarily increasing the length of time to get to a resolution. Having said that, I think there are, obviously, untested consequences of mandatory minimums and there is a view out there that they're going to result in increased process costs. I think it's really inconclusive right now.
I think the other feature of it, which is equally important, is that it does effectively transfer discretion to the investigator and to the prosecutor, because the prosecutor has an option as to what to charge. So it's taken discretion away from a judge on sentencing. But there's still a great deal of discretion earlier in the system. I think the public interest concern about that is whether that discretion is being exercised in a transparent way or whether in fact it ends up being a discretion that favours people from some walks of life rather than other walks of life.
As a Canadian I am generally concerned about where discretion in the criminal justice system rests and how it's exercised. I think that has to be carefully considered. I actually suspect that what you'll find with mandatory minimums is a broader scatter, if you will, of the types of charges that are produced from the same criminal event in order to perhaps avoid the impact of mandatory minimums or to bring it to bear.
So in answer to your question, I would say two things. First of all, we have to study it very carefully. I don't think the consequences can be easily predicted. Secondly, we have to be aware of the indirect process consequences of something like a mandatory minimum, and we need to manage it. Otherwise, you're not going to achieve the public goals that Parliament is determined to achieve in those areas.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you very much for that interesting answer. You had some things in there that I hadn't thought of.
To the witness from the RCMP public complaints commission, in respect of the work you've done on complaints, do you have any profile of the types of policing that have caused the greatest number of complaints? What I mean is that we're hearing from police officers that they're doing more work beyond regular policing, whether it's a robbery, a car theft, or whatever. What's the profile of the complaints? Is it related to police doing work that should be handled by mental health authorities? Is it domestic disputes, demonstrations? Do you have any profile of those areas that would give us some information?
12:50 p.m.
Interim Chair, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
There definitely are certain patterns that appear. For example, persons with mental health issues are a significant policing and public safety issue, and we receive complaints in that area. Sometimes the basic interactions of police with the public, perceived by some as abrupt or even rude, cause aggravation, and that's unfortunate. Then too we have a different type of policing issue, the policing of large demonstrations. I made reference earlier to the G-8 and G-20 summits, and the fracking dispute in New Brunswick, which we will be reviewing, as examples of the challenges of policing large demonstrations. Use of force is an area of concern that we're reviewing. In all of these areas, we have continuing communication with the RCMP as to their policies and our findings and recommendations.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much, Mr. McPhail. Our time has expired.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to express our appreciation to Mr. McPhail, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Cowper.
Thank you so much for your appearances today. As always, it was a great exchange of thoughts and ideas, and I can assure you that the committee will take your presentations and comments under serious advisement.
Thank you.
The committee will now break for three minutes to go into future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]