Public Safety Committee on Nov. 21st, 2013

[Chief Lloyd Phillips]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, there are positive stories, as I mentioned, and a reduction in crime overall. Many of the good practices you've asked about have already been touched on a little bit today.

We have taken a different perspective with regard to policing in my community and many others. Actually, in Kahnawake they're called the Kahnawake Peacekeepers, not the Kahnawake police force. That philosophy has been across first nations territories in primarily the province of Quebec, where you're actively a part of the community. You're there to maintain peace, not there to strictly enforce the law. You're there to be more interactive with your community and be involved in sports programs. You're encouraged to be the coaches of the hockey teams and the baseball teams, and be active with students and the young people in many different varieties. It's actually highly encouraged for officers to do so. That has proven, over time, to be very effective. As my colleague here was mentioning, that proves to be effective.

Some of the other areas that have proven effective would certainly include collaboration with our social networks in our communities, working closely with, for example, social workers, child care authorities, and various other areas like that.

You're taking a holistic approach, as they say, rather than looking at a situation as strictly a policing issue. You're taking a domestic problem, for instance, or even a criminal one where there's violence against an individual, and looking at it holistically. Rather than saying it's a policing issue and you're arrested, let's expand on that and pull in the family. Let's have some mediation. Let's move forward to heal, to solve the problem. You don't necessarily always have to go before a judge.

That philosophy has expanded throughout many communities, and has in turn lessened the level of crime and criminality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have one minute left.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Okay.

We actually talked about that approach a lot. A number of communities use that approach in their dealings with social workers, medical bodies and police forces. They're starting to operate in a different way. What do community members think about the police forces working in that way? Do they view that more holistic approach, as you call it, in a positive light?

[Chief Lloyd Phillips]

For first nation communities—I can speak on behalf of all of them, and this one with great certainty—that's the approach they prefer. Historically, I know that the RCMP used to patrol many first nations communities in Quebec, and then the Sûreté du Québec. The relationship has always been strained.

With this different approach, over the years the attitudes of the youth and the community have become very welcoming and open to policing in general. Before, there was a very rigid response to policing, and a pushback, if you want to call it that. Now people are more engaged and more willing. They're more trusting of the police forces, which I think is a key factor, because they are an integral part of the community. They're not just somebody who's put there to do a job and then taken back out. They're integral. After duty and while they're on duty, they're part of the community.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Payne, please, for five minutes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome back, Mr. Stamatakis, and welcome, Chief Phillips.

I want to touch on a couple of things. First, just how much information has the Canadian Police Association been able to share with other police organizations across the country in terms of best practices? Has that been an ongoing process?

Secondly, you talked about the Shared Forward Agenda and best practices. What are your expectations coming out of that?

[Tom Stamatakis]

In terms of your first question, we have about 160-odd member associations, so we have regular meetings annually and then a general meeting biannually. We use those meetings as an opportunity to share information, and on an ongoing basis by e-mail and other means. We also collaborate regularly with our other stakeholder partners, the Canadian Association of Police Boards, and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. We've been actively engaged in this conversation since I've been the president of the CPA. Those are some examples of how we would have discussions around best practices and opportunities for doing things differently. I think the upside is that everybody is engaged in that conversation and wants to get to a better place.

In terms of the Shared Forward Agenda, what I'd like to see come out of it, to be very blunt, is this. What we need in this country is a central sort of body. The policing initiatives portal that I think Mr. Potter probably talked to you about when he appeared here is a good start, but what we need is a central sort of body that takes on, not on their own, but coordinates, police research in this country and holds the information. So if I'm in a police force in northern Quebec or rural British Columbia, we can go to the same place and look for these models or best practices that have been tried, evaluated, and found to be effective, and then we can import those into our organizations and do things in a more consistent way, as opposed to what's been happening historically in this country, which is that it all happens ad hoc. We could be running pilots around the same program 10 times across this country, and no one would know that's happening.

So if there's one thing that comes out of this, that's the one thing: not a lot of funding, just an oversight body, if I could use that term, or a coordinating body made up of academics and police stakeholders who could coordinate and hold information so that everybody could have access to it.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

A depository for all of that information.

[Tom Stamatakis]

That's right.

In the States they have PERF, the Police Executive Research Forum; in Scotland they have the Scottish Institute for Policing Research; in the U.K. they have the College of Policing. Every country with a similar democracy, a similar style of policing, has those agencies, and I think they make a huge difference.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I just wanted to touch briefly on the tiered piece you talked about and getting some of those specialists in. Is there some expectation when you hire one of these specialists that even if they are making more money than a police officer, which obviously allows the police officer more time in the community, of seeing any potential lesser requirement for hiring additional police officers?

[Tom Stamatakis]

The one thing that needs to happen is that organizations in this country need to look at what they have and identify from a research-based perspective, in an informed way, what resources they need and how to best put those resources together—how many sworn police officers, how many civilian personnel, how many trained specialists. And arguably like the Winnipeg example, we identified a huge need for more police officers on the street, but we also identified these 90-some opportunities to have civilian personnel perform work that police officers are currently performing. So the net effect of our recommendations was zero. There was no need to hire more police officers or increase the Winnipeg Police Service budget; it was just a question of reallocating those resources.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Chief Phillips, I was pleased to hear about the huge reductions in crime you talked about, and I think our colleague across the way, Mr. Easter, said there were eight communities that have no policing. Is that because there are no peacekeepers or SQ in those communities?

[Chief Lloyd Phillips]

There are police services being done by the SQ, the Sûreté du Québec. However, the concerns there are the very long response times and their not actually being part of the community, where someone may see a police car pass through the community once or twice a week. When someone calls emergency response, it takes 45 minutes to one hour to get a police car at your front door, and by then the incident has either escalated or the people have long gone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you. We're out of time, Mr. Payne. I'm sorry. We'll have another opportunity in the next round.

As Mr. Phillips does have a train to catch and we just have a couple of minutes left, I will go to Mr. Rousseau, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Phillips, it's an honour seeing you here today.

You said something at the beginning that was very clear to me, which is that having first nations policing in your community is culturally appropriate. I don't think we can put a price tag on that. What are the human resources you would need in regard to proper training for making sure that you have the proper individuals doing the policing in your community?

[Chief Lloyd Phillips]

That's a good question.

When it comes to training, we're always making sure, first and foremost, that they're trained to a standard that's equivalent to that of any other police force, but then we also, when they finish their official training, whether it be through Nicolet in Quebec or Depot in Regina, have a cultural component. We call it deprogramming, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but it's to say, fine, now they know the law, they know how to police, and they know how things should work from a policing perspective, so how does this fit in with the attitudes in the way our community views policing? It's to ensure that there's that collaborative approach.

Especially when a young officer graduates from police college, it's “I'm an officer”, and they're pumped up and they feel good about it. We want to make sure they approach the community in a way that respects the uniqueness of the community and respects the way that we view the world a little bit differently. Every culture is like that; we view the world a little differently. We want to see that they're not.... What some people may view as an insult in regard to the way you enter somebody's home versus the way it may happen in the city—something as simple as that—could make a difference.

We do our best to hire from within our community, which is certainly a bonus. If not, we also try to at least hire other first nation citizens to police, because there are various similarities there. It's easier to have that and understand it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much. Our time has expired.

Mr. Rousseau, should you wish to lead off the questioning in the second round, you'll have that opportunity for another couple of minutes.

At this time, I would like to express on behalf of this committee our sincere appreciation for the excellent presentation and the thoughtful responses. We can assure you that your comments definitely will be taken under consideration.

We will now break. Thanks once again.

We will break for a minute while we go to our second panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we'll call this second half of our meeting to order. We will go until 10 minutes to one. At that point, we will go in camera for future business, but we will try to get through as much as we can.

We are going to welcome here today Mr. Ian McPhail, the interim chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, and Richard Evans, the senior director of operations. From British Columbia via video conference, we are welcoming Mr. Geoffrey Cowper, former chair of the British Columbia Justice Reform Initiative.

I think we will start off with Mr. Cowper.

While we have you on video conference, sir, you have the floor for up to 10 minutes for an opening statement.

As well, our other guests have up to 10 minutes for an opening statement. Then, of course, we will follow that with questions from the members.

Mr. Cowper, you have the floor, sir. Please carry on.

[Geoffrey Cowper, Former Chair, British Columbia Justice Reform Initiative]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, members of the committee, for asking me to address you this morning in relation to these important questions and for allowing me to appear by video conference. I hope you can hear me. I don't know if seeing me is very important, but hopefully you can hear me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

We hear you loud and clear.

[Geoffrey Cowper]

This is, of course, a particularly exciting time, as is obvious from the other people who have appeared before you. We have access to more information and better data than ever before. Collectively as Canadians we've seen significant declines in crime across the board for a sustained period. There are clearly a number of policing innovations and initiatives developed that have been very successful and are having a significant impact on public safety.

In other words, from my perspective, there's been a lot of progress. We have better means of assessing progress and comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of different methods and adapting to what we learn.

In my role today, I'm primarily speaking from my experience in 2012, last year, in preparing and reporting on B.C.’s criminal justice experience as the chair of the B.C. Justice Reform Initiative. I was asked as a private member of the bar to undertake that review. I'm not a criminologist; I'm not an academic; and I'm not a specialist. The primary perspective that I brought to bear to my task was of a member of the bar, a person interested and passionate in this area, and a person who for about a decade was involved as a director and chair of the Legal Services Society, which oversees legal aid in British Columbia.

What I'll do in the next few minutes is summarize what I recommended last year. I'll summarize what has happened in the intervening year, which may not be known to all of the members, and I'll talk about what I think are the outstanding issues that need attention now.

First of all, the B.C. Justice Reform Initiative was initiated by the B.C. government; it wasn't a federal initiative. I was the chair and sole member of that initiative. I delivered a written report in August of last year that is still available online. I made several dozen recommendations. Let me summarize in just a few words what I concluded in the course of that initiative.

First—and this is important for policy-makers—there's no shortage of worthwhile proposals. In my view, the primary need is to provide overall support for the innovative potential within the system. We need to identify and prioritize amongst the proposals that are afoot, and we need to support them and make sure that they get rolled out and evaluated as best as possible. That includes senior political support and legislative changes where necessary.

Let me say that the particular times we're in, when there's a substantial weight of fiscal restraint, require, in my view, that senior political leadership recognize and affirm that the process of change will require the capture of resources from elsewhere in budgets, and that the public will need to understand and learn that at least in the short term there will be service implications for reform and innovation. When you change priorities, when you change and reallocate budgets, there are going to be changes that the public has to recognize that will be useful in the long term but may have service implications in the short term.

There are a couple of things. First of all, the problem of policy development in isolated silos, in my review, is clearly real. There is a debate in the community in terms of whether or not the silo problem is real; it's often referred to. In my view, the independence of the various justice participants, by the nature of that independence, can interfere with worthwhile change.

For that reason, I recommended the establishment in British Columbia of a public safety council within the provincial ministry of justice to enhance collaboration and coordination within the system and particularly in the development and rollout of reform. I emphasize today the very great need to develop improvements that improve system-wide performance.

The report also recommended that there be regular justice summits to include those outside the ministry in the process of reform.

I also endorsed making the system as transparent as possible through the use of modern information and communication systems.

I made several dozen other recommendations, but those are some of the important ones.

Let me say that from the newspapers and the public response to my report, I think it's fair to say that the greatest public impact of the report was on the widespread recognition of the problem of unnecessary and extensive delays within the system and the development of a broad social consensus, in British Columbia at least, and that better methods of ensuring timeliness are needed to ensure not only an effective and cost-efficient system but also one that achieves justice and facilitates the impact of criminal justice on public safety goals generally. I think I can say this without any fear of contradiction.

There was a very widespread and, I think, unanimous recognition of the disadvantages of the delays that we've experienced in the system and that have in many ways bedevilled the criminal justice system for a very long time.

So let me give you a quick update. In many respects, my recommendations were accepted. There was a statute passed in the spring of 2013 on the eve of the election, the Justice Reform and Transparency Act. It was passed unanimously in the legislature, which is somewhat unusual, and the government has issued two white papers in response to the report, both of which have largely sought to implement the recommendations within the report.

A public safety plan has been published for consultation in 2013, which is one of the recommendations I made to achieve improved public safety across the province, and the province has continued with its open data initiative and made improvements in system transparency. For example, you could go online right now and obtain a listing of all active civil forfeiture files in the province of British Columbia.

What have we learned from the past year? I would say, firstly, that one of the surprises is that, in the absence of any dramatic change to the rules, there have actually been significant reductions in the delays in the provincial court, very significant reductions. Although there's still a study ongoing as to exactly why that has happened, in my view the principal reason is that individual professionals within the system—prosecutors, defence counsel, and judges—both individually and collectively decided to reduce the backlogs and delays within the system. I think that is a demonstration of the goodwill and professionalism within the system, as well as the impact that a social consensus can have on a system.

One largely unanticipated consequence of that is that the reduction of wait times has produced a shortfall in legal aid funding because legal aid defence counsel have, of course, submitted their accounts much faster than anticipated. That brings to the forefront my first lesson of the last year, which is the need for flexibility. We can't anticipate all the dynamic consequences of improvements as well as problems.

What are the main outstanding challenges? I will just take a couple of minutes and then finish. The first one is that I don't think we've made significant progress on the costs and delays associated with major criminal cases. There's a paradox, in my view, in our vastly improved capacity to obtain data respecting criminal events. That capacity should permanently reduce the chances of prosecutorial error and wrongful conviction, but at the same time the disclosure and trial process is encountering massive challenges coping with that increased data respecting the criminal event. We haven't yet got the solution to that, in my view, and we need to work toward it. There's no reason why the solutions can't produce just outcomes in criminal trials using modern systems.

Second, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people facing breach or administrative charges in British Columbia and elsewhere. This has produced an increase in remand populations. I don't think we've done anything to understand fully what that's about.

Third, I think there is serious doubt as to whether the current system and approach to domestic assault is working. I think we need to look at that again and on an ongoing basis. It's simply too critical an event in our community to not have the best methods applied to it.

One final lesson for the national audience, I would say, is that B.C. has had tremendous success in reducing the levels of drinking and driving through applying immediate administrative responses such as roadside vehicle seizure and licence suspension. I think we need to learn from that lesson across the board. It has produced an immediate and dramatic reduction in driving deaths, which I think can be applied to other subject matters.

I have two final remarks and then I'll close.

I think any casual review of the Internet will demonstrate that justice participants, all of them, are committed to innovation, collaboration, and productive reform. I think it's important that momentum be maintained and that changes be made as we learn and that we not be afraid to admit failure as well as celebrate success.

My final point, and it's one for the members of the committee, is that in my view concrete benchmarks and performance measures for the system and its participants are critical to success. Those must be achievable and real, but they should reflect reasonable public expectations and not simply be the views of those of us within the system. They should reflect expert input, but they must have a public dimension.

In this area, I think it's critical to obtain public input. Political leadership such as members of this committee must demand system performance that meets reasonable public expectations. I think that's critical and it is very difficult to otherwise obtain informed public input on system performance. So I would encourage you to explore system benchmarks and how those might be achieved for the benefit of Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cowper.

We will now go to Mr. McPhail.

[Ian McPhail, Interim Chair, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I have come before this committee on several occasions over the past few years as interim chair of the CPC to contribute to your deliberations on issues relating to the performance of the RCMP and the need for effective oversight of this important Canadian institution. I am very pleased to be here today to assist you in your examination of the economics of police service delivery across Canada.

I am accompanied by Mr. Richard Evans, senior director of operations for the CPC.

Thank you for inviting me to joining you today.

It is a universally accepted principle that public trust of the police is essential to the effective and efficient delivery of any police service. Even a strong and economically viable law enforcement service cannot operate without public support. The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP provides an important role in the accountability framework of the RCMP and its delivery of policing services at the federal, provincial, municipal, first nations, and international levels. It is a large, diverse, and complex organization in both its mandate and its jurisdiction.

The integrated nature of its operations with other law enforcement agencies adds to this complexity, and its presence in virtually every corner of this country and abroad is unique in law enforcement circles. All of this serves to increase the visibility of the RCMP and its members' contacts with the public.

The commission's mandate includes investigating, reviewing, and conducting hearings into public complaints concerning the conduct of the RCMP and its members in the execution of their duties. As the chair, I can also institute a complaint and investigation into any matter relating to RCMP member conduct when I believe it is in the public interest to do so.

While discussions about the economics of policing, for the most part, rightly focus on the tangible elements of front-line policing service delivery, the less obvious cost associated with public discontent with police conduct must also be considered in the overall cost of public policing. We are all familiar with the increasing frequency of public inquiries and lawsuits resulting from public complaints about the conduct of the police. These mechanisms are labour-intensive and protracted. They consume significant resources and add to the overall costs of delivering policing services.

There are many recent examples of such forums, the cumulative cost of which would be considered staggering by most. In contrast, the commission, supported by an annual budget of roughly $8.2 million, responds to roughly 2,000 public complaints per year about the conduct of RCMP members. The commission employs both informal and formal dispute-resolution processes to address public concerns. In so doing, it conducts approximately 240 in-depth, independent, fact-based complaint reviews and reports on a yearly basis.

In recent years, the commission has also conducted numerous high-profile public interest investigations into matters that could have otherwise resulted in costly public inquiries. Some recent examples that you may be familiar with include the public-interest investigation into the conduct of RCMP members regarding the handling of allegations of harassment within the workplace; the review of the RCMP's seizure of firearms from residences following flooding in High River, Alberta; and the public-interest investigation regarding policing in northern British Columbia following the concerns expressed by Human Rights Watch in its February 2013 report on this issue.

Through such public interest investigations the commission establishes facts, reports on its findings, and makes constructive remedial recommendations that are aimed at correcting and preventing recurring policing problems. The RCMP accepts and implements the vast majority of these recommendations.

As you are no doubt aware, this mandate will be expanded with Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, which received royal assent this past June and is expected to come into force in 2014, and once a new civilian review and complaints commission with additional authorities and enhanced effectiveness is established.

Included in these enhancements are the authorities to address public complaints through an enhanced alternative dispute resolution process; establish an integrated public complaint intake system with provincial police review agencies, effectively creating a no-wrong-door process for anyone wishing to make a public complaint about police conduct, and a standardized complaint intake process; conduct joint reviews of public complaints with provincial police review agencies; and conduct reviews of specified RCMP activities on the initiative of the chair at the request of the Minister of Public Safety, or at the request of a province that contracts for RCMP services.

On this last point it is important to note that the ability to conduct such strategic, forward-looking analysis of RCMP activities will allow the commission to assist the RCMP in pre-empting potential problems. The goal is to reduce or avoid incidents of police conduct that could give rise to public complaints, and by consequence, lead to calls for lengthy and costly public examinations, which add to the cost of police service delivery.

As front-line policing services continuously adapt to the complexities of public safety and security in today's global reality, so must the strategies and practices of the bodies that oversee their activities.

I recently attended the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement meeting in Salt Lake City. This is an organization that brings together individuals and agencies working to establish or improve oversight of police officers in the United States. I was struck by how advanced our oversight regime is in Canada when compared to systems in place in most U.S. jurisdictions. There appears to be little consistency from one area to the next in terms of how to approach civilian oversight of the police, or on what the accountability, framework, and standards should be. Civilian oversight of law enforcement in the U.S. seems to be largely left in the domain of municipal governments, some of which place little emphasis on it. The contrast to the Canadian experience is quite striking.

I am pleased to inform you today that the CPC has just completed two days of meetings with the heads of police-review agencies and special investigations units from every province. We focused on how we can work together to implement and make the best use of the new authorities set out in Bill C-42. Together we have laid the foundation for a more coordinated and collaborative community of practice. By leveraging each other's experience and resources and by streamlining our practices, we will be able to provide a coordinated oversight regime that effectively addresses police conduct and accountability issues coast to coast.

I look forward to continuing to contribute to a trusted, accountable, and economically viable RCMP.

I am happy to expand on these points with you and respond to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. McPhail.

Prior to our going into our rounds, the chair will advise that we will now reduce the seven minutes to six minutes so that we can do a complete round of questioning to our witnesses, at least. I am giving you that advisement so that we may then break very quickly for future business.

Thank you very kindly for coming again to our committee.

We will open up our questioning for six minutes, Ms. James, please.