Public Safety Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we will call to order meeting number seven of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Our first order of business today is to hear from witnesses for the first hour. By way of video conference, we welcome the Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia and Kellie Kilpatrick, the executive director for public accountability.

Ms. Kilpatrick, you have about 10 minutes, give or take, for an opening statement, should you wish. Following that, we will have a round of questioning. Are you all hooked up and comfortable and your audio's on?

[Kellie Kilpatrick, Executive Director, Public Accountability, Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia]

Yes. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Please proceed.

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

Thank you so much.

Good morning and bonjour to the committee.

On behalf of chief civilian director, Richard Rosenthal, and the Province of B.C., I'm very pleased to be able to join you and participate this morning from Vancouver.

As many of you may know, the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. was created out of recommendations made from two public inquiries held here in British Columbia. Justice Davies headed the public inquiry into the death of Frank Paul, a first nation male who died after being released from custody by the Vancouver city police. He subsequently died of exposure. The second inquiry, led by Justice Braidwood, looked at and examined the death of Robert Dziekanski, a traveller from Poland who found himself delayed and disoriented at the Vancouver airport. He died while being taken into custody by members of the RCMP.

As a result of those two inquiries, government acted very swiftly and began drafting legislation and amendments to the B.C. Police Act. The amendments made provision for the creation and the operation of the Independent Investigations Office.

The office opened its doors in September 2012, under the command of the chief civilian director, Richard Rosenthal. The chief civilian director has never been a police officer and is under a five-year term with one additional five-year term potentially renewable.

The Police Act made very strict provisions for who the chief civilian director could appoint as investigators, with the intent of minimizing or eliminating any real or perceived bias of police investigating police. For example, those who are appointed investigators to the IIO cannot have served as a police officer in British Columbia within five years of their appointment. The government was very committed to establishing an agency with independence and to mitigating any, as I say, real or perceived perception of bias.

On the opening day of the IIO, we received our first call. We were deployed to the northern city of Prince George for an officer-involved shooting. Since that time, we have received over 375 notifications from B.C.'s police services related to reportable incidents that they're required, through the legislation, to report to us.

Our mandate is to investigate incidents that result in death or serious harm on and off duty for British Columbia's municipal police forces, one first nations tribal police force, the Lower Mainland transit authority, and E Division of the RCMP. In addition, we have jurisdiction over British Columbia's special provincial constables with respect to on-duty incidents. Our mandate and jurisdiction are limited to death and serious harm at this point, but the act makes provision for the mandate to be expanded in the future.

On or before January 1, 2015, we will be required to report back to a special committee on the progress we've made towards ensuring that all IIO staff consists of individuals who have never been police officers. I don't expect that we will reach that goal by 2015, but we will be required to speak about the progress made.

The work we've done to date has taken us across the province of British Columbia. We have been deployed over 80 times, with 55 or 56 of those cases resulting in full investigations that conclude with either a public report to the people of British Columbia or a report to crown counsel. Over the past 14 months we have made a number of reports to crown counsel. The majority of them have not been approved for charges. One has, and several are pending.

One of the biggest challenges we face is having a police agency, as defined under the act, created in the context of the public service with civilians. That has been a challenge that we continue to deal with every day.

As well, the definition of serious harm is a challenge that the IIO as well as our other colleagues and police oversight nationally struggle with—coming up with a generally well-accepted definition of what is serious harm.

We have published our first annual report. We have about 30 public reports on our website. We have an FTE count, a full-time equivalent staffing count, of 54 and an operating budget of $9.3 million.

On the whole, we have received excellent cooperation from B.C.'s police services. I think we are meeting the public's expectations in terms of timeliness and fair, transparent, and unbiased investigations.

We look forward to preparing for the report to the special committee. We'll begin working on that in the new year.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kilpatrick.

We will go to our first round of questioning now with the parliamentary secretary.

Ms. James, seven minutes, please.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Kilpatrick, for appearing before our committee.

I think you said, if I heard correctly, that you have an operating budget of $1.3 million. Do you have any statistical information on the actual cost of a single investigation relating to an incident of serious harm or death?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

Our operating budget is $9.3 million for the first year. Shortly after we commenced operations, the Province of B.C. instituted fairly significant budget restraint, so we are held to that budget.

We are tracking the cost of individual investigations, but because we are so new, we don't have a sense yet of what an individual investigation will cost. This is keeping in mind that a very serious investigation in the Lower Mainland can cost less in terms of man-hours, travel, and other resource costs than deploying to northwestern British Columbia for what would appear to be a less serious incident.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You said you didn't have any statistical information to give exact numbers. Just out of curiosity, do you have a rough estimate?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

No, we don't. In preparation to speak to you this morning, I asked for that information, and we just don't have that at this point.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You indicated in your opening remarks that your office was created in 2012. I suppose there's just the fact that this body has been created to fulfill the mandate to do these investigations as a result of legislation or amendments or the requirement based on the two inquiries, but do you find that for investigations today, based on requirements for oversight or legislative amendments that have come through the court system, it takes longer to do the same investigation today than it may have done five or ten years ago?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

I would say we're hearing quite the opposite from those police services who historically conducted these types of investigations on behalf of other police services. Because we are dedicated to these types of investigations, we're not faced with having to also conduct the concurrent or parallel investigations that often go on at the same time.

So what we hope to see is not only a reduction in the time it takes for the oversight agency to conduct the investigations, but also expect and hope to see that the actual police service can complete their concurrent or parallel investigation in a more timely manner.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You have mentioned concurrent and parallel investigations. We actually had other witnesses to this committee—one only in the last week—who talked about the expense related to the duplication of investigative processes at different levels, from the lowest level right up throughout the country.

Are you saying that your particular body that does the investigations eliminates those duplicative requirements? Or are you saying that it still happens, that it's simply a reduced cost? Could you explain that a little bit better, please?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

What we're hoping to see is an improvement in timeliness. That's something that the Province of B.C. has indicated as a benchmark for our success. What we do know is that the oversight investigations—the ones conducted by the IIO—are conducted in a more timely manner. We're completing investigations that historically took two to three years within six to seven months now. It's not a huge improvement, but it is a good start.

Many of our investigations are also concurrent as well and we work with the agency in cooperation, as per our MOU, to minimize the duplication, if you will. That includes how we treat exhibits, how we collect evidence, how interviews with witnesses are done. The hope is that not only will there be a reduction in the timeliness but also a reduction in duplication.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

You're saying that there are concurrent investigations going on. Do you see a need for those concurrent investigations, even though it seems like you may be sharing some of the information back and forth, to reduce costs? Do you see any potential to eliminate the duplication or the concurrent investigations, if you're doing a great job? As you've indicated, you are reducing times.

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

I think I should clarify that when I talk about the concurrent investigations, those aren't related to conduct. They're related to the allegation of a criminal event that led to the police-involved incident.

For example, if there is an assault on the street and a police officer attends and there's a use of force, we—the IIO—look at the use of force, whereas the Vancouver city police will look at the incident of assault that precipitated the use of force incident.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for that clarification.

You mentioned two particular incidents that were very serious in nature and that as a result of that the IIO was created. Do you have any statistical information on whether there were mental health issues in those incidents? Are they a factor, and are the police necessarily the right people to be dealing with that?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

Thank you.

What I can say is that out of the 54 or 55 investigations that are either under way or have been concluded, the majority of them involve vulnerable populations, which include individuals with mental health challenges, people who are transient, and people who have issues with substances. So the majority of what we would call our “affected people” do face those challenges. Whether the police are the ones who should be dealing with that is certainly beyond my scope. It is front and centre in Vancouver, as we speak, with the provincial health authorities and the police forces working together in a task force to address exactly what you've raised.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's it. Fine. Thank you very much, Mrs. James.

Now we will go to Mr. Garrison for seven minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to Ms. Kilpatrick for being with us this morning.

I want to follow up on that last point, because I think it's very interesting. When you're talking about affected people, if I understood you correctly, in many or the majority of the incidents you're investigating where there's alleged misconduct, it involves a public party who may have had challenges with addictions or mental health issues. Is that correct?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

Thank you.

To clarify, our investigations are criminal, so we're not looking at conduct or misconduct. We're looking at allegations that a criminal offence may have taken place.

Yes, the majority of our affected people—we don't use the term “victims”, we use “affected people”—do live with those challenges, as I described.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Okay, I want to ask some larger questions about your mandate.

When you talked about the origins of your mandate, you talked about things that are in provincial jurisdiction. But you also deal with the RCMP, the E Division.

Can you explain how the E Division came to be under the jurisdiction of your office?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

Early in 2012, when we were getting ready to open the office, we started working towards an MOU with B.C. police forces. At that time, the chief civilian director met with leadership in the RCMP division to start a discussion about how the RCMP would fall under the IIO's mandate, because it didn't necessarily fall under the legislation. The RCMP took the position that they were a police force here in British Columbia and that they wanted to be treated like any of the other police forces that fell under the jurisdiction of the IIO, and so an agreement was reached and the MOU was signed in July 2012.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Then, is the basis for your coverage of the RCMP the memorandum of understanding rather than the legislation?

[Kellie Kilpatrick]

That's correct.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Does that create any differences in the way you would treat investigations of the RCMP as opposed to, say, the municipal police?