Public Safety committee  I think one of the biggest challenges in our system—in particular the way we train our officers—is that it's all about catching bad guys. It's about the how but it's not about the why. Ultimately, good policing services should be about crime prevention, not primarily about “there are always bad guys out there” but ultimately about a police officer who knows this community.

Public Safety committee  The Tournament of Hearts in Kingston: it's a curling tournament. There are four RCMP officers on overtime pay doing red serge duty.

Public Safety committee  Doing red serge duty.

Public Safety committee  Let me give you a concrete example.

Public Safety committee  Okay. This is just to say that the challenge is this. We send four RCMP officers on their regular pay out to do essentially what is a symbolic duty, standing there with the red serge, the boots, and whatnot. This is a function that a retired officer would be happy to do if we paid this individual a per diem, paid them their meals.

Public Safety committee  These red serge duties are particularly ironic in Ontario because Ontario is all federal policing. Technically, these are all plainclothes officers. The logic behind the plainclothes officers is that we don't make them public. Yet we send them out on red serge duty for these types of events.

Public Safety committee  I can't comment on the technicalities, but I'm happy to get back to the committee on that matter. I can tell you one of the pushbacks on that is always security and how many people might actually see all the evidence that's being collected. I would submit that if Xythos and if this type of record-keeping is good enough for the U.S.

Public Safety committee  With regard to the OPP, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario just made available its records to OPP officers. This is in regard to drivers' licence suspensions and whatnot, as a particularly useful tool. But the problem is that the MTO has also now downloaded the inputting of certain types of offences onto the Ontario Provincial Police and municipal police forces for those particular types of records.

Public Safety committee  Since it's a fairly complex question, I would like to answer in English, if you don't mind, to avoid any ambiguity. There's ample opportunity within our police services for a division of labour among the functions that police services perform, particularly with regard to the use of special constables.

Public Safety committee  I know there is a pilot project in Calgary, Durham and Toronto. People there are also trying to adopt a more coordinated approach. Financial savings are not necessarily the main focus. One of the challenges we have had is that we have securitized many police interventions by virtue of calling police officers to them.

Public Safety committee  The national records management system is intended for all investigations and all the evidence that is collected as part of those investigations. CPIC just has a very small.... It's simply to reference certain types of offences with regard to offenders. This idea here is that police forces currently collect, even on these complex, multi-jurisdictional investigations, their own pieces of evidence.

Public Safety committee  If we want to achieve not just functional efficiencies—performing tasks better—but also cost savings.... Currently uniformed members are performing tasks for which they really do not have a comparative advantage or particular training, nor are they particularly well prepared to carry them out.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, and thank you for having me this morning. Let me preface my remarks by saying I know that on the one hand, by virtue of working at the Royal Military College of Canada, I'm a civil servant, but I also have the privilege of academic freedom. The remark is important in the sense that what I say this morning is in no way to be construed as partisan, but rather, I trust that all my remarks are soundly supported by evidence and by research, both from within Canada and comparatively.