There are currently 2,428 police officers who have received training in standardized field sobriety tests. They run the gamut from every municipal, provincial, and regional agency, as well as the provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec, the RCMP, and the Department of National Defence police. The same goes for those trained as DREs.
In 2003, when we took the program national--previous to that it was just in British Columbia--the decision was made to ensure that we trained police agencies right across the country regardless of what organization they're from. I can give you the exact numbers; I don't have them with me. I have a breakdown by province and whether they're municipal, regional, or provincial, as well as the RCMP.
The numbers are highest for the RCMP. The program started in British Columbia and ran there for 10 years before it went national. The RCMP are the provincial police in B.C. The split there is about two-thirds RCMP and one-third municipal, and the same would go for those who receive the training.
Nationally, it's the opposite. We're sitting around 18% to 20% in the RCMP who are trained, whereas the rest are made up of other agencies. Depending on what province it is, the numbers are different. The RCMP don't police here in Ontario, so we have very few people who are trained as DREs or are SFST trained.
Quebec has one DRE. She is with the Gatineau police. Over the years we've trained members of the SQ as well as the Montreal city police, but they didn't follow through with the training. Last year the Province of Quebec took the stand that until the legislation is passed giving us the authority to have a demand for the drug evaluation, the police forces were not to participate in the training. That's why there's nobody trained in Quebec. We are prepared to do the training there, but for reasons that are beyond our control, we can't.
There was a needs assessment in 2003 as well. Every police agency was asked to submit the questionnaire. The onus was on them to let us know what they thought, because that's what we use to prioritize the training. Those agencies that said they wanted the training are getting it; those that said they don't are not on the priority list. When we have a demand for training, we go to that list to ascertain who should receive priority training.