Public Safety Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Deputy. It's a pleasure to see you once again.

There's been a lot of focus on firearms training, and that it's all about shooting firearms. Can you explain a little more about it? Perhaps you can tell us about shoot/don't shoot scenarios and more about not shooting and taking some other action.

[Chris D. Lewis]

Certainly.

Those other pieces of use-of-force equipment—the baton, the handcuffs, just your fists or hands or feet—are all precursors, hopefully, to a firearms shoot/don't shoot situation. At times you go from nothing to a shoot situation, and nothing in between is even possible.

Through all that training, in doing those scenarios, you are faced with progressively different scenarios where potentially you can take control of someone with your hands and handcuff them and not have to draw another weapon, to ones where you may have to actually draw the baton and at least show it. That may deter further confrontation, and then you can take physical control with your hands. It then goes onward and upward to where perhaps even putting your hand on your firearm or drawing your firearm may be enough to cause the person to acquiesce right at that point, right up until you actually have to shoot.

Through all those scenarios you're faced with all those different situations and are monitored to see whether you overreact or react accordingly to the degree of aggression you are facing. Perhaps just taking cover and getting the car between you and the suspect is enough, and you don't have to do any more than talk.

In all those scenarios that you go through, you're watched and scored very carefully so that you're acting appropriately, right up until the shoot/don't shoot situations where you may even be faced with multiple targets—some armed, some not armed—and where you actually have to take action against specific targets and not others. For example, there's a hostage-taker diagram type of target, where you have to shoot the hostage-taker and not the hostage, or a target will pop up and it will be a kid holding a camera or somebody with a shopping bag, and the next one will be somebody with a shotgun. You get that over and over again, so you really have to assess the appropriate level of force, never using more than what is reasonably necessary and acting accordingly.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think Mr. Cullen has expressed more than once his concern about a busy border crossing plaza with a lot of people around. He suggests that part of the solution would be to have an armed police officer there. We would still have someone there with a firearm, whether it was a well-trained CBSA officer or a well-trained police officer.

[Chris D. Lewis]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

As you have explained, it wouldn't change the fact that it still may be a crowded spot, as is the city of Toronto, where there are armed police officers.

[Chris D. Lewis]

That's correct, sir.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

And I would just go a little bit further and say that the people who transfer large sums of money—private firms, from the college—are armed.

[Chris D. Lewis]

Yes, they are.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

And they're in large cities where there are a lot of people.

[Chris D. Lewis]

They are in malls, changing money at ATM machines, etc.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

So it's not a big stretch to expect that our people at the border, who are there to interdict drugs and guns and illegal individuals, could reasonably expect to be armed.

[Chris D. Lewis]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

There are two things I would like to address. You did deal with the CBSA people at Cornwall, in that task force? Those officers were trained to a certain level in the use of force, but not firearms?

[Chris D. Lewis]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

When we're talking about the 44 hours for firearms training, they already have had use-of-force training, but not firearms training. Is that fair enough?

[Chris D. Lewis]

That's right. They're trained in a variety of things, from observation skills to profiling individuals in vehicles, as well as in some kind of hand-to-hand types of arrest techniques, etc.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

And it's to the level that we would expect well-trained police officers would be trained.

[Chris D. Lewis]

I couldn't testify as to what the level is, sir, but it's certainly to some acceptable level, yes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I have four more questioners on my list.

Ms. Barnes for five minutes, please.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much. We welcome your testimony. I know we were expecting other witnesses to join you at the table, so I'm glad you could make it, sir.

How many border crossings are the OPP responsible for currently? I know municipal police forces actually fill in that role at a number.

[Chris D. Lewis]

In eastern Ontario, we have Prescott and Lansdowne. Cornwall, of course, is actually the responsibility of the City of Cornwall, but whenever anything significant really happens at the port of Cornwall, the OPP are there as well. The Cornwall police are not that large an organization, so we go in and help. In fact, last night there was a bomb scare at the Cornwall port of entry, and the OPP, the Cornwall police, and the RCMP were all there, just twelve hours ago or so.

But specifically, in eastern Ontario, we have Lansdowne and Prescott. Then as we move across Ontario, they're all in either municipal or regional police service areas, right across through to Niagara, Windsor, and Sarnia, etc., save and except for the odd ferries that cross, which are under OPP jurisdiction. I believe there are two of those, so we're up to four.

Across the north, Sault Ste. Marie's is under the city police service. In the far north, I think we have one at Fort Frances that the OPP is responsible for, so that's five. And I'm not sure, but there may be one other one specifically in northwestern Ontario.

So the total is about five or six.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Actually, I was hoping to talk to the municipal police forces because they are at the busy ones, like Niagara, Fort Erie, and Windsor. Response time was the issue. I know you alluded to it in your opening remarks. Has response time to the border crossings been a problem for the OPP?

[Chris D. Lewis]

It has been. At any given time within the OPP or any police service—more so the OPP just because of the breadth of area that we provide policing service to—we're not always where we need to be at the right time, unfortunately. We're dealing with something in one community and something happens in the other. So response times are always an issue for us. That's reality.

But even in a city like Windsor, where there's a very big police service, you would think without a doubt that they could always be there within minutes. I dare say that there will be times when their officers are all tied up doing something right at that moment in time, and it may take several minutes for them to get there. If someone is faced with a violent individual with a knife or, God forbid, a gun or whatever, that seven minutes or five minutes or three minutes of response time can be deadly.