Public Safety Committee on March 5th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Priddy, there are only two minutes left for the answers.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay.

And why is there a sunset clause of three years on quarterly reports?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. Try to be more concise in the answer.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

I'll be very concise.

I don't have the power to make binding recommendations. In fact, in the legislative model I said I shouldn't, because I think the police can figure out how to do it. They might think of a better way of doing things than I would. If they don't do it, I indicated at the outset that the minister himself can say to do it, and it's done, and that applies right across the country, federally and provincially.

On the health aspect, you are quite right. I've approached this as a pain/compliance device—pain is subjective, it is quite clear. I've recommended that they do research on pain. It's oblivious...in many presentations I see no reference to pain when they talk about people being immobilized. Pain, surely, has to be looked at.

There is a case, R. v. Hannibal, where Judge Challenger talks about that and says the challenge with this device is that when you apply it you do not moderate the pain. In other words, it is on full each time you use it. If you grab someone in a thumb lock or arm lock—and we have police officers or former police officers here—you can moderate the level of pain. When I take that and use the device on you, you get the full blast each time.

The other thing is that when I crafted those recommendations, I crafted them on the basis that they could be acted upon immediately. They weren't crafted that you'd have to take the fullness of time to do it. It was an interim report; I put action items in. They could have been done right away, of course.

The other one is that, in terms of certification, they went from one year to three years. Obviously, I thought about one year myself. In 2005, the Auditor General did a report on the RCMP's training, and they were miles behind in their training. I know they have a huge challenge on them right now. I didn't think it was reasonable to increase the burden by saying to do it annually when they were behind in all sorts of other training and recertification. That's why I picked two. The other thing is that the major policy changes seem to appear on a two-year cycle, and I thought that would capture it.

On quarterly reports, I agree there is a need for transparency; we have to do more to get the public's trust. I think documents like that, since there's no personal information, should be put on the web. We put our stuff on the web as much as we can.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you. My questions were long; I knew the answers could be short.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go over to the government side. Mr. MacKenzie, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the members.

Mr. Ryneveld, although I haven't had a chance to read your whole report, I am impressed with its thoroughness. Talking about the medical people, you have a lot of information in here from the medical community. Sometimes I get the feeling we don't want to read what's already been done and we want to reinvent the wheel, so I do really appreciate that.

Mr. Kennedy, I had a couple of concerns about statements you made, and I'm concerned that they are a bit misleading. I think in one of them you said, “The next time someone's killed with one of these”, and then another time I think you said something about the taser causing death. I don't think those statements are accurate, if I heard them correctly. If that's not what you meant, that's fine, just tell us, but that's what I thought I heard you say. I'd just like a comment on that, if you will.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

I'd have to go back to look at what I said, but I'll tell you what I intended to say. My concern is that if we don't take some action to address the public concern and the fact situations we're confronted with, another unfortunate incident will occur where a taser will be deployed and you will have a death proximal to that.... The public concerns, therefore, will draw the parallel between the two and indicate that there has been no movement and we could have done something to avoid it. From that, I'm not indicating the taser caused the death, but we will have the phenomenon we have now.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Having been around this field a little while, I know we also had deaths as a result of positional asphyxia. We've had deaths that have occurred after the use of pepper spray. Are we not looking at the same kind of thing? Are we only looking at it from that perspective? As opposed to the whole use of force, you're only looking at tasers.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

Clearly, I recognize the taser as an instrument that the police can use; that's why I haven't called for a moratorium. I've called for a positioning of the taser on this device, and I can indicate that most of the complaints we receive are where the taser is being used in touch-stun mode as opposed to deployment. We have, obviously, where they're used in the prong.... A lot of the complaints are coming on touch-stun.

When I had that chart where the floor...there's a floor. Even if the RCMP's policy floor now is here, the touch-stun, which is the red line, is dropping right over here, the passive resistance. They've tried to clarify that.

What you have, and what you're going to have as an increasing problem I think, is more uses of that. We have a significant turnover--

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I'm a bit familiar with the use-of-force continuum, and I think you indicated that the police officer has to go through the whole circle to get there.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

No. Obviously it's a dynamic situation. A lot of these can be used in parallel. Clearly, if you're up in the high end in terms of a combative situation, the officer is using everything available to him. I'm of the view that if at that stage he wants to beat him over the head with the taser, he's welcome to it, because you are into a life-or-death situation.

What I've indicated to you is that when you have a passively resisting person and you have verbal...and you see a person moving immediately to the taser, you have a problem. The case I have in my last annual report is just that: a tasering of a woman who's handcuffed behind her back in a police station, who is resisting by not moving ahead when she's told to go into the cell, and she's tasered twice by the officers. That clearly is a case—

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

But that's not a problem with the taser. I think that's the whole point, that somehow we've got off base and are blaming the taser. It's not a problem with the taser. If the police officer had physically used too much force, that's still wrong.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

That's why I haven't said we should get rid of the taser; I haven't said “moratorium”. I asked where it's placed, so the officer knows according to policy and his training when he should use that particular technique. That's the issue, and you are quite right, it's officers' behaviour. On the first one I think they were confused, because it just said “resistive” and it wasn't clear whether it was active or passive.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Surely that's an issue of training and not—

[Paul E. Kennedy]

It's clarity as to where it is.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

It's not where it falls on the use-of-force continuum. That's a training issue.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

No, these things are all woven together.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

It's in the training.

The other thing is, I think I read in Mr. Ryneveld's report that he's got the medical evidence concerning excited delirium having been identified as deaths not only in policing but also in hospitals and psychiatric facilities.

Surely when we talk about medical people, there are some other sources of evidence of the death. It seems to me when I read some of the other reports that have been done where there has been, to me, a broad spectrum of medical evidence, that the excited delirium deaths—and I go back to the positional asphyxia, oleoresin capsicum spray, carotid artery restraint—may have been part of that whole thing. But there's got to be good medical evidence out there. I don't know that we need to reinvent the wheel, is what I'm saying.

Could you tell us what you ended up with as a result of those medical people examining that initial report or the final report that was done?

[Commr Dirk Ryneveld]

Thank you.

They recommended more study, and they also indicated, as you have outlined, that there certainly are a lot of situations where people who exhibited the symptoms had the same symptoms when the taser was applied and there was a subsequent death. These people are dying in hospitals and elsewhere without application of the taser.

So the question is, is there a correlation between the use of the taser and these pre-existing symptoms? Would these people have died anyway, but for the taser? That's a question that has not been answered yet, and the experts in the interim report and in the final report have recommended training, as you say, further study, testing of the instruments, national standards to be set. I tend to agree with you that some of the issues that are being raised are not necessarily the problem with the taser. We'll find out whether it's a problem once it's been tested and when there's more medical evidence.

The biggest problem, in my respectful view, is the inappropriate use of the taser in situations where it was never intended to be used. When the honourable member, Mr. Dosanjh, mentioned that when he approved it in British Columbia, I believe in 1999, which was its first use, the idea was that it be used for less-than-lethal force, in other words as an alternative to lethal force. I'm not surprised he indicates that's the basis upon which it was approved in British Columbia.

But over time, it has become used more frequently for less and less serious incidents because it's been a convenient come-along tool, as it were. You understand the temptation for inappropriate use. It works and it works very effectively, but there is that risk area for certain people that brings this matter to the public's attention.

If YouTube showed police officers shooting somebody, it would also cause an outcry. We equip police officers with lethal weapons for a purpose. If a taser is one of those, where does it fit in the use-of-force continuum? That's the issue.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, thank you.

We've completed our first round.

I have a question. I'm going to use the chair's authority to ask this. It builds on previous testimony we've heard from other witnesses, and I would just like a brief response from you.

It seems like there's a difference in the level of use of the taser among police forces. Would you, in your opinion, feel that it might be helpful to have some civilian oversight over police activities?

[Commr Dirk Ryneveld]

Well, with respect, sir, that's exactly what my agency is supposed to do for municipal forces. But whenever you have police investigating the police or police recommending to the police, public confidence is only there, as Honourable Member Priddy mentioned, if there is effective civilian oversight with sufficient authority to effect it. It's not enough to simply make a recommendation and say I wonder what's going to happen to this. You need to have sufficient authority to carry it out effectively.

In British Columbia right now I have a white paper with recommendations to enhance our authority. If we're going to stay in that province with police investigating themselves, they had better give enhanced powers to the oversight agency to ensure public confidence that somebody is minding the shop.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Kennedy, do you have an opinion on that?

[Paul E. Kennedy]

Clearly, as I pointed out in my opening submission, civilian oversight brings a different perspective. You can be what they call acculturated. I understand that if you're a police officer, you're going to get in and do things as your peers who are in a similar position do and have their perspective. Our value should be to bring the perspective of a broader community.

Should there in fact be a level of oversight? Clearly. Your comment is whether there is a different level of use among police. Yes, there is. I think Toronto appeared before you. You look at who they give it to. It's a front-line sergeant. We deal with RCMP constables fresh out who have it. They're going to train them out at Depot Division on taser use. The front-line sergeant is going to have experience using various things and judgment.

The other thing is having specialized teams and fewer devices. The RCMP has almost 3,000 devices and over 9,000 members trained. You have a large base; therefore, you're going to have a dynamic in place. We would like to do on a regular basis what we're doing now, which is get that data and look at it and then provide advice back to the RCMP. Is it a problem in stun use or taser use? Is it a problem in a locale? Is it a problem with an individual officer? You have to know that, because it comes down to individual behaviour.