Commissioner, because I have three minutes, I'm going to pose three questions to you and ask for your responses to each three individually. If you run out of time, I'm going to ask you to provide a written response at a subsequent date.
On the first question, in the first operation manual, there was a CEW challenge. Everybody acknowledges that these are dangerous instruments. This challenge has been absolutely removed. There was a challenge that said, “Police, stop or you will be hit with 50,000 volts of electricity!” That is missing from the new procedures. I find that shocking and I'm asking for your commitment to do something to remedy that.
On my second point, under the definitions of when this can be used, it says: “The CEW must only be used in accordance with CEW training, the principles of the Incident Management/Intervention Model (IM/IM) and in response to a threat to officer or public safety as determined by a member’s assessment of the totality of the circumstances being encountered”. It says, “Members' actions must be reasonable and the force used must be necessary in the circumstances”.
That is the test the officers have to use to determine whether or not they're actually going to use a taser. As a lawyer, I find that very open and broad in terms of how it needs to be interpreted. I find it shocking that there is no specific training at depot for this. I am asking you to remedy that and to put training specifically in depot for officers on the use of tasers, on when they should be using it, the whole gamut.
Third, in this operations manual, there's nothing with respect to children. There's no recognition that children should be treated separately. There are no guidelines. I'd like to see training at depot with the respect to that. Once again, I find it shocking.
There is a Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Canada. It says in particular, in article 19, that every child is protected from all forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and under which states parties commit to ensure that children are protected “from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, or abuse”. There's nothing in this manual at all with respect to children and there should be. I'm asking that to be changed, as well, taking this convention into account.