Public Safety Committee on April 28th, 2009

[Yves Dufour]

Absolutely. We are an independent services unit. The media often refer to police labs, but we are an independent lab. Our offices are located in the Sûreté du Québec building, and that may be why there is some confusion. We are an independent service unit, and police forces are our clients.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Is that also the case in Ontario?

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

In Ontario we're separate from the police. We are in the same ministry as the Ontario Provincial Police, but we are independent of the police service.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

The fact that you are an independent institution must to some extent contribute to the fact that you have some freedom in terms of your decisions and your processing times? You are absolutely independent and do not face pressure to do a shoddy job.

[Yves Dufour]

We are independent, but our mandate is to support the administration of justice. We do not work for either the Crown nor for the defence; we work for the court. We report on facts and present analyses before the courts, and the judge assesses the evidence. Crown prosecutors and defence attorneys do their work. We do not do legal work, but it is our job to say that a given forensic analysis led to a given result.

Earlier, Ms. Séguin referred to a young man in the City of Quebec who incriminated himself in a sexual assault case. When we presented the DNA evidence, we managed to get this young man with a mental illness outside of the legal arena so he could consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist. He really needed a psychiatrist and a psychologist more so than he needed jail; it wasn't the right place for him.

We are independent and we provide the courts with forensic expertise. If the processing of a sample is slow, our clients, either the coroner's office or a police force can ask us, when a trial is imminent, or in a given case, to try to make it a priority, and we will do so. Obviously, the lack of staff and funding slows things down.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Does the same apply to the RCMP, or does it administer its own centre?

[Yves Dufour]

You should put the question to the RCMP, which is not here this morning.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Do you not know?

[Yves Dufour]

We work with the RCMP, which has forensic services.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

But they are for the RCMP, aren't they?

[Yves Dufour]

They provide services to all territories and all provinces other than Ontario and Quebec.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I found the reference that I mentioned earlier. It is from the Auditor General's May 2007 report. I would like to hear what Mr. Prime and what the Quebec representatives have to say about this. The Auditor General is talking about the RCMP forensic labs:

Although it can process urgent service requests in less than 15 days, they account for only 1% of all service requests. In the remaining 99% categorized as routine, the FLS is unable for the most part to meet the 30-day target it has set for them. While average turnaround times have improved for all other types of analysis, for DNA analysis requests they have worsened—from 91 days in 2003-2004 to 114 days in 2005-2006—despite increased spending and additional staff. The backlog of DNA requests is a major contributor to the long turnaround times. Although the labs now have [...]

Do you see any value in the objectives that were set at the outset? Is a turnaround time of 114 days too long to be acceptable? In Ontario and in Quebec, it takes you more than 114 days to deliver the current DNA analyses.

[Frédérick Laberge]

As we said earlier, in Quebec, our turnaround time is more than 114 days in the majority of cases, even if we consider the cases in the order of their priority.

Nevertheless, we have extremely long turnaround times and this makes our service almost useless. In fact, delays in the service create huge delays in the court system.

Moreover, if we are able to identify some individual who has to do with these files, but if the individual has not been identified, he or she would continue committing crimes. This already presents an enormous risk.

That being said, it would be very difficult for us to meet the standard of a 30-day turnaround time. At this time, we do not have the capability to do that.

In any case, I do not think that every file deserves a 30-day turnaround time. However, I think that a target of 60 or 90 days would allow us to deal with most of the files.

Besides, we need to set out some guidelines regarding the order of priority for urgent files. We would need much more resources to meet a 30-day turnaround time. That is what we think in Quebec.

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

There are some concerns about the numbers in that report, because we're comparing turnaround times with actual targets, which are theoretical limits.

We have concerns about long turnaround times, and in the last year we've put a lot of effort into reducing our turnaround times. Our most recent figures in biology are projected to be in the range of 54 days for an average turnaround time. That doesn't mean we don't have a lot of important cases that are in the lab for several months. If we do some easy cases quickly, it's going to make those look good compared to the older cases, and we get an average, so our average has come down.

We would like to have all cases out in 30 days, and that's what we hear from the police officers in many instances. However, when the survey we did last winter asked them which cases they need quickly, their answers ranged from 30 days for an important case, such as homicide, to 60 or 90 days for break and enters. That is somewhat opposite to the way we can easily do it in our laboratory.

We do know that the client wants the work out within a short period of time, and we can't always do that. We do put in provisions, as Ms. Séguin has indicated, that allow us to get the important things. The things that impact on public safety are done in a very short time, but the rest of that case might take several months to finish off.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Monsieur Ménard, do you have a very brief question?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Do you have an agreement with the federal government that is currently in force or are you still negotiating, as Quebec is still negotiating, two years after your last funding agreement has expired?

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

We're in the same situation as Quebec. We have the same type of agreement. We did sign the extension that gave us the same funding as 2005. We haven't had an increase, but we do have the interim agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Rathgeber, please.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your attendance here this morning.

Dr. Prime, I understand that in approximately 2007--and I think you made reference to this--the Auditor General of Ontario did a comprehensive audit of your facility in Toronto regarding efficient, timely, and reliable service, and recommended that significant changes be undertaken with respect to systems and procedures in order to make turnaround times comparable to those of the leading international forensic laboratories.

This is a two-part question. First, what international forensic laboratories was the Auditor General comparing you to? Second, have some systems been developed to reduce your turnaround times?

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

In fact, a report is going to the Auditor General today to tell them what we have done. We have very seriously examined our processes. I mentioned that we've been out to speak with the client to find out what targets should be set. A critical component of that report was not so much the actual turnaround times, but the fact that we weren't using targets to set a goal to try to achieve better turnaround times. We examined all the processes and set up targets for all the different processes in the lab beyond DNA, which we're discussing today.

As for the labs they compared us against, they were taken from the RCMP report, so it was the RCMP and Sweden, as I recall it.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

And the Forensic Science Service in England as well, I think.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

You indicated in your opening comments that your lab does provide work for criminal defence attorneys from time to time?

[Dr. Raymond Prime]

We do work with defence counsel. We try to do it in conjunction with them and the crown attorneys. We don't provide work in confidence. So we don't work in the way that they can hire us to do a case, for example. But if they want specific tests done or if they have something that needs to be tested that the crown wasn't willing to test and they think it might have an impact on the case, if we think it's scientifically possible and their hypothesis is testable, then we will accept it.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Who pays for that?