Public Safety Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[Commr William Elliott]

I don't know off the top, but I can certainly undertake to provide you with that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll go to the government side now.

Mr. Norlock, you indicated you had a question.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I have several questions. Most of them require quick, easy responses, and I don't think they'll take a lot of verbiage.

Thank you for coming, Commissioner.

You talked about the testing of your inventory of 2,600 tasers. How much do you anticipate that costing?

[Commr William Elliott]

I'm advised that on the current testing we have done we've spent about $20,000. About 10 devices can be tested a day.

Mr. Madill, how much again was the testing per day?

[Assistant Commissioner Darrell Madill, Assistant Commissioner, Commanding Officer, "D" Division, RCMP Detachments in Manitoba]

It works out to about $1,000 a day.

[Commr William Elliott]

It works out to about $1,000 a day and $100 per device.

I expect that as time goes on and we refine protocols, the costs associated with the testing will decrease. I would also note that a number of other forces and jurisdictions have either undertaken tests or indicated an intention to do so.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

You mentioned testing a representative sample. That means you wouldn't necessarily test them all, so if 30% are functioning, the assumption is that the rest are.

[Commr William Elliott]

As a general principle, yes, but I think it will depend to some extent on the results of the testing. It would be unusual to test every one of anything, given the cost. I think we have to do this in a reasonable, risk-based way, but initially we will be testing the oldest devices, because those are the devices where concerns have been raised. We will work with internal experts on the force and with outside experts to determine what a reasonable sample, test protocol, and routine would be.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

We were talking about reporting, and one of the recommendations has a reporting requirement. You've indicated that you will comply with that. You've already complied with it in two quarterly reports, and soon you'll have the annual report. That report will quantify the number of times a taser was used, the number of times there were injuries, and the number of times there was death. But in that report--so the people of Canada can get a good overview--would you ever report on the number of lives that were saved by the use of the taser?

[Commr William Elliott]

That's not currently reported in the two reports we have produced, and it might be difficult to make that determination. For example, in the reports covering January to June of this past year there were 638 incidents, 33.7% of them related to assault and domestic disputes, and 45.9% of the situations were resolved as a result of the mere presence of the CEW. In other words, it wasn't actually fired. Our officers often find that just having the device, and certainly drawing the device--which we count as a deployment and require mandatory reporting on--often resolves the situation.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Just as an aside, we get reports from hospitals and from health care professionals. From the hospitals, we get reports on the number of deaths as a result of a person just going to the hospital, so there's a balanced view. We know that the hospital's a very good place to go because lives are saved, but we also have concerns when people go there and something negative happens.

I guess this committee's responsibility is to make sure that you folks are on your toes and doing the right thing, but I think Canadians need to know the good things as well as the bad things. When we haul a police agency before us, we need to give Canadians a balanced view. That's the premise upon which that question was asked.

Now I'd like to go to the words “public safety”. Thank you for articulating some of the issues surrounding the setting of policy and what is referred to, at least in my world, as micromanaging. Policy is usually a general overview. When we're talking about public safety and the use of the taser, you cannot give in policy every incident where a taser should or should not be used. But would I be correct in saying that when you are in your training mode, that's where the officer learns the specifics of public safety and the dos and don'ts?

I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on how policy translates, because when I ask these questions, I always try to ask them in terms of the fact that Canadians are watching this committee and its deliberations and they'd like to know some of the facts. Usually they just hear the negatives from these things. Could you just run through the difference between policy and its translation into training and actual everyday operations?

[Commr William Elliott]

Sure, I can speak a little bit about that. Then perhaps I'll ask my colleague Assistant Commissioner Madill to comment.

First of all, with respect to the term “public safety” in our policy, I think it would be fair to suggest that we don't spend a lot of time trying to define and to have an understanding of a vague concept of public safety. We're really talking about the safety of members of the public. In a normal incident, you would have police officers, you would have an individual who our officers wanted to restrain, and then you would have others.

With respect to our policy, certainly we spend a lot of time training our officers on policy, both in their initial training at our training academy at Depot in Regina and in recurrent training. As I indicated, our officers need to be recertified every year, and there would be reinforcement of policy and operational considerations.

Much of our training is scenario-based training. We run scenarios, some on a simulator and some with people acting parts. We present situations to our officers, we require them to respond, and then we critique their response.

Darrell, you might want to add to that.

[A/Commr Darrell Madill]

The commissioner covered most of the highlights. I think what's important to stress here is that our training is a living mechanism by which we take advantage of things we learn from the field and implement them.

The scenario-based training the commissioner spoke about is a critical piece of our IMIM training that every member takes. It's been enhanced over the last few months. In fact, on April 1 all cadets leaving the Regina training centre will be subject to the new policies around use of force.

In the field, the intention is that we're already preparing to train the trainers. Beginning in June and July of this year, the new incident intervention model training will occur. That will be initiated by a two-hour online course that the course candidates will have to take. That's followed, when they go to the training centre, wherever that may be in Canada, with a four-hour tabletop, and then two days of eight hours each of scenario-based training.

Those scenarios will be developed based on the use of force reports that come into headquarters here. My staff and the learning and development people go through them and look at circumstances that we believe would provide enhanced levels of training through the scenarios.

Then, as the commissioner said, every year the members have to recertify on the taser.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That brings us to the end of the first round. We're now going to go over to the Liberal Party.

Mr. Oliphant, please.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for being with us today.

I'm going to start by saying that I do have grave concerns about your response to the committee's report. I was not on the committee when they did their work last year and took almost three months to study this. The RCMP obviously had time to present to that committee.

The principal understanding in the report, as I understand it, is that RCMP taser gun use policy is too permissive. There were a number of recommendations to try to tighten that up for public safety, obviously without causing further harm to members of your force. However, I don't see any evidence, really, of that in your remarks today. There was a very simple recommendation that the categorization of this weapon be changed—and I have your model from March or November 2008, I can't read those dates—essentially moving from an immediate weapon to a firearm or an assaultive weapon and those protocols. I don't see any evidence that there's a change in the understanding of this weapon. It still seems to be akin to pepper spray. It still seems to be akin to a less dangerous weapon. You're attempting to prove that it is.

I don't want to go through the hearings again. The hearings have been done. The committee has a recommendation. I don't see evidence that you've actually followed the recommendations. I think you're still resisting that, saying this is a weapon you want to have full and almost unbridled use of. I think that is of grave concern to this committee, because we have not seen evidence that there's been a change in protocol.

You refer to harmonizing or a common vocabulary with the chiefs of police, but that vocabulary is not in your statement today. I still don't understand what that common vocabulary is. This committee has suggested that your vocabulary needs to change, as do your protocols. I still don't see evidence that you're doing that.

My concern here as a member of Parliament is for public safety, and that means me, as a citizen, to ensure that I will be safe and my constituents will be safe. The added burden I have as a member of Parliament is that your force be safe. But when I weigh out those two, the burden on me is to ensure that citizens are safe. That is my ultimate burden on balancing those two, with concern for the force.

I still don't see that you've actually followed the report.

[Commr William Elliott]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In fact, there have been changes. I would suggest there have been significant changes with respect to our policies, with respect to our vocabulary, with respect to our requirements.

I certainly cannot agree that our policy is such that the officers, members of the RCMP, are authorized to use the conducted energy weapon unbridled. At the time the committee studied our policies and practices, we authorized the use of the CEW against people who were resistant. We no longer allow that. We have clarified that this device is only appropriate to be used in situations of threat. We have emphasized that there are significant risks associated with the device.

We have made clear that there is a test: number one, it must be necessary to use the device in the circumstances, and the force must be reasonable.

We have increased our reporting requirements with respect to the device. We have established specific officers and positions to review each use of force and each deployment of a CEW. It is mandatory for people to report the circumstances of their deployment, which as I indicated, includes not only actually firing the device but threatening to fire the device. Those reports must be made on the same shift where the deployment occurred. They are reviewed immediately. They are provided to Ottawa. We analyze them here. We report each of those incidents. Those reports go immediately to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. They are the basis for our quarterly and annual reporting.

I certainly believe the facts are that we have made significant changes since the committee's report, and in my view we have responded to the committee's recommendation that the use of the device or the weapon should be further restricted. We have taken steps to restrict its use.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll go to Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, and thank you for coming today and taking the time to answer our questions.

I want to comment on the question that was just answered. It's the premise that is being put out there that police would indiscriminately use this on a willy-nilly basis. I appreciate your response to that, because in my own local police board experience in my community where the taser is used, it's not that at all. In fact, citing the report today that you've given, recommendation number four, the recertification was called for every two years and you've moved it to a one-year standard, and I appreciate your doing that. My first question would relate to that.

Obviously when you recertify someone there's a reanalysis of what comes out of that, the learnings that come out of that, and the circumstances around the use of it obviously provide learnings as well. What have been the take-aways from that recertification process when you do bring people back and they have to go through that? What are the actual officers telling you and what are the things that you're hearing about the actual field use of the CEDs, CEWs?

[A/Commr Darrell Madill]

Thank you for that question.

We certainly gather information from the members when they come in for training right now. The certifications will continue that. I would say where we gain the most information, however, is the actual usage reports that each and every member has to file every time that CEW is deployed. We consider a deployment, as the commissioner said, even when it's just threatened to be unholstered, and even when it's just displayed. We review every one of those usage reports at the local level. Every supervisor has to review it. It's reviewed at the divisional headquarters, the use of force coordinator, and then at the national level.

That's where we draw most of our information; however, we are about to embark on a more fulsome use of force reporting that goes even beyond the CEW. All uses of force, we'll gather information from that too. So that's real world, real life information that we'll use to build our information, and of course whether it's the local supervisor or the divisional coordinator or my own staff here in Ottawa, if they see anything that is either concerning or alarming, they deal with it immediately.

I apologize, that maybe wasn't exactly the answer you're looking for, but the actual recertification training doesn't provide that immediate information that we get from the user reports.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Just to follow up on that then, as you get those user reports in, is it a reasonable question to ask, in a debriefing situation, what the probable outcomes might have been had the taser not been used?

[A/Commr Darrell Madill]

Yes, that's conducted at the local unit level, and again it's reviewed all the way up the ladder.

We also get briefings daily on situations like the commissioner described. As you can imagine, there's a heightened sensitivity around all use of force, but particularly the conducted energy weapons, and the commanding officers right across the country report on a daily basis any circumstances where there might be concern, or where a CEW was used, as was discussed by the commissioner, so we get that every day.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Earlier in your responses, there was a question about this very thing and about the fact that--and I think it came from my colleague--had tasers not been used, lethal force may have been the outcome. You were not able at that point to give us any actual data regarding that being the case, but that's where I'm leading with this question.

Would it be appropriate to have, in your debriefing documentation, those kinds of...? You can't predict totally whether it would have been that, but certainly you could have a category of data being collected that, had the taser not been available, other types of force would not have been appropriate and this might have been the outcome, and have some statistics-gathering, because that relates to public safety. That relates to saving the lives of people who are in these circumstances where the taser's being used.

[Commr William Elliott]

Thank you.

We certainly do require our officers to account for their use of force and to describe the circumstances in which it was used, and that includes information with respect to the threats that they were facing or perceived, including threats of death or grievous bodily harm. In the 638 incidents that I referred to between January and June of this year, 23.2% of those officers reported facing a threat of death or grievous bodily harm.

We also require our officers to provide information with respect to the subject's behaviour, the presence or not of a weapon. I think it is more appropriate and certainly more common for us to ask our officers to describe the facts and what they perceived, and to record them, and not generally to have them speculate what might have happened otherwise.

Certainly that is part of what we try to do with the analysis of the reports. We think the quarterly reporting and the annual reporting will allow us to do that, not just on an incident-by-incident basis but on a more global basis. And we're certainly working with the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP and others to do that, to try to assess trends, for example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll now go over to Ms. Mourani, please, from the Bloc.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for your attendance here today.

I have been listening to the questions put by my colleagues and the answers you've given. I see that you certainly want to keep the taser.

But, I wonder, do you have this data? Over the last eight years, approximately how many firearm deaths have occurred where an RCMP officer was involved, compared to the number of deaths which may have—it remains uncertain—been associated with the use of a taser? Do you have data allowing us to compare these two types of weapons?