Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you for giving us an opportunity to offer our comments on this legislation that is very important to our organization, as it is to you and to the government.
The police boards and commissions that make up our members are responsible for the governance and oversight of more than 75% of the municipal police in Canada. They manage the police services of their municipalities, set priorities, establish policy, and represent the public interest to civilian governance and oversight. It is from this perspective of governance and oversight that we generally welcome Bill C-42.
It was over five years ago that we were consulted, and I was one of them, by officials of the Department of Public Safety regarding issues of governance and oversight for the RCMP. We believe that Bill C-42 is a good step forward in enhancing accountability, modernizing the force's human resources practices, and strengthening civilian oversight. It is to be hoped that these measures will increase public trust in the RCMP, which, as Minister Toews and others have noted, has suffered of late.
To this end, we applaud the objectives stated in the preamble to the proposed legislation.
Rather than dealing with any specific element of the bill, I wish to comment generally on some of the proposals with respect to governance and oversight in terms of the implications of certain provisions.
Our interest in effective governance and oversight of the RCMP is twofold. First, insofar as the RCMP provides contract policing to local communities, we believe that it should have a system of governance similar to that for municipal police services. Second, insofar as RCMP engages in joint operations and integrated policing with our municipal police services, we believe that it should be subject to effective oversight similar to that which exists for its municipal counterparts.
Local governance in jurisdictions where the RCMP provides contract policing is an important issue for us, as it should be for the force and the government. About 65% of the RCMP's budget, we are told, comes from contract policing. Further, in addition to providing policing services to provinces and territories, the RCMP serves more than 200 municipalities and 165 aboriginal communities across Canada.
The proposed legislation does attempt to address some local concerns. While beneficial, they are not measures that enhance local governance in contract policing jurisdictions. We would urge you to give consideration to this area in your deliberations. A report on RCMP municipal contract policing prepared for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 2009 makes the following observation:
A number of characteristics are generally accepted as essential to good governance; these include being accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive. Most respondents had concerns with governance in RCMP municipal policing on these fronts.
Accountability to the community is perceived by many municipalities to be a lower priority within the RCMP than accountability to RCMP headquarters.
Attention to governance generally, and not only to local governance, is largely absent from Bill C-42. We—that is, the CAPB—submit that strong governance would greatly enhance the RCMP's accountability and transparency. This is, for us, a matter of great importance, particularly given the increased powers proposed to be vested in the commissioner by Bill C-42. It is one that we have discussed extensively during our consultation with public safety officials.
We submitted a letter to your committee dated October 18 that deals with this subject at some length, so I will not say much more about it other than that in our respectful submission, adopting a modern, effective governance system for the RCMP will build confidence by ensuring greater accountability to elected officials, taxpayers, and most importantly, the communities served by the RCMP.
I would now like to talk about effective oversight as distinct from governance, particularly from the point of view of communities that do not have contract policing but whose police services are nonetheless involved in joint operations and integrated policing with the RCMP.
The current situation is unacceptable, as I discovered in my role as chair of the Toronto Police Services Board during the G20 summit in Toronto. While the police service that we oversee--that is, the Toronto Police Service--was held accountable by a system of provincial and local oversight, the RCMP was not subject to anything that came close for its role in this highly sensitive integrated policing project with significant national security implications.
The current oversight mechanism, the CPC, as has been noted by several witnesses appearing before you, is woefully inadequate. I believe that the provisions in Bill C-42 will go a long way in filling this gap. We are heartened by the fact that the proposed CRCC will have the power to undertake reviews of the RCMP's policies and procedures, have access to more documents than is the case at present, be able to compel evidence, and deal more expeditiously with public complaints.
We are also very supportive of the ability of provincial ministers responsible for policing to initiate investigations and of provincial oversight agencies to undertake independent and joint investigations. These are good measures and should contribute to greater public confidence.
We do, however, share the concerns that have been expressed already about some of the other provisions of the bill. We fear that they could undermine true, effective oversight. In particular, we would urge you to review the justification for the limits on what documents the CRCC may not have access to, the ability of the commissioner to cause an investigation to be suspended because of the possibility of a criminal investigation, the ability of the commissioner to refuse to investigate a complaint that in the CRCC chair's view it would be in the public interest to investigate, the absence of service standards requiring the force to take timely action when such standards are envisaged for the commission, and the lack of what interim CPC chair Ian McPhail in his comments to you called “a robust review regime”.
We share Staff Sergeant Abe Townsend's concern regarding the concentration of that much power in one office, on the one hand, and the inability of the commission on the other to make compelling recommendations. Those are Staff Sergeant Townsend's words.
Finally, we take issue with Director General Mark Potter's characterization of handling of public complaints as CRCC's core business and with Bill C-42's subjecting of reviews to availability of resources, among other considerations. Unless these imbalances are fixed, we are afraid that despite all the enhanced powers given to the new commission, it will be seen to exist on the sufferance of the very institution and the very head that it is supposed to oversee. We do not think that this will contribute to achieving the objective that Bill C-42 seeks, namely greater public trust through greater accountability.
I'll be glad to answer any questions, and thank you very much.