Public Safety Committee on Jan. 29th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 66 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Tuesday, January 29, 2013. Before we get into welcoming our guests for today, I want to welcome our committee members back after a constituency break and winter break.

It's good to have each one of you here. It's also good to come back and to hit restart—or whatever we want to do—on this study that we've undertaken. We're going to continue our study on the economics of policing in Canada.

As one of our witnesses today we have, from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the assistant deputy minister, community safety and partnerships branch, Mr. Shawn Tupper.

Mr. Tupper, welcome.

We also have with us the director general of the policing policy directorate of the law enforcement and policing branch.

Mr. Potter, welcome back.

From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have the deputy commissioner, east region, Mr. Steve Graham.

Our committee thanks our witnesses for helping us out with this study on the cost of policing in Canada.

I also want to say that this is really the second time that some of you have appeared before our committee. We began the committee in the midst of votes, I think, so that meeting was interrupted, and there were just other things that were happening in the life of the Parliament. I know that we were interrupted that day, so it's good to welcome you back. We very much look forward to what you have to say. We'll now turn the time over to Mr. Potter.

Welcome. We look forward to your comments.

[Mark Potter, Director General, Policing Policy Directorate, Law Enforcement and Policing Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to everyone. It's good to be back here to talk to you about the important topic of the economics of policing. As noted last time we met, the economics of policing is about the evolution and sustainability of policing at a time of fiscal constraints and enhanced public expectations.

Although the Government of Canada is but one of the many partners involved in this issue, the Minister of Public Safety has been providing leadership. The minister introduced this issue this time last year at a meeting of federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of justice and public safety in Charlottetown. At that time, two next steps were agreed on: first, to share information on initiatives that have improved the efficiency and effectiveness of policing; and second, to convene a summit on the economics of policing.

Building on that, at the next FPT ministers meeting in Regina in October of 2012, it was further agreed that after the summit there would be consultations on the development of a shared forward agenda for policing in Canada.

I am pleased to say that there has been progress on all three steps, and I would like to update you today on that work.

The summit on the economics of policing was a Government of Canada event hosted by Minister Toews on behalf of all FPT ministers. It took place on January 16 and 17 in Ottawa. The summit included 30 speakers from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, as well as participants representing the policing community and other stakeholders in Canada.

The agenda for the summit was developed in cooperation with all governments and the three national policing associations in Canada. It was built around three pillars for reform: one, efficiencies within police services; two, new models of community safety; and three, efficiencies within the justice system.

In his welcoming address at the summit, Minister Toews made a number of key points. The minister referred, for example, to “a shift in public expectations”, and noted the following:

A decade ago, the average Canadian readily accepted, almost without question, steady increases in police budgets. Today, however, there are increasing calls to demonstrate the value of the investments that all governments make in public services, including policing. And because policing performance measures are not well-developed, widely applied, or reported to the public, there is little clarity as to the efficiency and effectiveness of police spending.

The minister also outlined actions being taken to address those areas of policing for which the ministry is directly responsible. For example, the RCMP is implementing reductions in its annual funding through administrative and operational support reforms. In addition, with the passing of the Expenditure Restraint Act in 2009, federal salary increases, including those of RCMP members, have been held to 1.5% annually. It is expected that these key cost containment measures will help keep RCMP policing services sustainable in the future.

In concluding, the minister stated that police services face a couple of options: they can do nothing, and may eventually be faced with having to make cuts or significantly reduce the growth rate of police spending depending on the fiscal situation in their jurisdiction, or they can be proactive, get ahead of the curve, and have greater flexibility in designing and implementing both incremental and meaningful structural reforms in order to better serve Canadians.

Several of Minister Toews' points were reinforced by his provincial counterpart from B.C., Minister Bond, in her welcoming remarks. She stressed the importance of getting the best possible return on taxpayers' investments in policing, and of finding new and better ways of doing things, whether it's police service delivery, investigating and preventing crime, training or, most importantly, working together. That, she remarked, means challenging the status quo, which is never easy.

These remarks by the two ministers served to set the context and direction for the summit. Although the summit was but one step on a longer journey, it was a productive two days of informative presentations and frank dialogue. Comments from the participants and formal evaluations submitted by the attendees both confirmed that it was a constructive event that served to raise awareness, provide practical information, and help steer us on a path toward greater efficiency and effectiveness in policing through innovation and reform.

To continue the momentum, the three national police associations supported a strategic framework, or shared forward agenda. The shared forward agenda introduced at the summit by Public Safety Canada was based on discussions with other governments and will be developed collaboratively over the next several months.

As Minister Toews made clear in his opening remarks, no one party—certainly not the federal government—can buy the solution to the challenges the sector is facing, but together we can identify the necessary actions to support innovation and reform, and we can each take on certain responsibilities.

In that vein, it is encouraging to note that Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia have already agreed to champion the development of one of the three pillars of reform over the next few months.

Building on the summit discussions, the closing session also laid out potential areas to explore through a shared forward agenda. In terms of efficiencies within police services, these areas include strengthened civilianization, police service efficiency reviews, sharing and adoption of best practices, improved measurement and reporting, and enhanced research capacity and coordination.

In addition, actions under the second and third pillars of reform could include cataloguing and validating new community safety models and identifying and advancing policing priorities for justice reform. Clearly progress requires system-wide approaches.

As a result of the national dialogue launched through the summit, over the spring and summer of 2013 we will engage in a broad-based collaborative process to develop the shared forward agenda.

Another key FPT deliverable, the catalogue of initiatives from across Canada that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of policing, was also showcased at the summit.

We very much welcome the committee's interest in this issue. Your engagement will contribute to the dialogue that is under way and strengthen the momentum of reform necessary to sustain Canada's policing advantage.

Policing currently enjoys a large reservoir of public confidence that can be further replenished only if we are seen to be acting in a responsible manner, a manner that meets the challenge of constrained resources while striving to improve service through greater efficiency and effectiveness. This is the opportunity that can be seized through working together, tackling the issue from every angle, and fostering lasting change through long-term commitment.

That concludes my opening remarks. We would be very pleased to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move into our first round of questioning. We'll go to Ms. Bergen for seven minutes.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Potter.

Thank you as well, Mr. Tupper and Mr. Graham, for being here.

There is so much to dig into here.

Mr. Potter, could you begin by telling us again what those three pillars are? I know you mentioned one of the pillars was being adopted.

[Mark Potter]

The first of the three pillars we have identified as the basis for the development of the forward agenda is efficiencies within police services themselves. Those are actions most directly within the control of the police service itself.

The second pillar is new models of community safety. These are new approaches we've seen across Canada and in other places around the world whereby you work with other partners—whether they involve social agencies, education, housing, or so on—to take integrated approaches to deal with crime and get at the root of criminality and put people and families on different trajectories to avoid having them become criminals in the future.

The third is efficiencies within the justice system. There are numerous examples of cases in which, as a result of procedural and other requirements that flow from the justice system, costs, time, and complexity are imposed on police services, ultimately increasing costs. We will be looking at those and identifying where there might be opportunities to streamline and make the justice system more efficient.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Have you been able to identify specific examples in which each one of those pillars has been performed and a best practice has been established—for example, in new models of community safety? I'm sure you're aware of what's going on in Calgary, where they seem to be doing this quite well, so I would think they would be a good example of that pillar.

Regarding efficiencies within policing or efficiencies within the justice system, are we able to identify who's doing those well so that we can take their example and duplicate it?

[Mark Potter]

We are and we aren't. There are two challenges here. One is sharing of best practices. If you have something that works, tell other people about it, and provide that information so others can learn.

The other is a deeper challenge, which is evidence-based research. That validates that these models actually work and are achieving the outcomes you are striving to achieve.

In Canada, certainly the view coming out of the summit was that our research capacity is limited, that it could be strengthened, that there is an opportunity to provide a little more coordination with respect to the research priorities of Canadian academics and researchers to be able to support policing and justice reform and so on. Research is quite fundamental as the foundation for further reform and innovation, but as I mentioned at the outset, in practical terms there are a lot of good examples in Canada and around the world of things that police are currently doing that are making a real difference. It's a question of ensuring that those best practices are shared and that police learn from one another.

[Shawn Tupper, Assistant Deputy Minister, Community Safety and Partnerships Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

If I may, just from the community safety perspective, if you look at that broader spectrum and go beyond a policing lens when you look at crime prevention and activities that we can pursue in the community to create safer communities, we actually are starting to build a very good evidence base in Canada. We have been looking at models from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and we're bringing those models to Canada and testing them through the national centre for the prevention of crime.

We are actually building a very good set of data that is Canadian, which is a good thing, and we are very much, in the design of the program, looking at elaborating on best practices and, equally, trying to test models that don't work so that people aren't investing their money in a bad way.

We also do a lot of publishing around best practices from a community safety perspective that focuses on early intervention and diversion.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

One of the challenges, for example, is that in provinces where municipalities or small cities have their own police force and they're funding it, those costs seem to be really high, yet there are reasons they keep their own municipal or small-town police force.

Is it true, then, that part of the challenge is identifying not only best practices but best practices that are transferable between urban and rural and different settings? We're obviously a vast country with a vast population and a lot of diversity, including aboriginal policing.

[Shawn Tupper]

It's always the danger in talking about data from a Canadian perspective and throwing out those averages, because they don't really tell the whole story about what's going on in the north or what's going on in remote communities on the prairies. Indeed we are trying to understand that data from those particular perspectives. We look at things in terms of the size and location of the community and the kinds of crime going on there. We try to focus our investments so that they are more specific.

Frankly, the necessary approach—and I think we see this across the whole social system—is to understand the variety of challenges and then address those challenges specifically.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

In terms of being able to disseminate this information and make it useful to the jurisdictions that want to use it, is it the goal to be able to continue to have these summits and to be able to show provincial police departments—for example, to the RCMP, as we are already doing federally—ways they can tighten things up, ways they can make things better? It seems that one of the challenges, too, is to get the information out and have people know how to actually use it.

Is that the goal, and how close are we? You talked about the national centre for the prevention of crime and where this research is coming from. How close are we, or where are we in that process, in terms of actually having a coordinated effort to give police departments or municipalities practical ideas on how to save money?

[Shawn Tupper]

On the crime prevention side, I think we're actually very close to that collaborative goal. We work extremely closely with the provinces and municipalities to first of all ensure that we're not duplicating our investments. The one thing we want to avoid, with limited money across the board, is all spending on the same thing. We actually have a very good linkage with other orders of government. I think it has really improved our ability to make those kinds of investments from the non-policing side.

The thing we need to do a better job of is incorporating what we learn in crime prevention, which isn't always police-based—we do a lot of work in schools, for instance—and linking that into the policing lens and making sure we get the biggest bang for those bucks.

On the summit side....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Please be very quick.

[Mark Potter]

Essentially what we're going to be doing over the next six months is figuring out how we can work jointly and where it makes sense to combine our efforts as both governments and associations working with police services. Development of best practices, cataloguing, coordination of research—these are all issues being explored.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mr. Garrison for seven minutes, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to welcome back all of the members of the committee. We're looking forward to working together with everyone here.

I have to start by saying that I feel like we've been placed in a bit of a catch-up position as members of the committee. I think it's unfortunate that the members of the committee weren't included, at least as observers, in the summit. I think we all, on all sides, feel that we've just received a big block of information that was dropped on us. It might have put us in a better position had we been included. That, of course, is not your purview, those of you who are here today.

I have a question on whether the materials presented at the summit will be shared with the committee. You've made some references to the papers presented by the various presenters. Will those papers be shared with the committee? We made a request to the minister to have those materials, and we've not had a response.

[Mark Potter]

We're going to be talking to the various presenters who were at the summit. We will be exploring with them the possibility of putting their material online.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Yes, because I think it would be useful for all of us in the committee to be able to have a look at those materials as we move forward, and particularly in this study.

The second thing I have to say is, again, that perhaps what we really needed today was to have the minister here, because what you've put forward as these three pillars seems to contradict a lot of things that have been happening in the area of public safety, I believe, on the part of the government, so it's difficult for me to ask you those questions. We've seen cutbacks in resources for the front end of policing, which I believe is quite often where we reduce ultimate costs. We have those things in crime prevention and those kinds of enforcement activities. We've seen a tendency towards shedding those federal responsibilities and a downloading of those to municipalities.

Also, unfortunately, in the opening remarks of the minister I thought we saw—maybe it was just a media emphasis—an overemphasis on police salaries and a blaming of police as the cost drivers in public safety, but again, without the minister here, it's difficult to see.... The optimist in me says that perhaps we're seeing the government chart a new course here in public safety, and I would certainly very much like to see that, but it's really not something we can ask you.

There is one thing I can ask you. We spoke to first nations police chiefs about the summit. Before the summit, they had not been invited. I guess my question is based on the idea that first nations need to be included as full partners in everything we're doing here. Were first nations policing forces invited to the summit? Were they present at the summit?

[Mark Potter]

Absolutely. I think approximately 10 or 11 first nations police chiefs attended the summit. In developing the invitation list for the summit, we worked very closely with all provincial and territorial governments as well as the three main national policing associations. In that regard, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police made some very helpful recommendations in terms of the chiefs to invite, and in particular, those from the first nations community.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Okay.

I have some very specific questions I want to ask about your opening remarks. I'll turn to those.

When you talk about efficiencies within the police services, I wonder how that relates to the statement in the minister's opening remarks that raised the question of who does what and the increasing civilianization. I wonder if you could say more about that, because I know there are some concerns in policing that it is seen as a kind of simple and easy solution to simply pass duties on to civilians rather than to uniformed police. Were there presentations on this at the summit?

[Mark Potter]

Yes, there were. Let me take that question from a couple of angles, if I may.

The first is recognizing, of course, the jurisdictional responsibilities for policing in Canada. It's not the role of the federal government to be telling provincial and municipal police services how to organize themselves and how to optimize their efficiency. That's the first response.

The second response is that we've seen countless examples around the world and in Canada of police services that have used civilianization extremely effectively. These range from the fairly routine basic functions that you can sometimes civilianize to much more specialized functions such as crime analysis and forensics, where it makes sense to have highly trained civilian individuals doing that work. However, I think it's a question of finding the right mix for a particular police service, given its objectives and given its community priorities.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Tupper made remarks about crime prevention. One of the concerns that we have had on this side of the table is that in the last round of budget cuts, there seems to have been a reduction in the federal support for anti-gang funding for police forces across the country. I wonder how we square the reductions that have come in those areas with this new direction that seems to be indicated here.

[Shawn Tupper]

In fact, my program has not been cut through the deficit reduction exercise and whatnot. In fact, the national centre was protected against cuts, for the very reason that we want to maintain those programs. Since 2008, in fact, up until last year, we're actually getting more money out the door.

That's not necessarily a government issue—it was actually a program issue—but we are now getting more money out the door through that program than we have in almost a decade.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

On efficiencies within the justice system, I wonder if you could say a few words about any presentations you heard or any initiatives from the government about efficiencies within the justice system. Again, we've seen a lot of legislation coming before the House that would seem to me to place a lot more burden on the justice system rather than reducing those costs. Was there anything presented that you could talk about today?

[Mark Potter]

There was a session on justice efficiencies. In that, they explored some of the requirements that are imposed on policing. In this realm there's a recognition that it's not the policing community leading change; it's the policing community that wants to be engaged in the process of change.

A number of initiatives happening nationally and provincially are looking at the efficiency and the accessibility of the justice system. It's a question of factoring in police perspectives during those deliberations and that analysis so that you get the full picture of the impacts of the justice system on policing and you can take decisions on that basis.