Public Safety Committee on Jan. 31st, 2013

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our witnesses.

I have a very specific question, first of all, for Mr. McFee, which relates to the excessive amount of time that police officers spend processing impaired driving and so on. Have studies shown that cameras in the cars that show the driver's performance in and out of the car led to more guilty pleas and less court time?

[Dale McFee]

I believe that's the case. Certainly we can get back to you on it, but I think that's the early evidence in relation to impaired driving. It's the reason that a lot of people have gone to cameras.

The impaired driving discussion is an interesting one, though, and it comes up in the economics of policing because it's a problem in our country. Police chiefs and front-line staff are seeing so many young people lost to impaired driving, it's sad. It truly is sad. I know my home community just had one the other day.

If we really want to think differently when we look at impaired driving and we want to challenge the system a bit, we can look at the three things around impaired driving—the driver, the drug or alcohol, and the vehicle. Wouldn't we just tackle the vehicle and make it so that we had to blow into something to drive the vehicle? You would drop impaired driving by 70% or 80% overnight.

I mean, it's just a thought; I realize that a lot of different things come into play. But it's the same thing as the airbag, it's the same thing as the seat belt, and it's the same thing as the headrest. I know they're studying the technology in the U.S.

Impaired driving is a case that we have to get right, because we're just losing too many young people.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes. I agree.

Mr. Stamatakis, you talked about the crime reduction dividend, I believe. People took that to mean they could spend less money on policing, and violent crime actually increased. Did I understand that correctly?

[Tom Stamatakis]

That's correct. That's been the experience in the jurisdictions in the States that I referred to.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I would suggest that this is similar to the peace dividend when the Cold War ended. People thought that because the Cold War had ended we could stop spending money on defence, not realizing that the peace dividend was in fact peace. The crime reduction dividend is in fact crime reduction.

[Tom Stamatakis]

That's right.

I mean, if we're going to have an honest discussion, I think we have to accept responsibility for some of the issues. In the policing community, I think one mistake we've made is that we've tied success too closely to crime rates and we haven't spent enough time talking about all of the other activities we're engaged in. Naturally we achieved that success—because crime rates are down—because of things we've done along with some other factors.

Then people go, “Okay, crime rates are down, so let's reduce budgets”, but I think the consequence would be that we'd see a return to higher rates of crime in a variety of categories, just as we see in communities that are struggling with police resources.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Following off that, Mr. McFee, and getting back to finding a balance between sentencing and prevention, prevention obviously is cheaper in the long run than anything, but in Edmonton's case, a couple of years ago I was told there were about 250 hard cases, people who were known, and if they could do something about those 250 bad guys in Edmonton, they could reduce the serious crime rate by about 50%. I was also told that the habitual criminal will commit about 15 offences a year.

So if we take, in Edmonton's case, those 250 hard cases, give them a mandatory minimum, put them away for something that's meaningful, and work with them while they're there, obviously, to try to correct their behaviour, it seems to me that would do a lot for public safety.

[Dale McFee]

That was my comment earlier with regard to arrests and not arrests. We're going to continue to arrest, because quite frankly there are people who need to go to jail, but we don't forget about them, as you've stated. It becomes about balance, and I think that's where the real effort is: we've got that now, we continue to do that, and we make sure the accountability pieces are there, but to really change the system we have to do them both at the same time.

I think that's what you're alluding to.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

We can't ignore both ends of the system.

[Dale McFee]

Absolutely. You can't do one or the other, you need to do both. That's why we call it “smart on community safety”.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

Mr. Stamatakis, you talked about duplication in the oversight system, about redundancies equalling costs. Obviously I understand that, but can you give us a specific example of how you can reduce some of the oversight and still have effective oversight at a reduced cost?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I can give you one obvious example, from my perspective, in terms of duplication. I'll use British Columbia as an example, although Ontario is in the same boat, and I think most other provinces are going the same route.

When there is an incident involving a police officer on the street, there will typically be at least two, usually three, investigations conducted. At least in British Columbia, for example, there are two independent agencies that investigate police conduct issues. They'll conduct their own separate investigations, and usually the agency might have another investigation that they undertake as a result of the incident.

I think it's important to have independent oversight of police. That's critical, and we support that, but do you need to have three separate agencies, with three separate infrastructures and three separate sets of investigators conducting that same investigation into that one incident? Can you do it in a different way that's independent, that's objective, that's accountable, but that's also a bit more efficient?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Hawn.

Mr. Rousseau, you have five minutes.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses very much for joining us today.

My question is for Mr. Stamatakis and Mr. McFee. I would like to hear the opinion of both of them.

At a time when we should rather be talking about modernizing police forces, how can we be discussing their potential savings? In the current context, the individuals or organizations that commit crimes have increasingly sophisticated tools at their disposal.

I would like Mr. Stamatakis to answer first.

[Tom Stamatakis]

That's exactly what the point is—and I alluded to it in my presentation—because for every one strategy that we undertake, a lot of the criminal groups, particularly on the organized crime or commercial crime side, cybercrime, will find new technologies to overcome whatever initiatives we undertake. This means that the police have to adapt to that with more training and through acquisition of different, newer technologies. It's continuously evolving, and that's part of what adds to costs, which is a reality of policing today.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

What do you think, Mr. McFee?

[Dale McFee]

My answer is that there are always going to be those new things in crime. That's reality. There's going to be always only so much money.

I think it's a refocus. The refocus should be on evidence and outcomes, and those things that we do well that make sense to our bottom line we need to continue to do. As for those things that we don't do well and don't make sense to our bottom line, we need to get out of them and reinvest. Before it's new money, it needs to be reinvestment.

One of the things we have to look at.... I'm not a big proponent of private security. I know they have a role; I'm not so sure the role is policing, but there is a low-risk model of policing in which a lot of agencies are using special constables at a reduced rate to do specific police duties, which in essence should free up some end money to reinvest in those areas that we need to keep up.

Police have to operate cradle to grave. They have to be good at all ends of the spectrum. To be good at all ends of the spectrum, you need to focus the expertise on those particular areas to keep up with them. To get back to the comment we had here, that's why I think when we focus on other areas and have police involved in mental health strategies and in educational outcomes, we truly do have a community safety program.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

My question is once again for you, Mr. McFee.

In my riding, the safety and security of communities is dependent on multiple stakeholders: the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, and occasionally a municipal police force. When one of those organizations undergoes budget cuts or restructuring, all the stakeholders are affected.

Since you also talked about effectiveness, I will give you an example. In my riding, we have small municipalities of 1,000 people that pay the Government of Quebec $70,000 a year for the Sûreté du Québec services, and that gives them two half-days of patrol per month.

Do your members provide you with comments? Is there a dialogue between the various agencies to better respond to cuts? Have there been any cases in Canada where effectiveness was enhanced through restructuring?

[Dale McFee]

That's a great comment and an interesting comment. It's the same in northern Saskatchewan, just so you know that.

What is the expectation on what you're funding? In northern Saskatchewan, if you're funding the RCMP and you're paying that same type of rate, you might not be seeing a police car, but if something bad happens in your community, you'll see a whole raft of resources show up to solve that problem. Everybody plays a role.

More importantly, the structure needs to give everybody the ability to act on local priorities, going back to what we were talking about earlier. If we can really focus on having a structure in place and figuring out how the finances go with that structure or commit that particular thing that works on the priorities, and then apply that structure in a cradle-to-grave approach based on risk, then I think you're on to something. Then what you may be able to do in those communities is if you did truly have a low-risk policing model....

A lot of the issues coming out of northern Saskatchewan aren't crime issues, they're anti-social behaviour issues. Is there a different way, connected with police, whereby we can deal with those? The answer is yes, but the answer is that it needs to be based on research and on evidence, and not on somebody's best guess.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have 10 seconds.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Stamatakis, you raised a relevant point when you expressed your concern regarding the resources available to your police officers in areas such as mental health care and training.

Can you give me an example of health care services you cannot do without because they are indispensable to your members?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Rousseau.

Mr. Stamatakis, you're going to have to wait on that one.

We're going to go over to Mr. Leef, please. I will remind everyone that the second round is a five-minute round, while the first round was seven. We have to be a little more concise, perhaps, in our questions and in our answers.

Go ahead, Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our witnesses.

My question will be directed to Mr. Stamatakis and Mr. McFee.

The conversation now is largely around efficiencies and cost savings. I'm just wondering if there's been any discussion at the table about revenue-generation possibilities and what some of the challenges might be. Are there legislative things that can be done, and are there ways to start moving things that would otherwise just end up in provincial or municipal general coffers back into policing services directly?

Could you both speak on that aspect?

[Tom Stamatakis]

The challenge when it comes to police agencies looking to generate revenue is of course that the priority for police organizations is public safety, not generating revenue. The challenge will always be the concern the public would rightly have that police agencies were getting involved in activities just to generate revenue.

There are some good examples. For example, here in Vancouver they have an excellent false-alarm reduction program for which they worked with the city to create a bylaw under which there's a requirement to have a permit to have an alarm. It is a strategy that was undertaken to reduce the need for the police to respond to false alarms on a continuous basis. It's raised some revenue and it's reduced the impact on the police, because they don't have to respond to as many false alarms since people are being more responsible. There is a consequence now to not managing your alarm system properly. That's just one example, but it's one in which there is clearly no conflict regarding the revenue generated and the police response. I think there are other examples like that out there, but you have to be very cautious.

I'll give you one last example. In British Columbia the provincial government, independently of the police, returns traffic fine revenue to local governments to help offset the cost of local policing. I think that's an excellent program, and one that can be looked at across the country.