Evidence of meeting #67 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was officers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Past President, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Mental health is something that I had mentioned as one of the priorities.
I think there are some great examples across the country, such as police tagging up with mental health workers in police cars to attend an initial response. Going forward, to make a long story short, this is something that's going to need a comprehensive and collaborative strategy.
I was just at the justice reform committee about two weeks ago in Montreal. At the reform committee there were judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers, police leaders, deputy ministers, etc., and the common response coming out of there is that we need to do a better job of mental health before it's even in the justice system. How we deal with it when it's in the justice system is another thing. It kind of follows that same pattern, based on risk, cradle to grave.
We need a balanced approach to mental health. We tend to focus on just one specific area. The reality is that the majority of mental health issues, with some early recognition, can be controlled with medication. Unfortunately, we don't get in the door, the path, or the stream early enough, and we need to do a better job of that.
10:35 a.m.
President, Canadian Association of Police Boards
I don't mean to be facetious, but I sometimes refer to it as a growth industry, because for policing, dealing with mental illness has become a major piece of business. It's an unfortunate reality, but often if a person who needs help doesn't call the police, he or she may not get the help. The police have become the responders of first resort when it comes to mental illness.
There are, as Mr. McFee said, some very good examples across the country of partnership-based approaches that police services are using. I just talked about the one in Toronto, through which we have entered into agreements with hospitals in different parts of the city. In these partnerships the hospital provides a mental health nurse and we provide the police officer. At certain times of the day—from evening until early morning, when calls go up—they travel together. Quite often when a person in distress calls, the matter is resolved on the side, because the police officer makes the scene safe so that the mental health nurse can deal with the situation. When hospitalization is needed, ambulances are on standby and the person is moved to the hospital. That system is working exceptionally well. We now have that across the city.
The other thing that we have had to do is training. As you know, most of the mandatory training a police officer receives is around use of force, and this is a big issue. We have created a group of people from the community, including providers of service, consumers, and survivors themselves, to work in our police college to help us develop a good training model for our police officers.
Those two have been very helpful for us in responding as much as we can effectively to mental illness in Toronto.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Mukherjee.
Ms. Bergen, it looks like you're probably going to have the last say of the day.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
That's great. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I want to begin by saying that I take exception to Mr. Garrison's comments regarding Minister Toews' opening comments at the economics of policing summit. I don't know if he read the same comments that we have in front of us, but I think the minister focused quite squarely on the very broad nature—I see Mr. McFee nodding his head—of the economics of policing and the challenges. He clearly did not just focus on salaries.
As parliamentary secretary for the last almost two years, I think one of the things I have heard over and over when I talk to front-line officers and to representatives from different organizations is that Minister Toews is extremely well respected by front-line police officers as a Minister of Public Safety because he values the work they do. I think one of the reasons is that we have 11 officers, Mr. Chair, in our Conservative caucus who are front-line officers. Some are here today. I'm very proud of the fact that we have a minister who understands, respects, and values the good work the police do.
Leading into another point you made, Mr. Stamatakis, it was in regard to inefficiencies. You used an example in British Columbia of several investigative bodies that investigate police. I wanted to ask you, then, about one of the bills that we've introduced, the bill on enhancing RCMP accountability. We've introduced a measure so that when RCMP members are involved in serious incidents, we believe, just as you do, that rather than creating a brand new body to investigate them, we should use the bodies that are already in place.
In some provinces there are investigative bodies that have been created, that are working, and that do the job very well. In certain provinces, they don't have those bodies, but then they have other police, obviously, such as city police and excellent investigative bodies, which we believe could do the job of investigating serious incidents within the RCMP.
In relation to the cost of policing, would you agree that it's probably a very poor economic decision to create yet another investigative body, either provincially, as you mentioned, or even in terms of the RCMP?
10:40 a.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
Yes. My perspective is that we're just adding layers of infrastructure and duplication of offices, computers, and all the things that go along with creating a new agency. The fact is that police officers are capable of investigating police-involved incidents. You need to have the right kind of independent oversight of it so you can ensure that the investigation is conducted appropriately and that it's transparent, and it needs to be timely, but I think there are models that are more efficient than just adding more and more layers of bureaucracy to these kinds of incidents.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you very much.
I know that I'm going again to you, Mr. Stamatakis, but you mentioned the police officers recruitment fund, which was our government's initiative. It was unprecedented. We announced $400 million for recruiting police across this country. At that time, were your members—were you—aware that it was a temporary initiative?
January 31st, 2013 / 10:40 a.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
Yes. I think the government was quite clear that it was a temporary initiative. The unfortunate.... I think it was a significant investment by this government, I think it was unprecedented, and I think it was important. Unfortunately, our experience is that it was received differently by different provinces.
Unfortunately, in some provinces I don't know that they used those funds to recruit officers, to put more police officers on the street, and of course that has had an impact on whether or not the government is prepared to continue to make that investment.
Of course, my view is that the investment continues to be important, but I realize that the return on the investment might not be what the government anticipated.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Then there's one other fund that we've announced, and again it's unprecedented—no other government has done this—and that's the national crime prevention fund, which I know that both you and Mr. McFee were not completely familiar with. It's $7.5 million over five years.
One of the components of it is our youth gang prevention fund. That goes out across the country to hundreds of projects in cities and in small communities, very good, local, grassroots projects that help address right on the ground the needs in helping kids stay out of crime. It sounds like that is a lot of what you're talking about as well.
Could you address the importance of those funds?
10:45 a.m.
Past President, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
In the past we've met with the National Crime Prevention Centre and we're very familiar with them. I wasn't familiar with the particular part of the gang issue that they put forward, but absolutely, they do some good work.
The discussion we had was a kind of think tank on how we parallel this so that we would better fit the needs of the individual or the taxpayer, so it was a great discussion. I'm very familiar with the National Crime Prevention Centre. They do good work.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Yes, and that is different from the national crime prevention fund that we announced.
10:45 a.m.
Past President, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
That's where it has come from—
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you.
I think I can speak on behalf of all members and all parties. Certainly we have valued your testimony today. I think the questions have reflected that. We've heard a couple of contrary opinions on a few things, especially in relation to officers in the classrooms and whether they should be there or not, and I know that we want to explore some of these more.
Thank you for being here today and for being a very important part of our study.
The meeting is adjourned.
