Public Safety Committee on Jan. 31st, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 67 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Thursday, January 31, 2013. This morning we are continuing our study on the economics of policing in Canada.

We're fortunate to have a number of esteemed guests with us here today. First of all, appearing on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is Mr. Dale McFee, past president. We also have, from the Canadian Association of Police Boards, Alok Mukherjee, who is the president of the association. Appearing by video conference from Vancouver is Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association.

We certainly appreciate all of you being here today, but if there were an award for a special thank you, it would be given to the Canadian Police Association in Vancouver. The time out there is about a quarter to six in the morning, so obviously their president has been up early and is appearing.

Our committee thanks you. We're taking this study very seriously, as we do all our studies. We know the costs of policing in Canada are increasing. Certainly as a committee and as a government and opposition, we all want to work together to see how we can play a role in proper decisions for this very important file of protection and policing.

I'll invite all our witnesses to make a brief opening statement, and then we'll move into the first round of questioning.

Perhaps I should go first to Mr. Stamatakis in Vancouver.

Welcome. It's good to see you so early in the morning.

[Tom Stamatakis, President, Canadian Police Association]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I do have an opening statement that I'll start out with. Hopefully there will then be lots of time for questions.

I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning to discuss the economics of policing, an issue that's been at the forefront of our association's efforts over the past two years.

I'd also like to offer my thanks to your colleague Minister Toews and the Department of Public Safety for their efforts in organizing the recent national summit, which brought together stakeholders from all aspects of policing in Canada to study the issue, and, perhaps more importantly, to find common ground.

Since the economics of policing is such a broad topic, I'm going to try my best to keep my opening remarks brief in order to leave as much time as possible to answer questions. However, there are a few important issues that I would like to address with you this morning.

The focus of my presentation will be on the men and women who wear the uniform of front-line police personnel. I have the privilege of representing over 54,000 police officers and civilians serving in over 160 municipal, provincial, federal, and first nations police services.

I appreciate having a seat at the table here when it comes to your discussion on the economics of policing, since 80% to 85% of the costs associated with policing in this country are directly related to the members I represent. Of course, it's impossible to separate those costs from the equation, since policing is a public service that's provided by people, one that requires a constant application of discretion and judgment that cannot be replaced even with advancements in technology.

There's no argument that police salaries make up a significant portion of the costs, but there seems to be a false belief among some observers that the easiest solution is to cut those salaries and then everything else will fall into place. What those observers tend to ignore is the tremendous change that's gone into the job description of today's front-line police personnel.

Police today are called on to serve roles as diverse as substance abuse counsellors, mental health workers, marriage counsellors, and youth intervention officers, all while maintaining their primary responsibility for community safety.

On top of those various roles, our officers also have to keep pace with quickly changing technology and investigative methods, which requires significant investments in training and retraining over the course of their careers.

On top of that, there is also the need to constantly and immediately adapt to new regulatory frameworks, usually the result of court decisions or other inquests and commissions.

Even further on top of that is the simple fact that policing in Canada is already one of the most accountable professions that can be entered into, with almost every province in this country having in place at least one civilian oversight body, and in some cases three or more, regularly putting our actions under the microscope. There's no other profession that's subject to, and held accountable by, so many political, legal, internal, and civilian agencies.

To be absolutely clear, I'm not suggesting that any of the oversight or accountability is not necessary, although I can and will certainly make the case that the amount of duplication and redundancy in the system is a significant driver of costs.

I just hope that this committee will understand that police officers today can be more accurately compared with those in other skilled professions or trades. There's no question that those professionals have also seen their salaries increase.

The question of salaries for front-line police officers in Canada is often the elephant in the room when we discuss the costs of policing. I think it's very important to note that during the recent summit, there was very little interest among the stakeholders at all levels of this sector to make salaries a focus of this discussion, and I think for very good reason: those stakeholders themselves are best positioned to recognize that Canadian taxpayers receive tremendous value for money when it comes to their police services.

In fact I'd argue further—and the statistics back this argument up—that the increases in police budgets are not entirely the result of corresponding increases in our salaries. Just take the City of Toronto as an example. Since 1980, while salaries for front-line police personnel have increased, the percentage of the total municipal budget spent on policing has remained virtually unchanged. Obviously costs are increasing across the board, but police salaries on their own are not the main driver of these increases.

Another argument I'd like to directly address is the often-heard refrain that crime rates are down, so why do we need to spend so much on policing?

First and foremost, it's precisely those increased investments that all levels of government have made that have had a direct influence on the declining crime rates.

I admit a certain amount of frustration when I'm told that police should be penalized for their successes by having their budgets cut. However, I find it important for us to consider the facts when it comes to budget cutbacks. I'd like to provide you with a couple of first-hand examples.

In 2011 the City of Sacramento in California laid off over 300 police officers in response to budget cutbacks. Following those cutbacks, the city saw a 48% increase in gun violence as well as increases in crimes such as rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and vehicle theft.

In Camden, New Jersey, which is the possibly the poster child for police service cutbacks, aggravated assaults have more than tripled and shootings have nearly doubled since the municipality laid off a significant portion of their police service due to budget shortfalls.

In fact, research conducted on five New Jersey cities—Newark, Camden, Irvington, Paterson, and Trenton—before and after police layoffs indicates that the costs incurred from an increase in crime are almost 13 times greater than the costs they saved in municipal budgets from any cuts.

I also think it's important to note that Canada currently employs 203 police officers per 100,000 population and that this number is by no means out of the ordinary when compared to our international partners, who are often used as an example of why we should be having a discussion around reducing the size of our police forces. In fact, that number puts Canada behind similar countries, such as the United States at 242, England and Wales at 252, Australia at 262, and Scotland at 331 officers per 100,000 population. In fact, the numbers for England and Wales and for Scotland reflect massive cutbacks to officer strength that their police services have already suffered, and Canada's numbers are still well behind theirs.

Of course, now that I have painted a picture of doom and gloom, and before I get painted as a typical union boss who's standing in the way of progress, let me just say that the situation isn't nearly as bad as some might have you believe, and that I'm in fact hopeful that by adopting a few very achievable steps, we can begin to tackle the challenges facing our sector.

First and foremost is the need for additional investment, particularly by the Government of Canada, in the field of research for the police profession. Canada has over 200 police services at the municipal, provincial, federal, and first nation levels. Almost every one of these services is currently innovating new methods for tackling the challenges of community safety. However, we lack a formal structure to collect—and more importantly, to evaluate—the effectiveness of these innovations, which often means that not all communities are able to take advantage of the work being done on the ground in Canada.

I should note that this recommendation is not particular to my association. At the recent summit held here in Ottawa, this call was echoed by colleagues from across the spectrum, and I believe this is an excellent opportunity for the federal government to show leadership without making additional direct and financial investments in policing.

Second, there is a need to focus on finding efficiencies within the system as it currently exists. As I mentioned near the beginning of my presentation, there's no profession in Canada that is subject to and held accountable by so many political, legal, internal, and civilian agencies. Eliminating some of the duplication while still maintaining the necessary oversight would improve the job quality of our police personnel while introducing important cost savings into the sector.

However, it isn't simply the oversight mechanisms that need to be improved. We also need to examine methods to streamline the processes that currently keep our officers tied up doing administrative work behind their desks rather than having them out on the street where the community expects them to be.

As you have no doubt heard by now, changes forced on our profession by well-meaning judicial decisions have led to increased workloads and processing times for some of the most basic charges our officers lay.

Take impaired driving, for example. A process that in 1980 took one to two hours has now increased to eight to nine hours for a single officer. These sorts of increases are simply unsustainable across the board. I'd also note that improvements to court scheduling times would go a long way toward more efficient staffing. Too many of our officers spend their entire day sitting in a courthouse waiting for a particular trial, only to have that appearance rescheduled at the last possible moment, all at tremendous cost to the taxpayer.

Impaired driving charges and court scheduling are just two of the many examples I can provide in which common sense seems to have fallen by the wayside. With an increase in funding for research that can use evidence to study innovations to fix these basic problems, I have no doubt that we can go a long way toward cutting costs without resorting to the kinds of cutbacks in personnel that have led to the problems I outlined in other jurisdictions.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that your committee direct a focus toward the coordination of services across government lines, including policing. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, police today are called upon to fulfill a number of diverse roles in providing services that wouldn't necessarily fall under the term of public safety. We need a holistic approach, particularly with respect to funding for policing, that recognizes those diverse tasks.

Without a more coordinated approach, people may not realize that cuts to police services will also entail cuts to health care, as the officers who regularly deal with Canadians suffering from mental health problems will be affected. Those potential cuts will impact education, as officers who currently serve in our schools across the country will feel the impact. The list goes on. We cannot separate the investments we make in our police services from the benefits we receive across all of these sectors.

The fact is that police officers do a great job. Citizens call us because we solve problems in an efficient manner, and we can only do that because of the skills and training we have, skills and training that arguably are hard to replace and do not exist anywhere else in the public or private sector.

Police associations across Canada have been the leaders in our sector when it comes to addressing the challenges facing police funding, because to put it simply, the members I represent are all taxpayers too.

I think this committee has a tremendous opportunity to directly influence these discussions, and while my presentation today has by necessity focused only on a small section of this issue, I look forward to your questions and comments and hope I can provide additional clarity to help you in your deliberations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move over to Mr. Mukherjee. Forgive me if I've mispronounced that. We look forward to your comments on behalf of the police boards.

[Dr. Alok Mukherjee, President, Canadian Association of Police Boards]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

As has been said, my name is Alok Mukherjee, and I appear before you on behalf of the Canadian Association of Police Boards, of which I am the president. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to offer our comments on a study that is very important to our organization.

For some time now, our association has been working on the issue of economics of policing. In 2010 the CAPB took the lead in forming a coalition on sustainable public policing. This coalition includes the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Canadian Police Association, so if you hear some common themes, you will know that we have been working together. Public Safety Canada has been an important resource and ally in the work of our coalition.

Our active engagement with the issue stemmed from an initiative of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. In 2008 the CACP asked our organization, along with the FCM and the CPA, to endorse a framework for integrated policing on the basis that division of policing functions into federal, provincial, and local jurisdictions was artificial, since in the final analysis all policing was local.

While there was broad consensus that this framework reflected the reality of Canadian policing today, it was the CACP's position that discussion of the framework was incomplete without addressing the issue of financing of policing. As a result, in March 2010, CAPB, in cooperation with the other stakeholders, formed this national coalition. We are pleased that questions related to economics of policing are now on the national agenda as evidenced by your committee's study, the engagement of FPT ministers, and the very successful national summit hosted by Public Safety Canada recently on January 16 and 17.

The police boards and commissions that are our members are responsible for the governance and oversight of more than 75% of municipal police in Canada. One of their key responsibilities is the development and approval of the annual operating and capital budgets of their police services. It is their job to then explain and defend these budgets at their local city councils to justify the allocation of a significant portion of property tax revenue to policing. As you know, in communities where policing services are provided by the RCMP, or as in the case of Ontario by the OPP, the municipality enters into contracts directly with these national or provincial police agencies. Again, the cost is borne by the local property taxpayer.

Regardless of whether a community is served by a municipal police service or through contract policing, there is national concern and an intensifying debate as to whether our current model is sustainable. While our police agencies and the women and men who serve in them by and large enjoy high public esteem, the public at the same time is questioning the affordability of these services.

I should say this is not a new concern. In 1977 Judge C.O. Bick, the first chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, then known as the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Commissioners of Police, sounded the alarm in his final annual report as he ended his 21-year tenure at the helm. He said, and I quote:

The very real, very present danger is that the continued escalation of costs for police services will seriously weaken the financial ability of Metropolitan Toronto to contain the growth of crime. In its assessment of the future financing of police services, the Ontario Task Force on Policing stated that there is “a very real potential crisis in financing municipal police services. This crisis could result in the imposition of constraints to growth.” For us it is not a “potential” crisis, it has arrived.

That was in 1977, but Chair Bick may well have been speaking these words today, as trends in police expenditure from different police services show.

I'd like to share with you trends from three large police services in Ontario: Toronto, Durham, and Peel. These are three of the largest police services.

I draw your attention to the red line representing the rise in gross expenditures on policing. These are tracked over a period of approximately 12 to 15 years. As data from Toronto, Durham, and Peel police services demonstrate, a relatively consistent trend line was maintained until 1999. However, since then, total police expenditure growth has far outpaced all other indicators, including population growth, the growth in the number of police officers, and inflation. The situation is very similar throughout Canada.

Public policing in Canada has evolved significantly. Growing public expectations and demand for service, legislative changes, transfer of responsibility by different orders of government, and securitization of local policing in our post-9/11 world are among the factors that have changed the nature and mission of policing. Combined with trends in police sector compensation in the last decade, there are questions about sustainability of the cost of policing and the continuing relevance of the current model of financing local policing.

I have provided to the clerk of the committee a small number of background materials that shed light on these factors, and I ask that they be taken note of in any report your committee prepares.

Local policing today involves a number of functions besides dealing with crime. You have heard Mr. Stamatakis about that. Our officers are in schools. They assist people suffering from mental illness. They prevent social victimization. They police international waterways. They are involved in national security and anti-terrorism matters. They participate in integrated and joint policing projects, and the list goes on. Often they are the agency of first resort as other programs are reduced or eliminated due to the fiscal challenges we face. The mandate of our police services ranges from keeping local neighbourhoods safe from petty crime to interdicting acts of international terror.

For these reasons, we have accepted an integrated framework of policing. It stems from our recognition of reality. However, what we do not have is a sound and comprehensive economic analysis of our integrated system of policing. This is a broader analysis than of cost alone.

The discussion so far has been based on a subjective and largely political assessment that we are paying too much for policing and that the local property taxpayer is bearing a disproportionate burden of this cost, which should be shared by all orders of government. In fact, we cannot really tell what value our current model of policing truly adds in terms of factors such as community safety and wellness, national security, savings in other public expenditures, and impact on the community's total social, cultural, and economic development. We may have a fairly good idea of inputs and outputs, but we do not have any economic valuation of outcomes.

Further, we cannot tell whether the current system of financing policing from the local tax base is appropriate. We cannot tell whether, from a strictly economic standpoint, it is too much or just right to allocate between 25% and 30% of a municipality's annual budget to policing. We cannot tell objectively the extent to which this system of financing policing locally is subsidizing provincial and federal responsibilities.

I believe that an authoritative, credible, and independent economic model of local policing in Canada, taking into account all the variables, is a key prerequisite for an informed discussion of the economics of policing and the responsibility of different orders of government. This informed discussion is the missing track in our efforts to deal with the economic aspect of our model of policing.

The track on which we are beginning to make some progress is in controlling and reducing the cost of providing policing services. This was the main focus of the national summit on the economics of policing. This is what is being explored, for example, in Ontario through the provincial government's future of policing advisory committee. This is what many municipalities and police boards or commissions are trying to deal with through efficiency reviews, searching for alternative delivery models, determination of core and non-core police services, examination of functions that can be performed by personnel other than uniformed police officers and volunteers, consideration of public-private partnerships, maximization of the use of technology, efforts to determine what constitutes the right size of their services, struggling to achieve lower contract settlements, outright reduction in police budgets, and so on.

For example, the Toronto Police Services Board oversees Canada's largest municipal police service, which has total gross expenditures exceeding $1 billion. Over two years, the Toronto Police Services Board has reduced the police budget by a cumulative total of nearly 10%. There is no question that this is an important track for us to follow. By itself, however, this track will not help us deal comprehensively with the broader question of economics of policing as I have described it above. This is why it is the position of the CAPB that we first need to develop an objective and authoritative economic model of policing.

Second, we need a whole-system approach involving all our partners—those in health, education, social services, and justice, to name a few—in a meaningful dialogue on an integrated, broadly understood approach to community safety.

Third, we need the federal and provincial governments to acknowledge their financial responsibility for policing our communities. It is from this perspective that we welcome your study.

I will be glad to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. McFee, please.

[Dale McFee, Past President, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to sum up quickly so we have some time here.

Let me as well begin by thanking each of you, the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, for having me appear today regarding this very important study.

I am also very pleased to appear with our colleagues from the Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Police Boards, and the Quebec association of chiefs of police. Together, we have undertaken to examine this issue over the past few years.

During my presidency of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we recognized the fact that the growing cost of policing was unsustainable. We became well aware of the impact that the global economic downturn was having in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. We sought to learn from their experiences and questioned how we could improve the services we provide to our communities in a sustainable manner, recognizing that the complexities of policing continue to grow.

In 2012 the CACP initiated five regional conferences across Canada, bringing together chiefs of police, the CPA and the CAPB, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, government, academics, and private security organizations. Most recently, Public Safety Canada held its national summit on the economics of policing, which again brought together 250 representatives from each of these areas.

Jointly, we frame this issue using a three-pillar approach: one, efficiencies within police services; two, new models of community safety; and three, efficiencies within the justice system. Allow me to comment briefly on each.

From the point of view of efficiencies within police services, I agree with the CPA. They state that in comparing Canada to other G-8 countries, we have, serving in this vast land, the lowest ratio of law enforcement personnel per population. I also join them in saying that we achieve great value from our police officers, who deal with the ever-growing complexities of our profession.

Typically, in an overall police services budget, salaries represent 85% to 90% of the overall budget. Salaries are determined between union representatives and police boards or governments, depending upon jurisdiction.

Chiefs of police, however, are given the task of reducing overall costs. From this perspective, as chiefs, we cannot affect collective bargaining, but we can attempt to ensure that our officers are focused on utilizing their professional skills for more complex policing issues.

I have heard an appropriate analogy from the auto sector, which states that we do not need to use master mechanics to change flat tires. Perhaps we should not, for example, have police officers directing traffic. We are looking at striking the right balance among civilianization, privatization, and tiered policing. Tiered policing is already gaining acceptance through the use of special constables to perform routine duties.

We are increasingly looking at technology as a means of achieving greater efficiencies as well. The use of automatic licence plate scanners, for example, while controversial, allows us the means to provide even greater enforcement capabilities with less resources, and new analytical tools are producing the kind of business intelligence that can help us put our resources where they can have the most effect.

We are also reassessing what our core services are and the alternatives to how we deliver those services, which leads to the second pillar: new models for community safety, an area in which I have been a very strong advocate. The feedback from all of our conferences has been that law enforcement has often become the front line for all social issues.

Most chiefs will say that between 70% to 80% of all calls for service are not related to crime. The CACP's current president, Chief Chu, states, “I used to call us the social service agency of last resort. Now...we're the social service agency of first resort.” The evidence shows us that the federal and provincial government cuts to social services, the general impacts of the global economy, increasing problems arising from mental health, the abuse of substances and of alcohol, literacy rates, and the growing number of Canadians living in marginalized circumstances all have a profound impact on policing costs.

Police in Canada are introducing new, innovative approaches and sharing best practices towards developing new models of community safety. While I was the chief of the Prince Albert Police Service,we undertook extensive research and study, which led to the implementation of our community mobilization model. To summarize, we brought together social services, health, education, and other human services to share information, to understand better who in the community was having difficulties, and to help with immediate intervention plans to reduce the risks that lead to crime before crime happens. Victimization and a range of other social indicators all act in the same manner for the right reasons at the right time.

The model has already yielded unprecedented reductions and improvements across a range of indicators, from violent crime to emergency room admissions. It is a common sense model that has achieved significant success and has since been adopted by many police services, including those in Toronto and Sudbury and several throughout Saskatchewan. Just yesterday, my team was in Waterloo assisting multiple human services partners to move forward in similar ways.

If you subscribe to the fact that there is only one taxpayer, then you must subscribe to the fact that community safety is bigger than the police, and that collaboration also saves costs and delivers better service to those in need. As a matter of fact, it saves more costs than just those focused in one particular area. I hope that during this discussion you will afford me the opportunity to expand on the Prince Albert model, as I believe it is a game changer when discussing the issue of the economics of community safety.

We note changes made internationally by law enforcement in countries facing tough economic circumstances. For example, the deputy commissioner of the New Zealand Police stated that they were very good in enforcement, in response, but that changes they made resulted in more focus on crime prevention and on victims. He said they knew everything about crime but not necessarily about the victim, and that changed so that prevention came first. He said they found that a 4% redeployment into prevention equalled 13% less recorded crime equalled 19% fewer prosecutions, and he added that putting people through the criminal justice system does not produce the desired outcome.

We must ask ourselves if we need to re-evaluate those things we measure. Also, what does success look like, and what is the most cost-effective way to attain success?

We also support and are actively encouraging greater research in this area, in partnership with Canada's leading academics, to develop empirical best practices for policing and crime reduction.

The third pillar of our approach relates to finding greater efficiencies within the justice system. This is a role in which the federal government can provide leadership.

We can no longer afford to have police officers standing around in courts, often being paid overtime, and wondering if they are going to be called to testify or not. Driving under the influence arrests once took a couple of hours of paperwork; now it's a full shift. Warrants for such items as basic subscriber information relating to lawful access for Internet information will place an enormous burden on police resources. Case law changes that have expanded our responsibilities for disclosure absolutely demand that we make effective use of technology, such as electronic file transfers, right across the criminal justice system.

New strategies such as those I've described require that we find alternative ways of dealing with repeat offenders and the chronic administrative breach charges that clog the system. Also, mental health and addictions issues are creating a bottleneck for all service providers, leaving us with the distinct impression that we must do better.

By streamlining the justice system, we can reduce the costs of policing. It is quite astonishing and thought-provoking to understand the reality of the costs of justice in Canada. The overall cost of the Robert Pickton investigation in B.C. totalled $102 million, of which $70 million was spent on the RCMP investigation.

Academia tells us that there is a correlation between the financial markets and the evolution of policing since inception. This clearly shows us that we have the opportunity to be better than we were yesterday. That doesn't mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater or reinventing; it just means tweaking to make ourselves better.

Allow me to conclude my remarks with a quote from international finance crime author Jeffrey Robinson, who said, “We live in a world of laws based on a 17th century definition of jurisdiction, overseen by an 18th century model of jurisprudence, enforced by a 19th century model of law enforcement and governed by a pre-digital 20th century world of...regulations.”

And we are dealing with 21st century crime. Those of us who work within the system are pursuing new evidence-based innovations to change how we do business, and what we need is the active support of political leaders and policy-makers to continue these efforts and to engage all the necessary partners who can truly make a difference.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much to all our presenters.

We'll move quickly into the first round of questioning.

We'll go to Ms. Bergen, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. Again, you have given us a lot to look at and to think about.

I want to begin with you, Mr. Stamatakis. Mr. McFee, maybe you can also comment.

Mr. Stamatakis, you talked about the importance of research and investing in research. I think that one of the challenges we identified very early on in this study when we talked about this on Tuesday is the challenge of our country being so vast and so varied. What works in Toronto clearly doesn't work in rural Saskatchewan, and what works in northern Canada might not work on the east coast in terms of where money can be saved and where resources need to be spent.

I'm wondering if you can tell me if you're aware of any other countries or any other parts of countries where some of this research has already been done and reflects somewhat our country and some of the same challenges we face.

[Tom Stamatakis]

Thank you for the question.

What I would say in response is that Canada is the only country that doesn't have some kind of national body or holding area for the research that is being done, so I guess I would use the same words to describe research done in other countries. When you try to look at it to bring it into this country and apply it here, what works in the U.K. doesn't necessarily work in Canada, and what works in Australia doesn't necessarily work in Canada.

However, what those countries do have is a national organization established specifically not just to conduct research but also to gather research and to hold it, so that the small rural department in Saskatchewan, for example, can go to that body and ask, “What's out there?” It can then find those pieces of research that are informed by good information and have been evaluated and can actually establish that there are clear benefits to these programs. Then they can pick the ones that will work for their community. Toronto might go with a program that works in that densely populated urban area, whereas a small community in Saskatchewan would go with something else that works in a rural area with many different challenges.

It is a vast country. We have challenges that urban areas face, and there are other challenges that rural communities face that are just as significant but that create different problems for governments, for police agencies, etc.

That's what's missing in this country. Australia has a national agency. Scotland has a national agency. The U.K. has a national agency. The U.S. has several national agencies. They have a sole function: to conduct research, to gather research, and to make it available to police forces across those countries.

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

Thank you very much.

We had some officials from Public Safety here on Tuesday. Mr. Potter was referring to a catalogue. It seems like that's probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what needs to be done, but it's good to know that there are other countries doing it. Maybe then we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Mr. McFee, do you have anything you wanted to say on that?

[Dale McFee]

Yes, I have a couple of things.

You make a few distinct points that I think are bang on. The thing before the research comes in is the framework to “act local”. We do have that in Canada. We have it in a few locations. The Prince Albert framework that I've given you basically has all the agencies working under one roof and setting the local priorities. The framework will work anywhere.

As is being shown, it's starting to go across the country. That is giving a community the ability to act on local community priorities and invert the CBOs and the NGOs to ensure they're in line with the same activities. Then what you've created is alignment, and basically you save on the resources, the services, and the money because you've streamlined the process. In a community, you might be working on the top seven priorities instead of having a whole group of agencies working on priorities 17 through 20, which you don't have the resources to do.

The second part of what we're tying to that right now is that the CACP has started a research foundation, which is brand new. They're starting to look at topics, but the piece that's missing is that pointer journal. There are examples of it in the U.S. That can be as simple as having a box checked that tells you if something has worked or hasn't.

As a practical example, if you have a community in northern Manitoba that's in trouble and we've had something that worked with regard to those same issues that the community in Manitoba has, why do we go and study it for four years? Why don't we take it off the shelf, reroute it through the process, put it into the community in Manitoba, and get the action today, rather than letting them suffer for another three years? We are working on that. We're very close to trying to make that happen.

Those are bang on, those key components. It's the streamlining of the process, and the savings are in the streamlining. You put a peer group above that. In our world, it'll be a DM advisory council with various academics, such as Irvin Waller and former chief judge Ray Wyant, and collaborative people such as a mental health expert out of New York, a cross-training expert out of the University of Cincinnati or Cincinnati's justice institute....

So yes, that does exist. We're not far away. We presented this to Public Safety Canada on Tuesday.

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

That's good.

I think the website that you're referring to in the States, at least the one that we were told about, is CrimeSolutions.gov.

[Dale McFee]

Yes.

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

Could you also expand a bit on the Prince Albert model? Is it called Hub and COR? Is that correct?

[Dale McFee]

Yes, the Hub and the COR; that's back to giving the framework to act local. I always use the analogy of a McDonald's in Canada and a McDonald's in Japan. With a franchise, basically everything is the same. The letters are the same, the cookware and the software are the same. The only thing that varies is the menu; the menu is what really gives communities the “act local”.

If you focus a structure that has multi-collaborative agencies all under one roof, and they all put in their resources and realize that they have to do business more collaboratively or differently, the cost savings from going once collaboratively versus literally 40 or 50 times individually is huge. More importantly, it gives better service to the client.

With Hub you have 24- to 72-hour solutions for things that come to the table. You don't form a committee, you don't push it under this person's phone, you don't worry about who pays for it; you go and find out what the issue is and you deal with it.

Those things that aren't solved in those 24 to 72 hours, things that basically overlap the brain trust or the brain piece, are the systemic issues, the things that maybe we have to push up or write a policy paper on for government to make decisions.

The policy paper isn't written by health, it isn't written by the police, and it isn't written by social services; it's written by all, with front-level, front-line people actually reviewing it before it comes up to you, so that you see a more comprehensive piece of work that looks at how it affects the individual and the community and not just how it affects policing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Garrison, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much to all three of you for appearing today. It's really quite refreshing to talk about some new approaches to the problems of community safety and building safer communities in Canada. I really commend all three organizations for working on it both individually and collaboratively, as I know you've been doing.

Mr. McFee, we've seen a lot of emphasis in this Parliament on legislative actions that increase penalties for crime. I wonder how that fits with the Hub and COR model you've been talking about in Prince Albert, and also how that fits with the administrative burden that gets placed on police. There are many people who will argue that more mandatory minimums and higher penalties cause more people to fight more cases in court rather than have the alternatives of diversion.

Perhaps I could ask you to comment on that.

[Dale McFee]

Sure. That's a great question.

I was in front of the committee on Bill C-10, I believe, and we support that. I think the reason we support it is that this is the balance piece. If I could change one thing in a conversation, I would change “hard on crime, arrest and incarcerate; soft on crime, prevention and intervention” to “smart on community safety”. As I've said many times, the reality is that we're not going to arrest our way out of our troubles, but at the same time, we're not going to stop arresting.

There are people who need to go to jail. People who are committing horrendous crimes need to go to jail. It doesn't mean we forget about them; we have all kinds of great programming in our institutions that we need to basically give them and try to rehabilitate them and get them back into society in that contained environment.

At the same time, if you look at police services and you take down our calls for services—this comes from when I was a chief of police—it's the 75:25:5 rule: 75% of the calls are for antisocial behaviour, meaning that left unchecked, it will become criminal activity; 25% of the calls are criminal in nature; and 5% lead to criminal charges. It's about balance. We have to attack all sides at the same time, so I fully support this on behalf of the CACP, but I think what we're having a discussion about today is what that balanced piece looks like, if that makes sense.

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

Can I ask you the same question, Mr. Stamatakis?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I agree with Mr. McFee. It is a question of balance.

There needs to be some deterrence. The Canadian Police Association and the police officers I represent on the front line support there being a strong response to those who wreak havoc in our communities and engage in activities that victimize citizens. At the same time, we're engaged in many crime prevention activities. The proactive piece is just as important as the deterrence, but the fact is that in some cases.... I think Mr. McFee referred to the chronic offenders we typically deal with. At some point, incarcerating them means that people are not going to be victimized for a period of time, whatever the duration of the sentence is.

The final comment I'll make is that the reality is that even before the introduction of minimum mandatory sentences or other measures around that, in our system right now the fact is that people dispute and argue everything. That's one of the significant inefficiencies that exist in our criminal justice system. We're spending days and days attending to matters in court that are relatively minor matters and that we're not dealing with efficiently at all. That comes at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer.

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

Is there a solution there perhaps for some alternative dispute resolution measures as opposed to using the justice system for those more minor matters?

[Tom Stamatakis]

We completely support that. All across this country police agencies are involved in alternative dispute resolution processes.

It's interesting. There was a recent study out of New York, for example. New York seems to be bucking the trend in terms of the number of police officers deployed in that city. They're also bucking the trends that exist in other parts of America, because they have lower incarceration rates and, as a result of that, significant savings because they are not housing prisoners.

It's probably because they have a lot of police officers who not only have driven down crime but also are engaged in a lot more proactive policing activities. As a result, they're finding that more people are being dealt with in advance of getting into the prison system, and if they are going, it's for a short duration, so they're not getting the longer-term housing issues that come with tremendous costs.

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

Thank you.

I would also like to thank you for bringing our attention to some of the research that's been done on the results of layoffs in policing. I know that police all across the country have been working on efficiencies and will continue to do that. I know everybody appreciates those efforts.

I want to turn to the Association of Police Boards. As a former police board member myself, I know police boards have been asking these questions of themselves for a long time. I appreciate that the police boards have now started to ask others to join them in trying to tackle these local policing costs.

Maybe I could ask Mr. Mukherjee something.

You talked about the factors that have helped drive costs, including securitization of local policing after 9/11. Can you say just a little more about the impacts you see from that?

[Dr. Alok Mukherjee]

Sure.

As I said, we support an integrated framework that includes all of these different functions, but we do face some challenges. Just yesterday I was in a place called LaSalle, near Windsor. I was talking to a board member from Windsor, and he said there's a small river, the Detroit River, that separates Windsor from Detroit. On the U.S. side, the guarding of that water is the responsibility of the U.S. Army and four other agencies. On the Canadian side it is the responsibility of the Windsor police. It's one of those unguarded borders through which a number of different kinds of trafficking take place, including human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and so on, and the responsibility falls on the local police with their limited resources.

We face it in Toronto. As you would know, when 18 individuals were arrested and charged with planning a terrorist act, the Toronto Police Service was very actively involved in the operation, and for good reason. I mean, who knows the local community better than the local police service? Toronto worked closely with the RCMP and with other partners to investigate and identify those individuals and to gather the evidence, but doing that does come with a cost.

Those are just two quick examples of how securitization, legislatively, has placed some responsibilities on the local police service. It has other implications in terms of governance and oversight, as we found out during G-20, when the local police cease to be under the oversight of the local police board, but that's a different issue.

In terms of the economics of policing, as I said, there is good justification for involving the local police service in these important matters, but it does come with a cost.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mr. Norlock, please.