Public Safety Committee on Jan. 31st, 2013

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for appearing.

Because Mr. Stamatakis and I have a similar background, I'll start with him; you always go with the most familiar people.

Having been a police officer and having faced some of the issues you face on a daily basis, and having had an active part in the bargaining unit in this area of eastern Ontario, I understand the pressures you're under from your membership.

One of the things I've mentioned to some of my Ontario Provincial Police friends and family is my fear that policemen are going to bargain their way out of a job. We've just heard witnesses say that perhaps policemen don't need to direct traffic, or perhaps they don't need to run a radar set because we know there is technology out there that can gauge speed. All I see is the number of well-trained police officers becoming a very special unit, and then a whole bunch of others. I see danger there. I see huge dangers there.

I have a question. Our government is trying to find efficiencies government-wide. We're going to be able to find efficiencies of about $4 billion by the time we hit 2014-2015. Are you able to speak to how you will be reducing spending or assisting the jurisdictions that your police departments are in? Are you working with the police services boards and the chiefs of police and looking for cost savings, or is your message to us that it's their job and your job is to bargain the best deal you can for your members?

[Tom Stamatakis]

My job is to bargain the best deal that I can for my members, but it has to be in the context of the challenges we are discussing here today and that taxpayers across this country are facing, which is why we have been working collaboratively with the Canadian Association of Police Boards and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. You have seen lots of common elements in our presentations today.

We're—

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Excuse me, Mr. Stamatakis. You say you're working with them. Are you working with them to look for ways to reduce policing costs as they are mandated by their bosses and in the end the people who pay your salary? It's easy to say you're working with them, but are you working with them to find efficiencies and cost savings?

I ask this because there are certain municipalities in the province of Ontario where 50% of their municipal budgets, I am told, are for policing services alone. That's why I'm asking you this question. If you're truly going to work collaboratively, you have to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Please continue.

[Tom Stamatakis]

With the greatest respect, sir, in my presentation I included at least a couple of examples of recommendations we made at the federal level around changes that could be easily made and that would realize significant efficiencies and reduce costs.

I think, though, that we need to have the conversation in some context. When it comes to the kinds of police officers you want to recruit, you can't add layers of accountability and increase scrutiny and increase expectations with respect to training and impose more training on police officers, and then expect there's not going to be a cost associated with that.

We are making presentations on a regular basis. I would argue that we're at the front of the discussion around where to find better ways of doing things and how to use technology better to find those savings. However, as I said in my submission, when—depending on who you talk to—80% to 90% of the costs are associated with people and you start to look at finding savings, unless you want to reduce the size of your workforce, it's a challenge.

We're part of that discussion. We are not just engaging in discussion; we're providing real examples of things that could be done to find those savings so that we can use tax dollars as efficiently as we can.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

In reference to policing costs, would you say there's a fair balance between federal, provincial, and municipal governments in regard to responsibilities and resources? In other words, are there costs savings to be had?

Number one, have we struck the right balance in this country? I look at other countries that have more integrated police. Have we struck the right balance? Do you think there would be efficiencies in looking at this whole jurisdictional issue?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I think you have to look at the jurisdictional issue, but I think you need to look across government services. I don't think this is a question of spending more money; I think there's lots of money being spent in this country at every level of government in terms of providing services. It's how we use those services, and I think you've heard some examples today from Mr. McFee.

There are many other examples, if we had more time, that I think show there are tremendous opportunities to have all agencies, whether police or social services or education or health, working together more efficiently and sharing information so that we utilize the dollars that exist in the system now more effectively to provide better service. I don't think it's a question of saying we have to spend a bunch more money.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mukherjee, you heard my questions. We have only about a minute left. Can you give some brief responses to those two questions?

[Dr. Alok Mukherjee]

Well, your first question about police contracts is an important question, as you mentioned and Mr. Stamatakis mentioned. Over 88% of our budget goes into policing costs and compensation, and in Ontario, for example, the difference between the highest-paid and the lowest-paid jurisdiction is under $1,000.

That doesn't make sense. The cost of living varies from community to community, so it is an area that has to be looked at. We have started talking about it. You are quite right; we are talking about this. I mentioned that in Toronto we reduced our budget by about 10%. How did we do it? We had to put a freeze on hiring and promotions—i.e., reduce the number of people in our organization—in order to be able to afford the contract.

On your second question about jurisdiction, I think Mr. Stamatakis is quite right that there is a lot of money being spent—$12 billion just in security, and if you add up the other jurisdictions, there's even more. Have we struck the right balance? I would have to say no, and that's why you heard both of us say we need a whole-system approach in which we need to look at policing in the broader context of community safety. The things police are doing these days—Mr. McFee talked about this—cut across jurisdictions, but we look at policing only in the context of public safety.

I propose that we need to do an economic modelling, because relief is being provided in other portfolios because the police are taking on certain costs. We need to do that analysis. We don't have that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

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

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I'll ask Mr. McFee or Mr. Mukherjee or whoever would like to answer this question whether there are areas in which we're not putting enough resources. We've heard about how we put too many of our police resources into dealing with mental health issues among the population, for example, or into spending full days in court, but are there areas in which, if there were savings, it would be wise to reinvest those savings?

I'm thinking, for example, of financial crime. I guess that would be more RCMP. Would the local police be involved in financial crime? I'm thinking, of course, of cybercrime.

[Dale McFee]

If I could pick areas, being a practitioner now in the current role that I'm in and having listened to some of the examples we've seen coming out of the collaborative work, I would say that we're doing fairly well on organized crime. Obviously it's something that always evolves. I think cybercrime will become something that we need to do a lot of further work on, because there will certainly be an evolution in that area with technology.

I think we could put it into three streams. If I were at the helm and were designing three streams, the first stream I would design would be the multi-collaborative approach to crime reduction. If it's predictable, it's preventable. That's the front-end intervention, taking folks right out of the system.

I think we are staffed well to investigate the back end. We do very well in solving crime and we do very well in investigations, but I think if we had a collaborative approach based on the data and the technology, based on evidence and outcomes, we could take a large portion of the people right out of the justice system.

For instance, in Prince Albert with its model today, violent crime is down 31.9%. That's phenomenal. That has never happened. That's one stream.

If I could have stream two with that same collaborative approach, it would be focused solely on mental health and addictions. If there were a collaborative approach for mental health and addictions, you could have the same framework. You wouldn't need another framework. Basically that framework would be an A to Z, right from facilities to how we take folks out of correctional facilities to how we rehabilitate to how we use the forensics or the science to make sure we get the right basic intervention or the right treatment at the right time. That would be stream two.

If I built the third stream, it would be based on educational outcomes, focusing on literacy, focusing on parenting, focusing on absenteeism in schools, focusing on all-inclusive, because we know through the data that there's a direct correlation in the ability to read before grade three and the connection to crime.

When we're looking at a comprehensive strategy, those are three things that plague our country, especially in our marginalized areas. In that other stream you mentioned, I think cybercrime is another area that will continue to evolve.

In a lot of the areas we do a really good job. Canada is known for its professionalism in policing. We're known for our transparency in how we deal with it. It's not by accident that Canada's going to Saudi Arabia to train them in how to investigate. We get asked that all the time.

With regard to the accountability framework we talked about in response to Mr. Norlock's question, we have to be careful not to lose that. As soon as we move police into the private sector versus having police in maybe a low-risk policing model, we run the risk of losing that accountability and professionalism we've striven so hard to attain in this country, so I think we have to tread carefully there.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

You're saying to reinvest the savings in non-policing strategies—literacy, and so on and so forth—but when we're talking about where you would reinvest in terms of police budgets, it would be in things like cybercrime, I suppose.

[Dale McFee]

I don't think those are non-policing strategies.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

But you would use police officers in those areas of education, literacy—

[Dale McFee]

Absolutely. That's the problem: those aren't health strategies and they're not police strategies; they're community safety strategies. That's where the discussion is and the savings are. They're the high-use folks in our system, and how we deal with them, I think, needs the collective expertise of a police officer, a social worker, a cognitive person in a correctional facility, a mental health and addictions worker, and a social worker on housing. If we don't put that expertise at the table, it doesn't—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Yes, and I agree with those strategies. I'm just not sure about the role of police officers in all those aspects.

Someone mentioned—perhaps it was Mr. Stamatakis—that nowadays a charge of driving under the influence means that a police officer is tied up for a full day in court. What would you change so that wouldn't be the case? You said you had many specific recommendations to unburden police officers.

[Tom Stamatakis]

In response to your first question, let me just say this. Here's the frustration.

I represent front-line cops, and that's where my experience comes from. We're already talking about savings and reinvesting those savings. We're having a discussion around the economics of policing and what's sustainable and not. To Mr. Mukherjee's point, no one has defined yet what sustainable funding for policing is in this country. No one wants to talk about what core policing in the 21st century is, so what is it that we're not going to have police officers do? When are we going to engage the community in this discussion so that we can hear from them what they don't want police officers to do?

To your first point around where we would reinvest savings, we're not even scratching the surface when it comes to financial crime, white-collar crime, cybercrime.

This has to be part of the discussion of what we expect police to do in the 21st century, because we're not the agency of first resort. We've become the agency of preferred choice in this country. People phone the police because they know that we will come and deal with whatever their issue is. The trick is what happens after the police come. How can we use the other opportunities that exist out there to be more efficient in the aftermath of the police response? That's what's missing, so to your point around what do we do with the savings, I'm not even sure we've had a discussion around what we think the police should be doing in this country.

In terms of the court piece, police officers go to court to provide their information. In my experience as a front-line police officer going to court, I can't tell you the number of times I've sat in court all day long, only to be told at the end of the day, or after the defence counsel knows that I'm there to give my evidence, that there's a rescheduling or there's a reason to find a way to delay the trial. It's become part of the strategy, because if witnesses don't show up, then the trial can't go ahead. That means the accused person gets to walk, or whatever. There have to be ways of using technology, particularly in the minor cases, so that my evidence could just be admitted as part of the record.

If it's a contentious issue. It affects a person's right to have a fair, appropriate, and full defence. Fair enough; let's have the officer come in and give evidence, but there have to be ways we can use technology so that the police officer won't be sitting in court from nine o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Like teleconferencing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to the opposition.

Madame Doré Lefebvre is next, please.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our four witnesses for joining us today. This discussion is extremely interesting. Many points have been raised that we may not have considered and some others that had already been mentioned but should be looked into further.

The examples you provided show that police forces across the country are facing growing challenges. I thought Mr. McFee's and Mr. Stamatakis's remarks were very interesting. Among other things, they talked about an integrated or co-operative approach among various public assistance services.

In Quebec, some attempt was made to use that integrated approach in the fight against street gangs, which represent a growing problem in our large urban centres.

Can you propose any potential solutions—integrated solutions—regarding the fight against street gangs? We could be talking about reaching out to young people before they join a street gang. Do you have any examples of what your members do when it comes to that?

Mr. McFee, I would like to hear your comments.

[Dale McFee]

I agree with you on the integrated approach. I think the Quebec example is an excellent example, and there are many others across the country.

The response boils down to the risk. If we categorize folks as low, medium, and high risk, the response should be in accord. The response in relation to an active street gang shouldn't be the same as for those who we can predict are headed to the street gang. If we use risk assessment and an assessment tool at the earliest opportunity, maybe we can stop folks from getting into the street gang. That's a huge opportunity for us.

That said, you are not going to deal with it the same way at the back end. If we look at it from a cradle-to-grave approach based on risk and assessment—in other words, as Thomas said, if we put in the research and the evidence and we focus on the outcomes and the best response in a particular situation based out of a centre of excellence or based on the science—then we are further ahead.

Across the country, for the most part, we do a pretty good job with organized crime. Could we get better? Will we need to keep up? Will we need to enhance that? Absolutely, because it's an evolving world where there are not a lot of rules. They get to change quickly, whereas the police have all the rules on their side and quite frankly don't change as quickly. How do you stop those pre-identified folks? In our case, it was the Joe story when we built it. In Scotland, it was the David story. There are many other examples across this country. How do you do a timeline on an individual when you know where they are actually headed? How do you use the collaborative response—the collaborative agencies, teachers, and social workers—and how do you take that young person out of that environment and give them the help they need based on what they need?

We have a system in Canada that is much like the system everywhere else. Our system is designed to wait for people to get in the system, and then we tell them how to fix them. The reality is that for the majority of those who are headed into our system, we know they are headed there, but we don't offer the olive branch to ask what we can do to help. Most people will choose that right thing, but they are so stuck in environments that they can't get out of.

A lot of it is the marginalized component. We know they are headed there, but as soon as they are there, we say, “Here is the thing you need to do. Here's what you need to do.” I know how I am when somebody tells me what I have to do, and I don't think anybody else is probably any different.

Could we balance that? Yes, 100%, we could balance that.

That said, as Tom and Alok have mentioned, we have to keep our eye on the ball on this side, too, because there are risks to community and business. There are financial risks. It's tied into some of the major businesses that we bring into our country. We have to have a cradle-to-grave response.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Excellent.

Mr. Mukherjee, do you have anything to add?

[Dr. Alok Mukherjee]

In 30 seconds....

An integrated approach takes different forms, depending on what we are talking about.

I agree with Dale and the explanation he gave. Within the service, there can be an integrated approach as well.

A question was asked earlier about using a police officer for everything. I would suggest—this is a discussion that's happening—that we can have an integration of different skill sets within the police service to deal with a problem in the way that Dale mentioned, from diagnosis to prosecution. We don't need to have a police officer perform all the roles.

We go into schools for school safety; there is no reason the police agency couldn't have youth workers doing that, rather than a uniformed police officer.

We go and deal with domestic violence. There is no reason social workers couldn't be part of an integrated approach taken by the service to that issue. We already do that, for instance, in dealing with mental health: we pair up a mental health nurse with a police officer. They go out in a mobile crisis team, and they deal with the issue together.

In addition to the kind of inter-agency integration that Mr. McFee has talked about, there can be integration of different skill sets within the agency .

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We will move to Mr. Hawn, please.