Public Safety Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Ms. Bergen, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, both, for being here.

Deputy Commissioner, we're doing this study on the economics of policing with a view to looking at how to improve efficiencies and to see if, at the federal level, we can provide models for provinces and municipalities to work together to reduce costs.

Given the complexity of investigations, given the fact that even at the local level police are asked to do so much, is this a realistic goal? Can we reduce the cost of policing without reducing the number of front-line officers still delivering the services, still doing the excellent work that Canadian police are known throughout the world to do? Is this doable?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Absolutely, there is no doubt in my mind that this is doable.

I keep going back to re-engineering, and you'll please forgive me, but this is our flagship and we're quite interested in seeing where it will take us. Re-engineering did not start from the requirement for cost savings. Re-engineering predates this. We've been working at this for a number of years.

The current economic situation has forced us to take probably a more aggressive stance on how we would re-engineer and it has forced us to have a look at some of our processes. We've found significant room for savings in some of the areas.

For example, we're in the process of civilianizing a significant number of positions at headquarters. We've identified a lot of redundancy that existed in our processes. We're eliminating that. The whole construct of our national headquarters and how it operates is completely changing and we started standing it up last Friday, if I remember correctly. Just in the headquarters piece alone, we were able to reduce the federal footprint in our headquarters by approximately 100 regular members.

I think the economics of policing should be looked at as an amazing opportunity for law enforcement agencies to be innovative and to think outside the proverbial box on how they do business.

I know from speaking to my colleagues at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police that's very much the discussion and those are very much the optics through which economics of policing are being looked at.

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

That's good to hear because I think we all recognize the challenges are greater. At the beginning of your comments you even referred to the greater need and that there is more accountability, many more eyes are on you, and so much more is required.

I wonder about your thoughts on the issue of more local policing. We've heard from different witnesses about local police, city police, who are obviously dealing with major crimes, but also some of those smaller crimes that are issues that come out of mental illness and addiction. We've heard about some good programs, good models, that are in place to deal with that.

I know there is not a lot of research right now, and that's where we find a gap. Where would it be better for police to focus? Would it be dealing with some of the smaller problems, like the broken window syndrome, except that now we're talking about policing as opposed to fighting crime and reducing the cost, or is the technology changing, as you referred to?

You're doing so much more work internationally. Where do you think the greater focus should be: at the local level, reducing costs and making sure it's more efficient, or keep investing heavily and finding ways at the federal level to be more efficient?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

That's an interesting question. I would suggest that it's not so much in terms of which area should be favoured, but rather maintaining or attaining the right balance between the international, the major cases, and the local level.

As I alluded to earlier, through CIROC, one of the realizations was that the local level crime, what you referred to, I believe, as a smaller kind of crime, has a direct link to some of the bigger organizations operating and affecting our society. At times, I would agree that, yes, this is where the investment should be made, but it has to be done in a coordinated fashion. It's all about trying to identify, and being successful at identifying, the weakest point of a criminal organization. If it starts at the front line, then that's where we should be concentrating.

I would suggest that in the process, we need to make sure we maintain a certain balance.

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

It was interesting when you talked a little bit about the change in not focusing on commodities. I was going to ask you what you meant by that, and then you did provide some explanation. Is that a principle? I guess you'll see if that works. Is that something that could be passed on even at the local level, or is the reverse maybe better at the local level, when they're focusing more on commodities?

[Supt Angela Workman-Stark]

I think the approach on that, and it touched a little bit on your prior question, really is, again, moving away from commodities, whether it's drugs, counterfeit goods, or intellectual property type issues. It is really taking a broader view of the actual threat. What is that threat? What is that threat engaged in? By looking at that aspect instead of a much narrower view, that's where we're going to have greater effectiveness. Those have been some of the challenges in the past. Without having that opportunity of looking more horizontally, we've missed opportunities and probably haven't been as effective as we could have been. I think that's more the approach.

If I could add onto your prior question, I really think of this as a golden opportunity for an all-hands-on-deck approach to look at the problem and embrace academia in that dialogue about where law enforcement is most effective, what type of impact we're having in reducing the harm, and determining where the role of the different agencies is in that, because it is a whole of government approach at this point in time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here. Your presentation has been very interesting.

Mr. Leef took Mr. Garrison's question, and Mr. Garrison took my question.

It's a very interesting issue that we're looking at here. It seems that there's probably going to be a shift within, say the RCMP, towards maybe hiring officers, towards hiring a greater proportion of civilians. Is that what you envision for the future? It sounds to me, with the growing complexity of crime, you need more people to coordinate, more analysts, more technical experts, and so on. I would think that if you look at the staffing numbers over time that you'd have a growth in the proportion of civilians versus the proportion of traditionally trained police officers. Would you agree with that?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

I'd say it's a pretty accurate representation. I do anticipate that the percentage of the different categories of employee will change over time. We're already seeing it in the re-engineering. It's about having the right person with the right expertise doing the right things. We also need to factor in the abilities of some of our partner agencies, whether law enforcement or otherwise, to make sure we eliminate any kind of duplication or overlap and we have better coordination.

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

Will this save money in and of itself? Are the salaries of civilian RCMP employees lower than the salaries of traditional police officers? Are you expecting to get a cost saving through that shift of emphasis over to having more civilians?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Notionally, I believe there would be cost savings associated with that exercise, but the goal of what we're doing now was not economic, actually, when we started. It was not economically driven. It was focused, again, on making sure we have our law enforcement officers at the front line of federal policing.

In the process, though, there have been economies that have been realized. Some of those economies will be reinvested to the front line or support areas, and some of the economy will simply be lost to some of the deficits that we have now.

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

The RCMP is facing a reduced budget envelope. It's facing cuts.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Yes.

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

The government has said, with respect to other departments, not to worry about front-line service because the cuts are all going to impact the back office. It seems to me that in your business, the back office is really, in many ways, and more and more and more, the nerve centre of the operation. It's not police officers on the beat, per se; it's this bureaucracy of analysts and experts who are tracking crime across interprovincial borders and internationally and so on and so forth.

I have a hard time squaring in my mind the fact that on the one hand we have budget cuts to the RCMP and on the other hand we have the increasing complexity of crime.

If you look at financial crime alone, it takes months and months and months and years to really get to the point where you can charge individuals because what they're doing is so complex. Financial transactions are so complex. There's that. There's the whole issue of counterfeiting, which is now exploding. I've seen the statistics. We've gone beyond printing bills in a basement—and in saying ”we”, that's the royal “we”—to tracking fraudulent counterfeit consumer products, electronic products that are now finding their way into aircraft electronics and so on.

The world is becoming more globalized. To me I see it a bit like the health care issue. Costs are being driven not so much by salaries but just by the complexity of the industry, if you want to call it that. If you start to try to cut by rationalizing, someone's going to get hurt. In the health care system, if you say that you're just going to keep costs constant, in the face of more expensive drugs, people are going to die just from waiting too long, perhaps, for a procedure. I'm very skeptical about the ability to squeeze more out of the policing system at a time when we need policing more, maybe.

You talked about some initial economies, and I'm sure you're right, but maybe they're just initial economies, and once those are done you can't repeat those economies year after year after year. Once you've restructured, you can't keep restructuring every year and saving that way. I'd like your comment on that.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

I don't know where to start.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have about a minute.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Okay, I'll try to do this within a minute.

It's actually a very complex question that you're asking. I don't think there's any simple answer to it, but I think I'd like to take the opportunity to clarify something. Yes, the RCMP is subject to what some would call significant budget reductions, but that has nothing to do with federal policing and what we're doing now.

Federal policing was not impacted by the deficit reduction action plan. We were not. We were excluded from that. That being said, we have other issues that are negatively impacting us, for example, the unfunded salary pay raises over the past three years, which equated to approximately 179 members who we have now to take off the books. There's an affordability, and our affordability is shrinking. You're absolutely right.

What's the risk associated with this shrinking affordability when we compare that with the restructuring we're doing and all the efficiencies we're realizing? You may not agree with me, but I believe that the exercise we're going through now will actually allow us to provide a better service to Canadians than we are now. Re-engineering is not simply about reducing the number of employees and looking at categories of employees. It also involves providing flexibility to our managers in the field to be able to deploy their resources to the highest priorities and the latest emerging threat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Garrison and Mr. Rousseau on a split.

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

Yes, it's a split, and I'm going to try to be very brief. I want to follow up on the commercial crime area. Anecdotally, as MPs, several of us have run across what constituents see as a problem in terms of bankruptcy fraud.

My understanding of the way it works is that the Superintendent of Bankruptcy turns over files to the RCMP for investigation if there has been fraud in bankruptcy. What we are being told anecdotally is that unless the assets are of a certain value the RCMP simply does not investigate those files at this time, because the demand is too great. Do you have any comment that you can make publicly on that?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

I have a couple of comments, actually, if you'll allow me.

I will start by saying that you're absolutely right. Currently, there are assessments that are being done on what I would refer to...I referred to calls for service earlier. That would fall in that category. Our managers have to assess the severity of the file or the matter that's being referred to them and compare it with everything else.

My second comment is that we're moving away from that. Again, we're moving away from focusing on the commodities and looking at the organizations and the individuals that are behind a criminal offence. If a relatively minor, and I say “relatively”, fraudulent bankruptcy actually allows us to impact a significant criminal organization or individual, the new prioritization model takes that into consideration. In the future, we will be doing that.

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

Okay.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Things are changing. Things are shifting. This is why it's important for us now more than ever to have dialogue with all of our partners, including the office of....

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

The Superintendent of Bankruptcy?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Yes, the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.