Public Safety Committee on Feb. 12th, 2013

[Chief Alf Rudd]

Thank you. That's a good question, Mr. Rafferty.

Of course, we've formed a lot of joint committees. We've collaborated with the other agencies that come into contact with the population, and I can speak referencing specifically the Mennonite influx that we've had into the community. They are illiterate because of some of their beliefs and followings, and that's caused a great concern because it's difficult to find employment for them. We're primarily an agricultural area and there is a lot of work here, and that's what actually brings them here. We've put together a number of committees that strive to have them adapt a little more easily to the flow of things here.

We've integrated some into our victim services unit so we can provide services to them. Domestic violence is an issue and to combat that we've had to bring them on board with us. These things are working, and haven't come with any costs at all. They're free. It's just a matter of getting together and developing plans to integrate them into the education system and to have them understand what the laws of the land are so they don't come in conflict with them.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay. Thank you, Chief Rudd, for that answer.

Chief McGrogan, you mentioned briefly in your comments federal legislation with no funding attached and the issues that this causes in your particular community. Funnily enough, we're having that discussion now in the House concerning the witness protection program. There are some changes coming to that legislation, which are welcomed, but there is no funding attached, the minister has said.

I wonder if you would like to expand on that particular issue.

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

Yes, thank you.

Provincially, they're working on witness protection legislation, as well. Again, the chiefs across the province are concerned about the costs that are involved. Right now we're looking at how to absorb those costs. If you look at a community such as ours, the protection of one witness, if funded through the municipality, has a major impact on our budget.

We're watching this legislation and really trying to determine where it's going to unfold at this time. We have people, of course, who are involved in the committees, discussing the various potential outcomes in relation to that.

We know it is important to protect witnesses. We totally understand that. How it's going to impact us financially, of course, is our biggest concern.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

Do I still have a moment here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have two minutes.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Still with you, Chief McGrogan, on the same question of shifting populations that I had for Chief Rudd, policing is changing. Police officers on the street are being used for other things now, perhaps the same kind of call over and over again. In terms of these shifting populations, I wonder if you could perhaps share some of the strategies you're using, in particular, in reference to first nations communities as that urban population continues to increase.

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

One of the things we did, which probably sounds quite operational in nature and which is not a new thing, was implement a priority street crimes unit to go after some of that low-hanging fruit that continually—those calls that you mentioned—repeat over and over again. It's more of a directed policing approach to some of the issues we have, almost like a harm reduction team, more or less, where they're out in the community trying to prevent issues before they happen.

One of the things we're doing now, in a proactive sense, in a big way, is going after offenders who are on release conditions, ensuring that they're keeping their release conditions. It used to be that if we happened upon them, we'd deal with them. That proactive approach, we feel, has really helped to reduce crime in our community.

Like the person from Brooks, we have a lot of residents in Medicine Hat, being an hour from Brooks, who are from different nations. The Sudanese community has grown in Medicine Hat. It presents challenges similar to the challenges that Chief Rudd spoke of. Again, it's trying to get our community officers into those communities and building relationships with the community leaders. As all of you know, the forming of relationships in our community is a big step towards helping to prevent stuff before it happens. We hope that we're doing a good job proactively in that regard.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much. Our time is up.

We'll go back to Mr. LaVar Payne, please.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thanks to all the chiefs for coming. It's good to see you, Andy and Alf. I have a couple of questions for you.

I'll start with you, Andy, in terms of your police service there and your business plan. Maybe you could tell us how you've restructured your plan, and if so, without cutting, particularly front-line officers.

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

In the last three years we've actually reduced our strength by one. We've found that we have adequate strength. Some of the realignment that we discussed was front-end loading our response folks. We've actually added supervisors to the street. We have a lot of young officers. We have two patrol sergeants on each team now, which really helps to serve the public better. They're on top of calls more. The priority street crime unit works closely with patrols.

We're trying to move from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. We have our patrols, of course; there are going to be calls that come in for service that we deal with. But we really want to get out in front of crime by being proactive in our approach to it.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I'm just curious, Andy. What's the percentage of cost in terms of the city budget for policing? Do you know that number?

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

Yes. It is similar to that of Cobourg. It's around 27%. In a recent budget submission.... We keep hearing that our costs are escalating, compared with other departments in the city. We found that in 1984 the police service represented 15.7% of the cost of all the city departments, and in 2013 we're exactly the same; we're at 15.7%. But the overall cost is about 27%.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thanks.

Alf, thanks for coming. You talked a bit about relationships and your local organizations, stressing mental health. Do you have teams that work together on those areas?

[Chief Alf Rudd]

Yes. We sit collaboratively with the services in the community.

But the issue that Andy has already pointed out is the after-hours business, when it falls to us. Like I say, there are fewer numbers of mental health facilities and beds. We deal with people where it's a transport situation. We run them into the nearest facility, tying up our resources, and often there are not sufficient services there for them.

This is a problem that's going on across the province, and probably elsewhere as well. It's very difficult to contend with, but we hold hands with our partners here to do the best we can.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

In terms of the costs to the Town of Taber, I'm wondering what the percentage of the Taber budget is for policing.

[Chief Alf Rudd]

We're at 24% of the tax roll. With the overall budget, taking into account the revenues, grants, etc., we're at about 12% of the overall town budget.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I'd like to clarify one thing for my colleague across the way. The issues are not around the temporary foreign workers, but actually the immigration. Particularly in Brooks, there are at least 85 different nations. These are people who are coming from those nations to Brooks. It's immigration, and it does take time for some of their families to come. I wanted to point that out.

Going back to Andy, could you discuss your auxiliary program and why you implemented it? Are you seeing any benefits, particularly monetary, from that?

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

Absolutely. We are. We've had an auxiliary police program since the mid-nineties. We have about 12 to 15 officers coming and going. It's a great program, in many ways. First, they serve the community by coming out and assisting our officers. It's that extra set of hands on the street. Also, those folks are all members of our community, so they go back to their places of work and talk about the stuff that goes on after four o'clock, which a lot in our communities are not aware of.

We have found it has been a great relationship builder, a great recruitment tool, and it has also saved us money. I look at things like our yearly stampede—our exhibition, the stampede parade, etc—that really tax our resources, and they come out in full complement and do a great job in assisting us.

In our business plan moving forward, we're looking at bringing that whole volunteer piece up to another level and utilizing more members of our community in other ways. Right now, we have victim assistants who volunteer, and we have auxiliaries. We want to expand that by quite a bit, to assist us in our policing efforts in the community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, it looks like you will conclude the questioning today. You have five minutes.

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

I just want to get back to this issue of what's federal and what's provincial. Perhaps some members may not want to delve into this but one of the reasons we're here doing this study is to really try to figure these things out. All the witnesses are correct in saying that policing has become extremely complex and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was correct in saying that it's become a grey zone. I'm just interested in getting your opinion on to what extent the federal government should be getting perhaps more involved and what should be falling more to local authorities, be it local policing authorities or municipal authorities.

We had the deputy mayor of Brooks telling us that they have quite innovatively shifted some of the responsibilities that the RCMP previously had to city employees. For example, now there's a crime prevention coordinator within the city, a diversity coordinator, and so on. I'm just trying to get your sense as officers who are in the day-to-day business of policing and who have to respond to changes in legislative requirements and so forth. How do you see this split in responsibility for policing? This is not in the Constitution. The Constitution didn't foresee that policing in the world would become so complicated over 100 years from the time it was created.

What is your sense about where the federal government's role should stop and where it should become a local matter? Should the federal government or the RCMP be solely concerned about coordination, analysis, creation of databases, and so on and so forth, and providing that kind of technical assistance, or is there a bigger role for the federal government?

Chief McGrogan, do you have an opinion on this?

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

As I mentioned earlier, there are things that the federal government almost, I won't say needs to do, but there's almost a sense that you're the only one that can from a federal perspective look after the database issues. You know, those things that affect our whole country.

I'll go back to the Police Sector Council and the great work they did that was funded federally. That's the type of thing that assists police services greatly.

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

What was that? I missed that, we were cut off for a bit. What did you say helped you greatly?

[Chief Andy McGrogan]

I mentioned in my introduction the funding that the federal government gave the Police Sector Council and I mentioned the suite of police competencies, job descriptions, and that whole piece of work that was put together. That to me is a great example of where the federal government.... You're looking at what I think every Canadian wants: the same level of professionalism across the country for our police officers.

I think the RCMP have adopted a lot of the National Police Services issues, like a criminal records bag, for instance. Who would have foreseen that back when the Constitution was first put together, who other than the federal government is going to coordinate the country-wide criminal records? I think those types of things—I don't want to say you're stuck with—but it's so important that they be looked from a federal perspective.

I'll let some others comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Chief Rudd, and then Chief Liu.