Maybe let me start with this. Approximately four years ago the total police budget accounted for 30% of Cobourg's tax base. Today we've been able to chip away at it and reduce it slightly down to 27% for 2013.
The Cobourg Police Service does use volunteers extensively at many of its community events throughout the summer. From Labour Day to Thanksgiving there is a festival of some sort in the town. We have a permanent trailer at our beachfront, which is manned by volunteers, and so that saves us a lot of police officer resources.
Additionally, to further help reduce the costs of policing, we have been very successful in partnering with the RCMP, as they control the CPIC database, and in conducting third-party criminal record checks. Third-party criminal record checks are requested by large corporations. Whenever they hire somebody, whether in P.E.I. or British Columbia, the Town of Cobourg will provide the criminal record checks for that particular employee, and we generate revenue for that. That revenue is put directly back into the police budget.
Additionally, on the use of technology, because we were somewhat behind in Cobourg, we have skipped the laptops in the police cars and have now transitioned from having no technology in our police cars to having the BlackBerry. This is a special BlackBerry that has CPIC capability as well as record management capability. Now, when the officers are free to walk through parking lots and/or when they're conducting foot patrol, they can readily use the BlackBerry, where once they had to be tied to a police car or police station.