Thank you, Chair.
Welcome to the witnesses.
I would just like to clarify some points that were raised, starting with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I believe you have a report which no doubt you mentioned, entitled “Towards Equity and Efficiency in Policing”. Is that correct?
The report apparently states that as an interim measure the Government of Canada should provide an equity and efficiency allocation to compensate municipal governments for their role in enforcing federal policing mandates, and provide sufficient funding for municipalities to meet their growing responsibilities.
In your presentation you mentioned in passing that municipalities have assumed about $500 million in additional policing costs which I assume you attribute to federal requirements they have to meet, or the requirements in criminal law that somehow they have to meet. When you talk about that $500 million in extra policing costs and when you seem to attribute that to a kind of federal driver, if you will, what are you saying? I'm not sure I'm clear on that $500 million of extra costs.