Absolutely. The whole issue of downloading really struck me in a northern jurisdiction where I was working. If people in a community called the social services line after five o'clock, on weekends, or on holidays, they would get a recorded message that said, “Hi, you've reached social services. We're not available. If you have an emergency, call the RCMP”. That really started getting me thinking about the downloading situation.
Municipalities often raise the very legitimate issue that a large portion of their budgets is being eaten up by police services, but the reality is that municipalities are generally only responsible for policing and fire and rescue. All the rest is provincial. As I mentioned, when provincial governments start cutting back, the cities eat it. Really. I think there needs to be a discussion between municipalities and their respective provincial governments about what the police should be doing and what capacities the police should have to develop to deal with it.
I should also point out that many police services have experienced challenges in trying to develop these collaborative relationships with provincial counterparts. There are often difficulties, and the police have been at the forefront in many jurisdictions of trying to develop these collaborative partnerships so they don't end up having to deal by themselves with, for example, the issue of mentally ill people on the street.
I think there needs to be a dialogue between the municipalities and their respective provincial governments. I don't think that dialogue has occurred, and I think the police end up having a lot of things put onto them just by default, at the end of the day.
And I do agree we need to have a discussion about what core policing is. Right now core policing is very broad, and it's not just about crime rates. It's about providing social services; it's about a lot of other things other than crime rates. That's the reason for my comments about getting stuck in this notion about whether crime rates are up or down and so whether we need fewer police.