Public Safety Committee on April 18th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 80 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Thursday, April 18, 2013. We're continuing our study on the economics of policing.

As our witness today we have Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Chris Lewis. Our committee wants to thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for making the time to appear before us to help in our study with the costs of policing in Canada. Certainly, our committee recognizes the good work of the commissioner and his staff all across Ontario. Also, I know the economics of policing is a very important issue that you deal with and that you probably hear about constantly, so we look forward to your comments today.

The commissioner is having a busy day today. He's appearing here this morning, then he's moving to another committee, as well.

We look forward to your comments. Perhaps you will have time, as well, for a round or two of questions from members of the committee.

The floor is yours, sir. Welcome, and thank you for coming.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis, Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here today and to appear before you. Thank you for the opportunity to provide information about the Ontario Provincial Police, as well as my perspective on the subject of the economics of policing.

Policing in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada is a fundamental service that is at the very basis of community safety and wellness, contributing to provincial security and resulting in savings in other areas of public expenditure. Policing, well-educated and efficiently delivered, has a significant and positive impact on the social, cultural, and economic development of Ontario's communities. It is also an investment in community. People do not want to live in dangerous and crime-ridden communities, and businesses do not seek to invest in them.

Our model of policing in Ontario is founded upon legislation, the Police Services Act. Based on this, the OPP has a special mandate to provide both municipal and provincial policing services. We are the police service of jurisdiction in 323 of Ontario's 444 municipalities, and we provide services to a number of rural and isolated parts of Ontario, including highways, waterways, and trails. Our operating costs are high. Meeting this mandate requires a high level of operational readiness and significant resources.

The current fiscal reality is that some municipalities are struggling to balance their books. The Province of Ontario is carrying a significant deficit. Global uncertainty is part of the economic picture. Meanwhile, police salaries and operating costs, particularly technology costs, are rising. This is not an issue exclusive to the Ontario Provincial Police. Concern about those costs is common throughout Canada, North America, and beyond. Additionally, evolving challenges relating to organized crime, terrorism, public protests, the Internet, and emerging cyberthreats over the past 25 years have made for increasing demands relating to staffing, training, equipment, and infrastructure on all police services. Policing is an expensive business.

Taxpayer concern about costs and expenditures is not new. There exists a constant struggle at all levels of government, as well as institutions such as the police, to adapt and change to meet new needs within a financially sustainable framework. In my opinion, our model of policing in Ontario is not sustainable in the long term.

Why do I hold this opinion? Right now Ontario's smaller police services have separate command and support structures, limited economies of scale for the purchasing of supplies and equipment, and a costly and independent infrastructure. Because resources are tight and in most cases getting tighter, the fear of a corporate takeover by larger provincial and/or federal police services is very real. The fear is that this may result in a reluctance to ask for assistance from provincial police during emergency response situations or in major case investigations.

In recent years, many small police services have turned to larger municipal police services for help at a time when those larger police services are dealing with their own fiscal realities. In my view, it makes little sense for the taxpayers of the larger cities to provide ongoing assistance to smaller police services except in short-term and emergency situations.

In addition, the demand on most police services has increased as various social service and government agencies have had their budgets cut, thereby bringing police into situations to provide a response with new or expanded capacities. Examples of this elevated response include situations with individuals experiencing mental health challenges or in the natural deaths of elderly and terminally ill patients who, more often, now go home to die.

Concurrently, sustainability is not only an issue at the local level with a number of Ontario's municipalities sounding the alarm. Sustainability is also my issue as the commissioner of the provincial police in Ontario. Although we are partially funded to assist all police services, the current funding and staffing models have diminished the ability of the OPP to be all things to all people.

Major police services can assist the OPP in large protests and other operations in return for occasional OPP support in a quid pro quo relationship, and they routinely work collaboratively with the OPP on major cases. But the smaller police services have few resources to share and little to give back, other than in short-term, infrequent, and intermittent situations. This is not a criticism. It's just a reality.

What will help us move through these challenges to better ensure improvement in public safety?

We all need to discuss and better define what the core responsibilities of police agencies should be to meet the modern-day needs and expectations of communities in 2013. We must continue to explore how we might deliver adequate and effective services in different ways, ensuring that police services have the right people at the right places and times to meet those needs.

At the local service delivery level, having some services performed by civilian staff or private security organizations instead of fully trained and equipped police officers has become a realistic approach. But as we consider the implications of these options, we must keep in mind the need to maintain a critical mass of police personnel for emergency response and major investigations.

Other delivery options include citizens' self-reporting of minor crimes, not responding to some calls for service that we historically have attended, and better use of analysis and technological solutions—although this too can be costly. A number of police services are currently using or exploring all of these options.

As well, an increase in a renewed focus on crime prevention, including private sector and government partnerships, will reduce response and investigative costs, and even more importantly, reduce victimization. These are all valid options and they've been on the agenda of the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Service's future of policing advisory committee in Ontario. This committee's four working groups are discussing these very issues and are focusing on four main topics: law enforcement and victims' assistance, crime prevention, emergency response and public order, and administration and infrastructure.

From my vantage point as commissioner of one of the largest deployed police services in North America, I see a need for legislative change, not merely fine-tuning and adapting but rather significant change.

Our model of policing must create up-to-date definitions of core duties and expectations, establishing firm adequacy standards regarding staffing levels, training requirements, emergency response expectations, crime prevention and investigative standards, all combined with strong governance and auditing regimes. This will require many small and some mid-sized services to form larger regional police services, amalgamations with neighbouring police services in the larger municipal police services, or they may choose to amalgamate with the Ontario Provincial Police. Although such transformation will be fraught with many political challenges, and even the bruising of some egos, the reality of these economic times isn't likely to improve soon, and frankly, it's what is right for the taxpayer. Policing community leaders will have to help lead their police services and communities through the inevitable change as opposed to fighting against what is a sad reality.

Policing responsibilities in Ontario are shared by the Ontario Provincial Police, 53 municipal police services, and 9 self-directed first nation police services. The OPP also administers policing for 20 first nation communities, under the Ontario First Nations Policing Agreement, and provides direct policing to 19 other first nation communities.

Together, we provide comprehensive policing coverage across the province. However, we have a very concerning situation in Ontario. Compared to the vast majority of provincial and municipal police services in Ontario, most first nation communities are woefully under-resourced, and as a result, have inadequately trained and equipped officers. There aren't enough officers or support staff, and the infrastructure is often poor or non-existent. Given these circumstances, it is tough to recruit and retain personnel. If you add into the mix the expansion of mining for precious resources in remote first nation territories, the resulting population growth with new camps and new communities, and the potential for organized crime activity, we could be in real trouble. In my view, this is a crisis situation.

The current funding model for first nations' policing in Canada is not resulting in the same level of policing in many first nation communities that is enjoyed in non-first nation communities. There's no doubt that some level of accountability and ownership of public safety needs to rest with the first nation communities, but we need a better strategy to ensure the current inadequate situation regarding policing in Ontario's first nation communities is quickly and appropriately addressed.

My presentation today to the committee reflects a strong belief in the need to examine the current model of policing in support of effective, efficient, and sustainable police service delivery in Ontario. The citizens of Ontario deserve no less.

I'll be pleased to offer more thoughts and opinions in response to your questions. Once again, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

We're going to move to Mr. Payne for the first round. Go ahead, LaVar.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for coming. My questions will go through the chair to you, Commissioner.

We did hear earlier this week from your colleague Chief Superintendent Couture who talked about special constables and some of the roles that they play, and particularly bailiffs. I'm wondering if you could tell us how, in fact, those special constables are relieving your officers. Is there anything else potentially that they can do to help relieve some of that cost-effectiveness in terms of the economies of policing?

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

Thank you very much. I'll answer your last question first. There is more they can do. This is an issue we need to deal with. The bargaining group was, in our case, the Ontario Provincial Police Association. There are some things that we do not need fully trained and equipped police officers to do. Once again, we have to keep the balance and make sure we have critical mass to respond with police officers to big events, and of course, to protest situations. We do get a lot bigger events than we used to.

But there are things, and prisoner escorts are one of those things. Ontario gave us some money some years ago when certain jails were closed in Ontario to do the escorting of prisoners by large vehicles—vans and trucks. Those are special constables. They receive some training and limited equipment. They're not armed and they don't have powers of arrest like normal police officers, and training and investigating crime and all of that. But they perform a very valuable function because otherwise you would have police officers tied up all day moving prisoners from community to community, sitting with them in court, and doing all that sort of thing that we have the special constables doing.

We're going through a process as we speak. Every job that we look at, we need to look at whether a civilian can do it. We used to train just police officers to do everything because only police officers could ever understand IT, or telecommunications or science. We realize that's not right. So we're hiring kids virtually out of university who are experts in this stuff and want a career in that. They don't have to carry guns and do police work. That applies to the special constable area as well.

We need to look at every job. Should it be civilianized? Do they need some powers like a special constable has? Or does it need to be a fully armed and trained police officer? We have to think that way. We traditionally did not.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

That's probably part of your core responsibilities that you talked about in your opening statement in terms of reviewing that whole process.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

Exactly, and it's not without some pain because we're dealing with a bargaining group, the Ontario Provincial Police Association, that doesn't necessarily agree on some of these things, and we have a good working relationship. There is a little tension in the system when we get talking about that sort of thing. We owe that to the taxpayer. Why pay someone $85,000 a year, a fully trained and equipped police officer, to do something a civilian out of college and university can do very well, and the special constable piece is a big part of that. So we have to look at that in every position we have.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Is that process ongoing right now in terms of reviewing your core responsibilities?

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

It is. We don't have a specific group doing that non-stop in that study, but it's one of several pieces of several projects that we have on the go right now, looking at finding more efficiencies in the organization. That's a real mindset shift for police officers.

Just for example, sir, at one point years ago, we have had 5,500 employees in the OPP. Five thousand of them were sworn police officers, and 500 of them were civilians, special constables, that other category. Now we have over 6,000 police officers in the OPP and 3,000 civilian members, so we really have made a shift. As we've grown, we've recognized the need to hire people who want to do a specific task for their career and they don't need to be armed to do it.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

You also talked a little bit about the aboriginal communities. You talked a bit about some of the efficiencies there. What are some of the unique needs of those communities, and what is the OPP doing to help or assist those? Do you have any details you can provide us on that?

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

Yes, I certainly do.

We police some of the first nation communities in Ontario alone; we just are the police. Others have their own police, which are funded through the joint federal-Ontario 52%-48% partnership. Others have stand-alone police departments. They are funded the same way, but we really don't have as much to do with them unless they have some big event. I believe there are nine of those.

The vast majority don't have enough people or resources. One community in northern Ontario, Pikangikum, is a very remote community. One of the unique issues around a lot of first nation communities is that you can only get to them by ice roads in the winter, or aircraft year-round. There's nowhere to live. If you wanted to buy a house, you couldn't, so it's really tough to attract people. When they are fully staffed, and they seldom are, they have eight constables in that first nation community.

We did our workload analysis model, and if it were an OPP detachment, we'd have 30. At any given time they only have eight. We have people there rotating in and out—week in, week out—and living in a building to help those eight officers. We're doing that in various communities all across northwestern and northeastern Ontario.

Most of the first nation communities in southern Ontario are larger and have more of a self-sustained police service. But they don't have the same training equipment, resources, and infrastructure that other police departments do. In my view, for those communities—and I know they have to take some ownership as communities for public safety—that model is broken. It's not suiting the needs of those communities. There are some very violent crimes, abuse issues, and problems in there, and we can only help so much. We don't want them to fail. We try our best to help them, but something is going to give.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

You talked about eight officers in that particular community. What size of community is that?

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

It's a community of only about 2,000 people, and I think last year they had almost 4,000 lock-ups in the cells. It's a community that has all sorts of social issues on top of policing. There are no social service agencies there, so the police become all things to all people. It's a very difficult community to police.

You don't get the calls there for a minor theft or shoplifting. Nobody calls the police for that. There are serious assaults. There are suicides. There are 10-year-old and 11-year-old kids who are virtually hanging from trees because there's no hope in that community, and the little eight-person police department has to try to deal with that.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. Payne.

We'll now move to the opposition.

Mr. Rafferty, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for being here.

I want to ask you about first nations' policing and the OPP and that relationship. I certainly appreciate the comments you've made on that.

But first I'd like to make a comment about special constables. I should first of all commend the OPP. In my experience, in our neck of the woods in northwestern Ontario, they really do a fabulous job. We also have some officers. I don't know what they're called...community relations officers? I'm not sure what their titles are.

In Fort Frances, there's a constable, Anne McCoy, who—

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

I know Anne very well. She's a community services officer.

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

Community services, okay. She does a terrific job.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

She does. Yes.

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

As you were talking about special constables, you would immediately think that maybe that's the kind of job you might not have a police officer in, that it might be something.... I just want to say that I think it's important that a job like that be a police officer.

As you look for efficiencies that you might be able to find in those areas, I know you will be very careful about that. Those kinds of officers are a natural fit. To no longer have an officer there, a constable like Anne McCoy, who does such a terrific job.... I wouldn't put a special constable in that position.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

I have no intention of it, in those positions.

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

Okay.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

Those community services positions are really the gateway and the voice of the police in communities. Through their prevention efforts and what they do, they ultimately save us work. If they can teach a kid what to do when they get lost in the bush and we find that child quickly, it not only saves a life but the collateral benefit to us is that it saves millions of dollars.

People like Anne—and I didn't get this 35 years ago when I started this job—are really the face of us in those communities. That's an officer who needs to have a gun. She is out in the community in uniform every day.

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

I'm sure you're aware of that, but you have to be cautious when you start thinking that someone else can take a police officer's job.

I wanted to make that comment.

[Commr Chris D. Lewis]

I couldn't agree more.