Evidence of meeting #80 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was opp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions are on the use of special constables, auxiliary officers, and volunteers, and how they come into play.
Would you be able to tell us what, if any, expenses are related to special constables, auxiliary officers, other court officers—to police services basically? What costs are related to a fully trained police constable versus an auxiliary officer? Would you explain what savings you see?
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
There are a number of savings. Auxiliary officers, just to clarify, are volunteers. They are paid nothing. We pay for their lunch, and we do train them and equip them to a certain degree so there are costs associated with that, but no salary dollars. They certainly get worker's compensation if they are hurt, but traditionally we do not pay them a salary dollar.
Special constables do get paid a salary dollar, less training, less equipment, so there is a saving there and the salary is much less. It may be $50,000, for example, versus $85,000 for a fully trained and equipped constable, so there is a saving there. We have to be able to use them at the right place and the right time—where you don't need a fully armed officer. That's an ongoing issue. We've done a lot of great things and we have more to do.
Once again, though, in the case of a Caledonia dispute—and we had every officer in the OPP there at one point—ice storms, tornadoes, large protests, we need a certain number of officers to respond. So we can't tip the scales too far and have two-thirds special constables and one-third uniformed officers. It would just never work.
We have 850 auxiliary members. They are totally volunteers. They do great things, but they are limited to what they can do because they aren't armed. They can direct traffic at parades. They can attend events in schools and help out and do different things, but if there are arrests to be made, any threat of violence, we can't use an auxiliary officer. We have to have regular officers there either as well as or instead of auxiliary members. There's a balancing act there.
We had to negotiate with the police association to use auxiliary officers. They have a say in when we can use auxiliary officers and when we can't, because they don't want to see volunteers take the place of the salaried officers and don't want them put in dangerous situations where a police officer should be used.
It's an ongoing kind of balancing act for us. It works very well with 850 auxiliary officers. That's bigger than most police departments in Canada. We have that many auxiliaries alone who help us greatly and who save us time and money through their volunteerism, for a minimal investment on our part.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
What are the criteria for somebody who wants to become an auxiliary officer? I'm sure there are background checks.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Is there any sort of physical requirement testing done, anything of that nature?
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
Yes. They are not tested and don't have to maintain the fitness level of the full-time officers, but there are extensive background investigations, really as significant as they are for police officers, in terms of a criminal record. We don't want to hire auxiliary members who aren't going to represent us well.
On the fitness level, they only get one full week of training then another day or so a year, depending. The fitness level is much less, but we want them to look good in uniform and be physically able because some of them find themselves in dangerous situations, just by chance. We've had auxiliary officers in cars with uniformed officers involved in shootouts. You never know what they might get into while they're riding around with the uniformed officer. We demand some level of fitness, so they are tested. We don't demand that they do 40 push-ups and be able to run a mile and a half in a certain time period, but they certainly have to have a minimal fitness level. I'm just not sure exactly what that is.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
To your knowledge, do most of the police forces have their own auxiliary division?
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
Most do, to a much smaller level of course. Even the auxiliary for the Toronto police, which is almost as big as we are but not quite, is nowhere near the numbers of ours. We're spread out, too, so we have auxiliary officers in most communities that we police. The Toronto police has a core auxiliary force within the city of Toronto that can go pretty well anywhere, whereas our numbers are much higher.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
I'm going to give you an example back from when I was just finishing high school. I grew up in Toronto, basically. I was very interested in volunteering for the police. I went out to Toronto police at the time. I said I was interested in volunteering. I had some time on the weekends and so on. I was told at the time that they did not accept any volunteers. Therefore, I then went to Peel Regional Police, which was about 60 kilometres away from where I lived. They did take in volunteers. I was happy to volunteer for them mostly on weekends and so on, just at community stations doing simple stuff—smaller tasks, and so on.
I'm really trying to understand the reasoning behind one police force accepting it and the other refusing to accept it.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
This is basically a free service that one is getting. It's kind of beyond my understanding.
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
In addition to our 850-person auxiliary, we have volunteers all over Ontario who help us and our detachments. They help us with various committees in the community around crime prevention, and so on. They help with seniors or children. In the eastern region alone, which is the area we're in right now for Ontario, from Belleville to Quebec, at one point we had 600 volunteers who worked with the OPP in a region of 1,200 personnel. So on top of that, we had 600 volunteers. That included the auxiliary and people who helped in detachments and did different things.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
When you say volunteers, are they above and beyond your auxiliary?
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
Yes. Well, the auxiliary was included in that 600. I just remember that number from when I was stationed down here. In the eastern region alone there are at least 200 auxiliaries. Another 400 or so civilian volunteers help in our detachments, with different community groups and committees.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
In your opinion, should we increase or decrease the use of special constables or auxiliary officers or even court officers?
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
We can't take any more auxiliary officers than we have. We have a certain number and that's the number we have to live with. We should always be looking at the use of volunteers, but they can't replace police officers. They can help, and there may be some things they can do to free up police officers to go out on the road. It's the same with special constables. We always have to look at that and find the right balance.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Thank you, Mr. Gill.
We'll move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, for seven minutes.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Just to continue along that line, Mr. Gill was saying that some police forces may not be accepting volunteers. I would surmise that it's not because they have anything against volunteers, but maybe they're not organized to receive and manage volunteers. We as MPs all know—we have volunteers in our offices—that it's not just a question of opening the door and letting them in. You have to put them to work and organize them to work as part of the group or organization.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
As I understand it, when it comes to the OPP, there wouldn't be areas where part of the force might say that they're not accepting volunteers for that reason. There's probably a requirement that all detachments organize themselves in such a way as to be able to accept volunteers, I would think. As I understand it, the problem is in municipal police forces. One might be organized and structured to accept volunteers and one might not be.
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
That's possible, depending on their size. I don't know that there are any right now in Ontario that wouldn't have volunteers in some capacity.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Then Mr. Gill's account is somewhat dated in that respect.
Commissioner, Ontario Provincial Police
It could well be. He may be right on the money still. I don't know, but I think the Toronto police has a significant number of volunteers now.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
In terms of civilianization, we understand how this change towards greater civilianization—using civilians for certain roles—would save money and so on, but at what level would the federal government have any role to play in encouraging that civilianization? This is a study on the cost of policing from a federal perspective. What can the federal government really do to encourage civilianization beyond doing so in the RCMP? Even there, I'm wondering if the RCMP is so arm's length that the federal government really wouldn't have much influence over that process anyway.