Public Safety Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Chief Jean-Michel Blais]

Zero per cent. We found that the majority of our guns are locally resourced and sourced, and are weapons that have been stolen from legitimate gun owners. With the elimination of the long-gun registry it has hampered some of our work.

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

Chief Constable Chu.

[Chief Jim Chu]

I know of no cost savings.

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

One of the things that was brought up in the last session that I'd like to follow is the responsibility of the federal government with the economics of policing, or the economics of public safety, as Chief Blais puts it.

I know, Chief Hanson, you had some things to say on that, but let me throw this out. Would it be useful to have a federal, maybe a central repository, a clearinghouse, if you will, of best practices, not only in Canada but in North America, Europe, and from around the world that police services in Canada could draw from? It may even extend to running courses and all sorts of other things. Would that be one way to go in terms of federal government involvement?

[Chief Rick Hanson]

Okay.

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

I'd like each of you to answer that please.

Yes, go ahead.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

The police services through the CACP, major city chiefs, which is the top 40 biggest police agencies in the U.S. and Canada, is communicating all the time about best practices. If there was a development of some repository of best practices that could be easily accessed, there could be.

But we look at the U.K. From Calgary, we actually send our officers—at least an officer, sometimes two senior officers a year—over to Bramshill to be trained at Bramshill. We look at the best practices out of the U.K.

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

Each of you could also, if you want, comment not just specifically on this in particular but also in general about the federal role in the economics of the policing.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

I'd like to make this point. If there is something that would come out about what the federal government could do, it is this. You've heard from every chief or deputy chief I think who has spoken to you about the vast number of people who are in our prisons and jails who have health issues. They're mentally ill, undiagnosed. They ought not to be there.

So many times now parents are coming up to us and saying, if you could just get my kid off drugs, I could talk some sense into him. Jim Chu did a really great job talking about that cycle. The reality is that, as has been mentioned, frequently there's family support but they still can't get their kid back because the drugs have taken such a hold. There's a good chance that this young male adult generally—that's the profile—because they're self-medicating they're going to prison. They're going to jail. What happens there is that there's no service. Don't pretend that there's treatment in our prisons and jails that adequately deals with the issue.

So here's what we're saying. You're sending these people to prisons and jails in huge numbers. I'd like to see the feds partner with the province and fund one jail. Let's start in Alberta. It would be a safe jail, secure detox facility. We've already got the support of the crown, the judges, social services, the police. Here's the criteria. If this person has family support, and the crimes are such that they're going to go to jail anyhow, if they meet a certain set of criteria, send them to a safe jail, which is a secure detox facility.

As soon as they walk in the door, you detox them. You cannot diagnose a mental illness until you've detoxed. So use that time in jail to detox, assess the mental illness, medicate, give therapy, introduce them to the post-release treatment provider who is going to be.... There are all kinds of those that are housing-first models. Break the cycle, get them off the street from committing crimes and get them back into treatment. Drugs are so powerful.

I have to say that I talked on a national CBC radio show and I got this comment, e-mails from right across Canada, from families that basically said—and I won't read it because there's not enough time—I thought you were talking about me in that case. These were young men who come from good families primarily—and young women too but mostly men—where they've made one mistake. They wind up taking drugs like crystal meth or crack and sometimes it's laced into one joint and they're addicted, just like that. They're kicked out of the home and they start committing crimes to support their addiction.

Use jail as the opportunity to detox, diagnose, treat, and then release, instead of throwing them into jail where they get abused. The smart ones get conscripted into gangs and off they go.

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

Thank you for that.

Are there comments from the other two?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

About 30 seconds for the two because we're running low on time.

[Chief Jean-Michel Blais]

With regard to the national repository, we have the Canadian Police College. That should be used perhaps a bit more, even though it is used considerably. There's a lot of exchange going on with regard to information not only intra-nationally but internationally as well.

[Chief Jim Chu]

In Vancouver, we have close relations with our academic partners. I have several officers who are doing Ph.D.s in criminology. In terms of what the federal government can do—legislation, lawful access. I'd like to talk about that more if there's a chance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Norlock please for four minutes and Ms. Bergen for two.

Ms. Bergen, you can go first.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I just need two minutes.

I just need to get something cleared up for my own understanding on the cost of the long gun registry to law enforcement. When I talked to them, it was more rural police services. They did find that there was a cost when the long gun registry existed because they would get a list from the CFO as to whose licences had expired and then they were able to go and check to see who had firearms that were not registered. They would then confiscate those firearms because these individuals were breaking the law because these firearms were not registered. It would take them, they told me, at least one hour per firearm to not only register it again, but then dispose of it and deal with the paperwork. They now don't have to do that.

I know that in Toronto there were a number of reports where the Toronto Police Service spent probably about 1,500 man hours going door to door and confiscating firearms, not from criminals but from people who didn't have their paperwork in order. So I'd like to ask each one of you about this. I think you want to clarify this. Either you weren't doing it, which I don't think is the case, or in essence there are savings because now you don't have to go and take firearms from people who don't have their paperwork completed. Then it's costing you and your officers more time and resources to deal with these unregistered firearms.

Is that correct or is that only in rural areas?

Rick, Mr. Hanson.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

As I said, I come from a jurisdiction where we focused more on the criminal use of firearms.

If we could use the firearms registry legislation in that context, then we would. But we were one of those jurisdictions that didn't hunt down the duck hunters who had failed to register.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

Chief Blais?

[Chief Jean-Michel Blais]

I have the same comments. We're predominantly urban as opposed to rural.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

And Chief Chu?

[Chief Jim Chu]

It wasn't a big issue in Vancouver.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

So it was just Toronto, and then in rural areas.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I was very interested in Chief Hanson's hub model and the Toronto Police Service having a mental health worker or a social worker working with the police officers. But in the policing world that I come from, the second largest deployed police force in Canada, in policing a town of 800 people or completely rural areas, that's just not possible.

Could this hub model be tweaked a little to be able to respond to the smaller areas, to rural Canada as opposed to urban Canada, where you have all this expertise right in the city that's easy to access, where it's easy to put bodies in cars and bring people physically there, and where you're not dealing with hundreds, in some cases thousands, of kilometres from the nearest centre?

[Chief Rick Hanson]

I can tell you that there's probably a greater need for this in the rural communities. I think you'll probably find that, percentage-wise, there are more people who have anti-social personality disorders and can't live in the cities who gravitate out to the rural areas. Their illness starts to get worse and they become a danger. So I would suggest that you'd have to look....

You could create a regional model. It would require staffing it a little differently, but for officers' safety and the communities' safety, I think it's the next step that has to happen in rural areas where people are living by themselves and isolated because they can't coexist with other people.

If we look at some of the history, we don't have to look any further than Alberta. We had one just last year where one of those people killed a peace officer who was going to basically take care of his dogs. This is a guy who everybody knew was crazy and nobody did anything about it—that old “nobody does anything about it”.

The reality is that this model can be applied in a deployed area, it just takes a different approach.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Do any of the other witnesses have a comment there?