Thank you very much, gentlemen.
There has been a lot of discussion in past testimony, and a fair bit in this one, about the upstream issues. I think we'll definitely hear some questions on that. We had lots of great input during the last round of witnesses around the upstream issues of policing.
I want to talk about some of the downstream solutions we could have, to see if you have any particular recommendations.
Chief Blais, you did talk a bit about the complexity of policing around the judicial requirements and technology, the sorts of things that are placing burdens on budgets.
Is there a way that each of you have had an opportunity to measure the administrative costs of policing in respect to value for service, for lack of a better term? When I say that, I think the community would measure that in hours per shift that officers are out in the field. How much time are they actually spending in the community doing that crime prevention work, which is a primary function of their duty, versus the administrative burden that the municipality or the police organization or legislators put on them?
As a former police officer, I spent a lot of time making sure that I was compiling statistics for Stats Canada, doing data entry. We always felt, of course, that we could have spent more time in the field.
From your perspectives, are there recommendations you could make to improve hours per shift in the field? Are you able to measure that at this point, and what's your perspective on that ratio?
We'll start with Chief Blais, then Chief Chu, and then Chief Hanson.