Public Safety Committee on April 30th, 2013

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

When we think about economics of policing and whether we can make any drastic change, we have to look at the model. The model for policing in rural Canada right now is that we have a detachment that services an area. We may have a detachment in a community of 300 people with three members there, but we may not have a detachment in another community of 300 people or 400 people. We may police that on a fly-in basis, as required. It is not always the same.

In the late seventies and early eighties, we went through a reconfiguring of our detachments in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan, in a number of different areas. There's not all these little detachments anymore. They're bigger detachments, hubbed more together, kind of like the OPP. You have more members at one place who provide service farther apart.

What that does, though, is that it causes expanded response times. If you were to call the city police in Ottawa to say there's someone at your door trying to break in, and they said they'd be there in an hour—

[An hon. member]

It would be like coming from Cornwall.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

Yes. You're not going to accept that, but that is a reality for people living in rural Canada.

In a number of detachments where I was, an hour to an hour and a half to get to a call at one end of your detachment area or the other was the way it worked.

We do have only two places, I think, in northern Manitoba right now, where we do a regular rotational fly-in. We fly two members in and pick the other two up and haul them away. That's because of the level of violence or the problems that exist in those communities. But for most of them we have detachments, and if we don't have a detachment base we have a regular patrol. Sometimes we just have a patrol cabin.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Where would auxiliary members come in? Where would first nations police forces come in?

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

We have first nations police forces that have their own jurisdictions on first nations reserves.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

So the RCMP is out of there.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

Yes, we're out. We're the neighbouring detachment. We help them out.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

You help them out, but there's no real—

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

We have auxiliaries come in to help us when we need help. We have auxiliaries in the far north who are culturally competent. They want to take our members out, show them who the elders are. They're in addition to what we do.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

In a community where you would be an hour and a half away, would you have an auxiliary? Basically there would be no coverage, really, for the hour and a half or two hours it would take to get someone there.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

In some communities, there's a band constables program. They have band constables who are kind of like a night watchman. They're called peacekeepers in Saskatchewan. They augment the ability of that particular first nation, but it is more to watch what's going on, to guard their facilities.

In some cases they've been making arrests, which is not popular.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Do they have the power to make arrests?

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

No.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I guess that's why it's not popular.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

They have the same powers that you have to make a citizen's arrest, so they do have powers to make an arrest.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Yes.

How does it work in Quebec? A community like Chisasibi would have its own force, I guess, or would it be QPP? That is probably not a fair question.

You have nothing to say about that.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

No.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay.

Is there an RCMP presence in every community that would have a nursing station? Do the two work together at all?

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

I couldn't say 100%, but there are some nursing stations in communities that we police and they only go there when we go there.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Right. I understand.

Is it easy or difficult to recruit members of aboriginal communities to become RCMP officers who would then go back to those communities to serve?

[Insp Tyler Bates]

It's a rich cultural experience working in aboriginal communities. As was alluded to earlier, for the people who love it, they love it. I spent over 10 years doing isolated police posts, from manning a dogsled to going on the land to caribou hunt and going on a trapline. These were wonderful experiences. For most members who have bounced around and done a lot of northern stints, it's the most memorable part of their career. There is a certain segment of the organization for which recruitment isn't difficult to do that. Whether it's aboriginal members or non-aboriginal members, people share the desire to have that experience in a lot of respects.

It is challenging and you are taxed, and that's the other side of it. In some of the smaller detachments, you don't often go for a walk without carrying a radio because the other member in the community may need you for something. There isn't the downtime that you might have in a large detachment.

That's why—in fairness to the aboriginal members who are working, as well as the non-aboriginal members—there needs to be that ability to work in specialized units when they've experienced that level of investment and they've been on the ball, so to speak, 24-7. To do that for an extended period of time, beyond the two or three years that is expected, one often needs a break and a different transition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

There are 30 seconds for the question and answer.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Do you have any suggestions? We're looking at the costs of policing. How can we make this more cost-effective without sacrificing police coverage? Maybe the answer is to spend more money, get more police coverage, and just say that we'll have to get the money from somewhere else. We need more coverage, and we're just going to have to spend more because of the higher cost of living or what have you.

It sounds to me like there aren't too many efficiencies to be gained because you've thought of everything. You have the video conferencing, and so on.

Are there efficiencies to be gained without sacrificing coverage and quality?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly. We're 15 seconds over already.

[D/Commr Doug Lang]

No.