Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both of you.
Deputy Commissioner Lang, you mentioned that you were just in the Yukon, which is the riding I represent. I was wondering if you would have had an opportunity to see some of the work that's being done in response to the “Sharing Common Ground” report, the review of Yukon's police force which Mr. Scarpaleggia talked a little about, throwing financial resources toward policing. We are talking about the cost of policing, but one of the costs of policing is intrinsically tied to the cost of crime. I think of the Yukon as a great model right now, albeit the review of the police force wasn't done as an economics of policing exercise. It was done out of some high profile cases that came about. When I look at what they're accomplishing, I can't help but think that some of the things they're doing right now are going to achieve some substantial savings on the cost of crime end.
The Northern Institute of Social Justice is doing a career orientation program to recruit women and first nations into policing. There's the establishment of the Yukon Police Council. The arrest processing unit now is being taken over by the Yukon government, so a different level of care is being provided to offenders. The RCMP aren't having to deal with cell block services in the community of Whitehorse. They've come up with a specialized unit for a coordinated response for domestic violence and sexual assault.
Communities are now involved in the selection of commanding officers who are coming to the communities. I think four of the communities in the Yukon have undertaken that already. They have community priorities now being established in their annual performance plans because some communities were doing well with that and others weren't, but they are now finding some success in identifying community priorities. They have a communications director to develop communications strategies to enhance citizen engagement, which will ultimately help reduce crime in the communities. They have a commanding officer's first nation advisory committee, which is working well with different groups, women's organizations and first nations organizations.
I was wondering if you had an opportunity to see that in the works. Maybe you could comment on how you see that working in the Yukon and how you see that potentially being rolled out in the rest of Canada, if it's a positive model.