Public Safety Committee on April 30th, 2013

[Chief Robert Herman]

You'll see an impact across the board. There are communities now where we don't have police in the community for two or three weeks at a time because we don't have officers.

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

Okay.

Whatever time is left, Chair, I know my colleague has a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, we'll move to Mr. Rafferty, then.

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

That's very cooperative. Thank you very much, Francis.

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

It's kind, not cooperative.

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

It's very kind, in fact.

One of the things we've heard from a number of witnesses is the use of other professionals, in some cases in lieu of police officers, to provide a better service but also to reduce some costs. I'm thinking of the north.

Maybe both Mr. Riches and Chief Herman could answer this.

The recruitment of those professionals, of course, is very difficult. In northern Ontario there aren't enough doctors; there aren't enough of all sorts of professionals.

Let's start with you, Chief Herman. If you had the opportunity in the first nations you're responsible for, of having an officer working with a mental health professional, for example, would you see some merit in that, assuming that professional can be found, and also perhaps a cost reduction?

[Chief Robert Herman]

We do that now. We work with nurses, and we work with the professionals in the communities.

Interestingly enough, in some communities if no police are present, Health Canada will pull the nurses out of that community. We look at those efficiencies. Our officers are very involved in these communities.

You have to understand that these communities could have 250 people to 400 people, so it's a totally different style of policing. We look for those efficiencies, but as an example, it is difficult to find guards to guard prisoners. We have officers who will work a 20-hour shift because there is nobody to guard the prisoner.

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

Mr. Riches, would you like to comment on that?

[Robert Riches]

I think there is a lot of value in other services linking with police to do business. Often when I travel in communities, I hear people describe what they need in their community and they describe what they see as a police officer, but when I listen carefully to what they describe, they're describing a social worker or a mental health worker. I think communities know what they need. We need to help them get what they need, but a police officer isn't always the answer to the problems. As a matter of fact, it's very seldom the real answer. I think police intervention should be restricted, but it's important that we get the right help to the right people.

An expensive police officer, at our cost of $200,000 a year and about $280,000 a year total cost, is not always the answer. I would have to agree that a mental health person or a social worker would be, in a lot of cases, a more appropriate response to the issues that people in small communities describe.

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

Okay, thank you very much.

That leads me to my next question which is about auxiliary officers or volunteer people. I wonder, Chief Herman, if you could describe in your police service how that is used in the communities or if it's used. Also, I wonder if there is a line that can't be crossed; in other words, you need an officer for something and you can't use a volunteer. Would you like to comment on that?

[Chief Robert Herman]

We do have auxiliary officers. We have about 40 in different communities. They volunteer so many hours a month as part of their agreement to be an auxiliary police officer.

The reality is, as I said, the crime severity index is five times the provincial average. We go to gun calls on a daily basis in the communities, so there are calls where you have to have a police officer.

We look at alternative methods of getting people to help us. As I said, I can tell you that many times our backup is a member of the band council, so we're putting them at risk in responding to these calls.

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

It's pretty clear that funding perhaps over the last decade has not been sufficient to build a strong enough first nations police service, and the money needs to be spent.

Do you see any savings anywhere? Do you see anywhere that your police service, for example, could save money if legislation were different, or something like that?

[Chief Robert Herman]

We look for efficiencies all the time in how we police. I think we do a pretty good job of it, of living within the budget we have, but the reality is that we just can't live within that budget anymore.

I can tell you that if you look at first nations policing from an efficiency standpoint and an effectiveness standpoint, we are much more effective and we are much more efficient. If it collapses, as I said earlier, the cost to the governments will be probably three times what it is now. I know that Ontario has actually looked at this to see what the cost is.

When you talk about efficiencies, I hear these numbers thrown around. I'd love to have $200,000 per year per officer. I could run an excellent police service on that. But that's not going to happen.

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

Let me ask both of you, Mr. Riches and Chief Herman, about communications.

Communications came up in the first hour with our witnesses from the RCMP, in particular surrounding broadband but in general police services, how you deal with that in the Yukon and in first nations policing in northern Ontario.

I wonder if you could make some comments about communications in general, and then talk about broadband and so on. I'm just thinking that if this kind of infrastructure were there, surely it would make your service more efficient. From a safety perspective, of course, it would be enormous. You might actually even save money if that service were there.

[Chief Robert Herman]

I'll go first.

I believe governments are actually addressing that issue. They are putting fibre optic cable in most of the first nations communities in northern Ontario. That project is well under way. Bell Canada is actually up there doing it.

It will make us more efficient from a records keeping standpoint in that we can connect to our servers, but it will not address the issue of an actual communications system.

The reality is there are OPP detachments in northern Ontario that use what's called an MSAT radio system. Their calls can be monitored from a communications centre in Thunder Bay or North Bay. In some cases, those communities are 20 miles across the lake from the first nations communities. We don't have that capability.

Yes, there are improvements. You're going to see this whole issue of Internet really explode in the north. I can tell you right now that there are first nations communities that tell about a meeting by going on Facebook, so it is happening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly, Mr. Rafferty.

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

Mr. Riches, would you like to make a comment about communications in the Yukon?

[Robert Riches]

Yes.

Actually, we have excellent radio infrastructure, communications infrastructure, in the Yukon. We replaced the system about three years ago on a cost share agreement with the RCMP. We have an integrated system that all Government of Yukon is on throughout the territory. It's an excellent system. The RCMP cost share with us on the operational costs of that system.

Internet broadband is expanding in the north, and it's the intention of governments to expand it further. In the Yukon we're lucky. We have roads everywhere, not like in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut, other than Old Crow. Our communications are fairly good, and our access to broadband is improving all the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Riches and Mr. Rafferty.

Mr. Norlock, it looks like you're going to have the last statement today.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses, through you, for appearing today.

I will just throw out a few numbers for the chief of police.

Chief Herman, when you were chief of the Thunder Bay police and you needed two officers, instead of going before a chief and council, you went before a mayor and council. They said either yes or no, because the people of Thunder Bay paid for it.

Let me go through some numbers for you.

The minister just signed an agreement for first nations policing for $612 million, which is a 30% increase over the last agreement.

The area covered by NAPS in Ontario got $15 million under the economic action plan for the construction of nine police offices, some of which I used to work at, including Fort Albany, Fort Severn, and a few others. So I guess from the standpoint of the average Canadian citizen who would be out there....

I do know what you mean when you say there was a different kind of policing. When I policed on the northeast patrol, we had things like peacekeepers. We had a first nations police force. The peacekeepers were.... I can remember lying in bed and talking a first nations police officer through a gun call. So I understand what you're saying.

Some of those numbers need to be out there, because there's a 30% increase.

I guess if you're saying that you want the same kind of policing in southern Ontario, the OPP has contracts in southern Ontario, and if a community wants more, they have to pay more.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock. Unfortunately, our time is up.

I do want to thank the witnesses for being here today. We had a different presentation today from some of the remote and aboriginal policing. So we appreciate your being here today.

The meeting is adjourned.