Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both of our witnesses, and welcome today.
Chief Levesque, we've heard a lot in committee from police forces across the country. One of the things that does come up, of course, is the continuing pressure on police budgets and the outstanding request for more resources, both financial and human. The one thing that's been a fairly consistent theme, which you touched on yet again today, was that police are responding to a lot of non-core policing things and have become, over the years, the agency of preferred choice, not necessarily the last or the best. A number of the agencies have been recognizing, despite their wishes for additional financial support, that this may not be the answer in terms of delivering the best policing models.
I know from my policing background in native northern communities in Yukon Territory we would have said that if we doubled our police numbers, we would be able to tackle this issue, but truth be told, when there are mental health, drug addiction and domestic violence issues, there are social challenges that need to be dealt with elsewhere before a police agency is involved.
I don't think you touched on it much in your address, but what's the Thunder Bay police force doing with regard to engaging in an integrated approach with mental health services, with community group social services? You mentioned homelessness and poverty. How do you feel your agency is working on that front? What kind of work is Thunder Bay doing to engage those groups to work with them so that, for example, you don't have officers who aren't mental health experts dealing with mental health issues, and you don't have officers who aren't drug and alcohol addictions experts dealing with common clients all of the time from a purely police perspective?