Public Safety Committee on Oct. 16th, 2018

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

When we're talking about different stats on crimes, many of them come from how many are being actually reported by people. That's why I was curious. If anyone has any information that you come across that might help me as to reporting levels or anything, it would be really helpful.

In the Statistics Canada police-reported crime statistics for 2017, there were two stats, and I'm going to put both of them to you just because I'm running out of time. If you have anything that you can comment on....

The first was on page 3. The report says that “Violent, property and other crime all decreased in rural areas while they increased in urban areas.”

The other statistic that came from Statistics Canada was about firearms-related violent crime. It said, “Most of the increase in the number of incidents of firearm-specific violent offences in Canada occurred outside of CMAs.” I believe that refers to concentrated metropolitan areas.

Do you have anything to comment about those two stats in the most recent reports?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Don't feel like you have to—

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

Are those stats for all of Canada? I just wanted to clarify.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes, it's Statistics Canada police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by both the crime rate and the crime severity index. It's a StatsCan report for 2017.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I would find that a difficult question to respond to off the top. If you feel that you want to respond later in writing once you've read the material, you're welcome to. On the other hand, if you feel you have a response, you're also welcome to respond at this time.

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

Not having read the report, I think we'd be hesitant to speak to it at this point.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. Could you undertake to the committee to look at the material that Ms. Dabrusin is referencing? Then the committee will entertain your response. Shall we leave it there?

[Jim Eglinski]

Can you refer back again to the page? I kind of missed that myself.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It is on page 3—“Police-reported crime rates higher in rural areas than urban areas”—in that part.

[Jim Eglinski]

It's page 3.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I don't want to take up too much of everybody's time, but it's “Police-reported crime statistics, 2017” from Statistics Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Any clarification would be welcome.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It was released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time in The Daily, Monday, July 23, 2018.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chair, we'll be able to provide the link to the document.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You can provide that material. Then they can comment on it. Mr. Eglinski is presumably also interested.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have seven minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, gentlemen. This is an important issue for us in the Conservative Party. A number of our party members are from Alberta and are very concerned about the situation.

Mr. Boucher, you painted the bigger picture. Mr. Ferguson, you provided some figures. In particular, you mentioned that a program has been in place for one year to collect new data and that it seems to be quite effective.

The committee has three meetings to review the situation. We therefore want to have the clearest possible answers from you.

People often tend to blame the RCMP. However, I don't think you automatically deserve this blame; everyone must do their part.

Do you think it's possible to handle the situation on the ground in Alberta right now? Will the measures put in place address major problems? Clearly, there will always be problems, but will the tools you have put in place make it possible to handle the most serious situations over the next 6 to 12 months?

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

We fully acknowledge that we have some challenges ahead of us, but with respect to tackling crime, particularly in the rural areas, with the strategy that we have implemented, we feel very confident and comfortable that we are absolutely going in the right direction. We are seeing some tremendous results. Again, it comes down to having that information, that intelligence as to who's committing the crimes in our communities and then having the ability to go after them. That's what our strategy is focused on.

Will we solve all the crime? No, but again, if we can focus on those who are causing the most harm in those communities and have a dedicated team to interdict and target them, the results will speak for themselves. We feel incredibly excited about what is happening here. We have other initiatives that we hope to be bringing on as the year goes on. Again, they are targeted in nature.

These are not things that we have come up with. These are things that have been implemented in other parts of the country and in other countries in the world. We've seen the success that they've had there, and so we're trying anything we can. That is our focus. We realize that we have to have direction and focus in terms of how we react.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Ferguson, in your comments, you provided some of the success percentages you've achieved. Would you be able to send a report to the committee with an overview of the situation and the problems you are facing? Have you targeted any specific gangs or criminal groups about which the committee members could have information? We would like to have the facts about what is really happening in Alberta so that we can help you in your work.

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

If I may address that, we can certainly pass on some information to the committee about the trends we've identified and some of the percentages. I think specific information about the types of people involved in the crimes might not be appropriate, but we can certainly look at how we might be able to convey that information to the committee.

Would it be useful for me to outline for you some of the initiatives that we have undertaken?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Yes, go ahead.

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

I will go through this in a couple of stages.

The first initiative I will talk about is our enhanced intelligence capacity. We have criminal intelligence coordinators who liaise with our enforcement partners, as well as our detachment, to develop information that we use for special operations and to guide our patrols. We distribute criminal intelligence on a dashboard to our district officers at present, and I'm working on building a capacity to share those with community partners and our other law enforcement partners in the province.

We also have criminal intelligence analysts who directly support the district crime reduction units and provide them with information that helps guide targeted patrols and the people they target as priority or prolific offenders. This obviously varies from area to area within the province.

I have another initiative, which I'll call our apprehension initiative. We've already mentioned our crime reduction teams. There, the province is broken up into four distinct areas, and each area has a unit that's dedicated to crime reduction, targeting repeat offenders in that area by using our intelligence to identify those people and arrest them. We've already made reference to their having made 632 arrests since the units were implemented as a whole and having laid over 1,900 charges.

We're also looking at targeted auto theft, where we're targeting prolific auto thieves and undertaking specialized projects to identify those people and link them to larger theft rings around auto theft.

For suppression, we have increased patrol as a result of another project we have going, which I mentioned, the call-back unit, as well as the PROS data centre. Those two projects are designed to relieve the administrative burden for a lot of the members who are currently working, so that they have more time to spend on the road rather than being in the office. As a result, they're more available for strategic patrols in the field, which helps suppress crime.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to interrupt you, because I don't have a lot of time to ask questions. Can you provide the committee with the document that lists the measures taken, so that we can add them to our report?

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

Certainly.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?