Public Safety Committee on Oct. 16th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have one minute left.

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

Okay.

Does current legislation allow you to do your job properly? Should it be amended to help you do your job? Are there any problems with the legislative provisions governing the arrest and detention of people? For example, do they allow detainees to be released too quickly?

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

With respect to the laws, we're quite comfortable with the laws that are there. Obviously, if the elected officials are looking at laws that they feel will enhance our abilities, absolutely.

With respect to the cycle you may be referring to in terms of our arresting people and their going before the system and getting released very quickly or not staying in, as I said, with part of the $2 million that the province provided to Alberta Crown prosecutions they've identified a lead Crown prosecutor who works directly with Peter. When we're dealing with offences that our crime reduction teams are in particular dealing with, we're able to convey to them the importance and the seriousness of the offences so that now they're able to better articulate and argue before the courts why these people should be remanded into custody. We are seeing some very good results as a result of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave the answer there.

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Moore, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The police force for Abitibi—Témiscamingue is the Sûreté du Québec. I have a number of police friends from that region. They told me that no one was rushing to apply for jobs in rural areas. When the police officers in training leave the École nationale de police du Québec in Nicolet, most of the ones from Abitibi manage to find a position in the region. Even if it is not always in the town that they want, they manage to return to their region quite easily.

As a result, our police officers may be young and less experienced, but they are familiar with the surroundings. They already know the side roads that people tend to use when they are drunk. They already know the people who are in bad company. They are sort of aware of the crime in the area where they are sent to work.

Does the RCMP have the same problem, that positions in rural, northern or remote communities tend not to be filled quickly, so that new, inexperienced officers are sent to those regions? Do the officers who are sent to rural communities tend to come from those same regions, or are they unfortunately people who are not familiar with the communities or the dynamics of those regions at all, sometimes even people who come from another province?

[A/Commr Byron Boucher]

I could start by responding to that. Assistant Commissioner Ferguson might want to add something from an Alberta perspective.

When we sign on with the RCMP, we agree to go anywhere. Many of our new police officers who go to these remote communities are very junior in service. They have the benefit most times of having somebody else; they're not there by themselves. They go in when there are already other police officers in place, so there's a bit of a transition that takes place.

We also have what I would call the “reserve cadre”. Right now in northern Canada, in places such as Nunavut, we are sending in reserve officers. Those are officers who have retired from the RCMP, signed back on to be a reserve member, and may go and fill in, in a particular community, for anywhere up to three or four weeks, wherever we have shortages. They bring with them a lot of experience. They could have anywhere from 30 to 35 years of policing experience, and everybody benefits from that. Obviously, the ties to the communities assist greatly as well.

However, yes, you're absolutely right that in many cases we have a very young workforce. We are seeing a lot of these communities with new, younger police officers. They're also limited-duration postings because of their remoteness. We see a lot of transition out of there.

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

From the Alberta perspective, that's very true. It is a challenge for us to get members to some of our more northern and isolated spots. Some of it might have to do with a person's desire for a certain type of lifestyle, but also a big factor is that a lot of these members are married and their spouses have careers themselves. Sometimes it's just a lack of opportunities for their spouses in those communities.

We try to be creative and we try to create incentives. You will see, on average, a more junior membership in the north than you will in the south for primarily those reasons. It is a challenge for us, and we do try to manage it as best we can.

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

Is there any specific training for RCMP members before they are sent to northern communities to help them deal with this reality? For example, they will have a hard time getting support in some situations. They will have to manage crises that would normally require the intervention of a specialized unit, which can take several hours to come to the site, for example when individuals are in barricade situations and negotiations are required.

Do those officers receive any specific training before they are sent to the north, or do they sort of learn from experience?

[A/Commr Byron Boucher]

Go ahead, John.

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

Byron, you might like to speak from the national perspective, but it's fair to say that there's no specific training, necessarily, for serving in the north. All of our members are trained to a certain level at Depot. Then when they come to their detachment they're paired with a seasoned officer for a minimum of six months, so there's ongoing training there.

When it comes to police defensive tactics and awareness, that is an area that we focus on in Depot but continue to focus on at the division level as well, with certain annual training courses and even some other types of training. There's no specific course that we give just to members who are going into our rural areas.

[A/Commr Byron Boucher]

The basic training remains the same, but there are cultural awareness courses available to members going in. Sometimes they differ among provinces, depending on the communities they might be going to police in.

When you spoke about specialized services, what comes to mind immediately for me is the availability of emergency response teams in northern Canada. In many cases...you mentioned hours, but it could be well over a day, depending on the distance and what's going on. We have what we call “containment teams” in place and negotiators specially trained to hold the situation until more advanced responders can arrive.

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

So there is no specific training. There is cultural training, but there is no tactical or operational training specific to northern realities.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about half a minute.

[A/Commr Byron Boucher]

There is tactical training in the sense that some of those members may be trained to do things such as act in containment teams. Otherwise, yes, there is cultural training, but the general training for members is the same across the board.

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

In Alberta, you haven't put in place any training specific to northern realities, have you?

[A/Commr John Ferguson]

No, not as it relates to policing specifically, other than what Byron talked about. In certain areas, we will have a containment team. It will be a select number of members who will have a little bit more enhanced training, but again there's nothing specific for a member just going to the north or to a rural detachment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Moore.

Mr. Picard, you have seven minutes.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, especially for your service and engagement to the Canadian population.

In the past hour, I struggled a little bit trying to understand whether there was a difference between the nature of crime in the rural environment compared to the suburbs and the urban environment, because in order for us to make the right proposals, we need to understand what the problem is.

Is there something that is characteristic of what's happening in the rural environment that we might not realize in an urban environment, or is it just the same type of crime we face but with little differences, such as the fact that the territory is quite wide or that the number of people is way smaller than in the cities, while the service remains the same type of service that the RCMP is offering to the population?

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

I think, to address your question, there are obviously differences between rural and urban areas. Some of what we're looking at when it comes to crime prevention is crime prevention that would be tailored to be more effective in a rural area. A lot of what is discussed around crime prevention initiatives was studied in an urban environment. A lot of the evidence-based studies come out of urban environments. We've been looking at studies that include or are inclusive of rural locations when we're evaluating the effectiveness of strategies that we want to put in place.

There's been a lot of discussion in the province of Alberta regarding whether crime is moving from the urban centres into the rural areas. I don't have any evidence to support that. All we can say is that there is crime in the rural areas, and I can tell you that when we look at our statistics, we see that half of the vehicles that are stolen in Alberta have the keys in them. This is more of a reality in the rural communities, where people have their property insecure or leave their keys and so on in the car. I think that lends itself more to that kind of opportunity crime.

In terms of what the origin of the crime is, that's tough to speak to directly, but the challenges in a rural environment are different from those in an urban environment, some of which you've already mentioned.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Boucher, do you have anything to add?

[A/Commr Byron Boucher]

The challenges for us above that would be just the distance in responding. The population is quite dispersed, and our ability to get there quickly is not the same, obviously, as it is a big city.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

You explained earlier that based on your report, your performance was quite good, since a reduction of crime happened in the last months or years. Are those results comparable to regions elsewhere in Canada? How do you compare your results with what is done in the city, and what works in your case? Obviously you did something good, since the results are positive.

[Supt Peter Tewfik]

Thank you. I can address that a little bit.

In terms of our results, the comparison we're looking at is five years of data within Alberta. That's an apples-to-apples comparison when we look at historical patterns within the province. If we started to try to compare Alberta to other provinces, I don't think that that would necessarily be an equal comparison. There might be other factors that need to be considered in terms of what's going on.

We're comparing the data that we're looking at to our historical data in the same time frame, so I feel like that makes the trends that we're seeing demonstrate that some of our strategies are working.

In addition to that, I can tell you that our clearance rate, which is our ability to identify the person responsible for a crime, is also going up. Simply put, one aspect of our strategy is focusing on the people causing the most harm to our communities. Once again, not only are we arresting those people, but on average we have three new charges that are generated with each arrest. This means we're on the right kind of offenders, because we're generating more charges from each individual arrest. I think that proves it's an effective strategy.

For me, it's about collaboration with our community partners, our citizen-led groups, as well as with law enforcement partners, that helps make this an effective strategy.