Public Safety Committee on July 24th, 2020

[Chief Dale McFee, Chief of Police, Edmonton Police Service]

Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair.

I want to first acknowledge that it's a pleasure and a privilege to speak here with Peter and Tom, representing our organizations.

I represent 1,900 sworn officers and approximately 900 civilians. I've been involved in the justice system for over 30 years as a sworn police officer and a deputy minister in government, co-chair of the federal-provincial deputy ministers committee and co-chair of CCJS with StatsCan for over four years.

I am a proud member of the Métis community and have worked to change the way we police for the last 12 years. To complement Chief Sloly's remarks, I'm going to move from his suggestions and ideas around cultural change, which I support, and focus on operational changes to policing and the real crux of this matter, which is systemic change in policing and systemic change across the human service system that puts people in the need of the services at the centre of the needed change.

This is not the first time this issue of systemic racism in policing has been a focus of discussion. The fact that we are gathered here again demonstrates that we must move beyond conversation into meaningful change that focuses on implementation and not more study. The facts are irrefutable. Systemic racism is real and exists within all social institutions in Canada. This might make people feel uncomfortable, and that's okay. I'm hopeful the committee will take away, from the panels held yesterday and again today, the realization that we can no longer look at systemic racism in policing as an isolated issue.

As Justice Sinclair has commented, we need to move past the idea that being part of a systemically racist system means that you are racist. As Chief Sloly also indicated, that is not necessarily the case. Systemic racism is seen across the broad system of all social structures and institutions. There are many examples of this. We don't have to look very far. Residential schools, still struggling in classrooms....

The COVID-19 pandemic has a disproportionate impact on black, indigenous and other racialized communities in Canada. Simply to put social conditions in context: where people live determines such things as access to quality health care, which itself can protect or expose to certain illnesses and disease. This, too, is systemic racism. Indigenous and other racialized communities overrepresent in the child welfare system. I could go on.

Despite the evidence, we still can't seem to agree that systemic racism exists in this country. Even in policing, we have leaders who cannot see the impact of systemic racism even though our history is marked by the role of policing in enforcing the Indian Act and discriminatory laws around the treatment LGBTQ2S+ people, among others.

I have been fortunate to speak on these matters of reform around the world for probably the last 12 years. This is a time for leadership and courage demonstrated through commitment to change. This is not just a political matter. As chief, I know there is more work to be done within our organization and the broader environment that we operate in. Nonetheless, I am encouraged knowing that I lead a team of dedicated front-line officers, the overwhelming majority whom, while having no part in building the institution of policing or writing the rules, put on a uniform every day, each one committed to protecting and serving all citizens with compassion and professionalism.

It is as much for them as for those we serve that we must hold individuals who hold racist or inappropriate views accountable, and we must commit to that. However, that by itself does not change the structure of a system that, like other institutional structures and systems in this country, perpetuate racial inequality. What began as a protest against police brutality has evolved into a broader conversation on community safety and well-being linked to broader social and economic issues in disparity.

As a good friend of mine, Sheldon Kennedy, put it, “To know better is to do better.” So now what?

Let's start with police operations. The change starts with leadership. Where should leadership put its focus to give us the best results? I'd like to focus on three key areas, though there are many others.

First, recruiting needs to show diversity in not just race, gender or sexual orientation or gender identity but also in diversity of thinking and lived experience. Diverse recruiting changes culture and should never be taken lightly. It's a primary driver of change. So too is taking a close look at promotional and retention processes.

Second is responding to calls, our bread and butter, as Tom and Peter said. There are two things that drive our calls for service: social issues related to mental health, addictions, poverty and homelessness, which account for 80% to 92% of all calls for service; and then, on the other side, addressing the serious offenders who are responsible for over 50% of recontact within the system. They must be responded to in different ways. A failure to do so can actually artificially increase crime rates, impact policing and community relations, and impact police legitimacy.

Third, we need to address harassment, equity, diversity and inclusion so that they remain a priority for every police leader. To demonstrate our commitment in this area, EPS has moved this responsibility under the office of the chief of police.

Finally, moving forward, we need to look at operational and organizational policies and procedures through a new lens. This includes partnerships and dialogue with community members, community agencies, academia and other subject matter expertise to ensure that our policies and procedures are grounded in evidence and supported by research. This means that we can do more of what works and get out of what doesn't.

These are just some of the things that we are doing at EPS, but there are several others. Across Canada, cities and communities have developed strategies to address poverty, homelessness, housing, addictions and mental health.

In creating these funds, we have to ask questions. Who are we helping? Are there different people in these strategies or are most of them the same? We all know the answer is that it's mostly the same people. How much money is being spent on the social safety net in our cities? Is it coordinated? How can we improve our information sharing and pool our respective expertise to support coordination? How many death inquests will it take to be bold in making these changes? How do we measure success? Is it by how many people are taken into the system or how many we get out of the system? Are there minimum standards? We know the answer to that.

As I mentioned, 80% to 92% of all calls to EPS are related to these key social issues, so a coordinated strategy that incorporates both law enforcement and public health solutions makes sense. Could that be the new structure? Are the social determinants of health not the same as the social determinants of justice?

By pulling together the areas that drive the work, rather than basing the structure on historical silos, we can begin to address systemic racism. While EPS is an organization of change, we recognize that these efforts alone, at best, will not have an impact on any singular police agency. It's time to put the collective expertise together in an effort to truly address systemic racism in a way that is intended to effect real and meaningful change within criminal justice, health care, child welfare, educational institutions and not-for-profits, working together for joint outcomes to get people out of the system. Policing will always be a vital public service. First contact will generally be held by police, and we obviously have to get it right.

We are in a time right now with the perfect storm to create change. The only way this change is going to be done is through partnership, data-led local solutions and collective outcomes. It's time that we all look in the mirror, try for this change and be relentless in doing it. It doesn't need everybody, but it needs a consortium of the willing to start the movement and gain the momentum that we truly need in this country to move from a conversation to meaningful action.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Chief McFee.

We're now moving to our six-minute rounds, beginning with Mr. Paul-Hus, then going to Mr. Fergus, Madame Michaud and Mr. Harris.

For those of you who don't have headsets, please make a conscious effort to speak slowly so that the interpretation can keep up.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Stamatakis or Mr. McFee.

I would like to talk about the causes. Mr. McFee, you mentioned in a report that, in 80% to 92% of the responses, mental health problems were the issue. The people involved had drug or alcohol problems. When marijuana was legalized, the police associations said that there was a risk to the public.

Have you noticed any changes since marijuana was legalized? Has there been an increase in consumption and does it result in an increase in drug-related problems? Is there a tendency for people to use other drugs, which require interventions?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Who wants to take that?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I can jump in.

In terms of the percentages that Chief McFee referred to, he's absolutely right. The vast majority of our calls are driven by issues related to mental health and addictions. The problem is that if the police don't respond to many of those calls, they can potentially turn into more serious crimes. That has been borne out by the research.

On the question related to cannabis, there's no question that we continue to have issues related to cannabis from a front-line policing perspective. I wouldn't suggest, though, that because we're in a legal cannabis regime, we've seen a significant increase in demands with respect to enforcement related to that. I would argue—and I'll let Chief Sloly or Chief McFee weigh in here—that from a policing perspective, we are not prioritizing personal consumption, quite frankly. First of all, we don't have the resources, and second, Canadians have been quite clear with respect to that issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Chief McFee or Chief Sloly...?

[Chief Dale McFee]

I have to apologize; I'm not getting the translation.

What was the second part of the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Pierre, do you want to give the second part of your question?

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

Since the legalization of marijuana, have the cases of intoxication increased, leading to violence? Do certain communities or certain groups have more problems with use, meaning that police interventions are often linked to mental health issues involving violence?

[Chief Dale McFee]

First, I apologize for my bad French.

In relation to marijuana, I'll give you the Edmonton example. We're not seeing a great impact with marijuana, to be bluntly honest. We still are seizing a large amount of marijuana in the mail, which is still an issue. I don't think we're seeing a big change there. There's not a real measurable impact on our crime rate, either, so I think it's very much the same. We're seeing a much bigger impact with meth, which makes everything unpredictable. It kind of tells us that we don't need a marijuana strategy or a fentanyl strategy; we need a people strategy. People are using all of these drugs. Meth is one that's very unpredictable.

In relation to mental health calls for service, we are seeing a significant increase. COVID-19 has also shown us a significant increase in suicide rates. It is the perfect storm. As well, domestic violence is starting to upturn. I think what we really have here is a bunch of the social determinants, as I mentioned, that are disproportionately driving police calls for service. They are disproportionately making it a really high-risk situation in many of these cases, which just come in as troubled persons or checks on welfare and so on.

The intoxication piece has increased and the unpredictability has increased. That makes it very tough to not send a police officer to these calls. It has really shown us that the response needs to be PACT, our team of police and mental health workers together, and we're now hiring social workers to have police and social workers try to respond as well. Once it's safe, the other agency takes the lead. That's what I mean by partnership.

Hopefully, I answered the majority of that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Chief Sloly, Mr. Paul-Hus has asked an important question. I'm sure you wish to respond.

[Chief Peter Sloly]

Thank you very much for your question.

I will revert this back specifically to systemic racism. I will admit my concerns around decriminalization of cannabis. It occurred while I was temporarily outside of policing in the private sector. I watched it from a very different lens, more as a father and community member, with my concerns around its impact. As I've come back into policing, I can assure you that there has not been, at least in this jurisdiction in the nation's capital, a significant increase in crime or violence at the street level associated with the decriminalization. Changes in consumption have affected driving practices, and that is not limited to any particular geography or demography. The use of cannabis, as far as I know from the studies, cuts across almost every demographic group, so for me it's a non-issue when it comes to the issue of systemic racism.

What is important is the issue of decriminalization of simple possession. Certainly, in my almost three decades in policing, and since I've come back into policing as a chief, I support fully the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police's position on decriminalization for simple possession. It has, over the decades, disproportionately led to enforcement in marginalized and mostly racialized communities. To Dale McFee's and Tom's position, it has not resulted in meaningful changes in recidivism, and in fact has put more people, many with mental health and addictions issues, into the criminal justice system without sufficient off-ramps. It has significantly complicated and made more dangerous the work of front-line police officers.

The old war on drugs strategy was a failure. I don't know if decriminalization will be as big a failure, but it will be different. Again, I think if we apply it in a broader integrated-system approach, with health care, social services, housing and housing in the not-for-profit sector, we're likely to get fewer people in jail, more people healthy and fewer people on high-addiction drugs. Those who are there will have the health care options on the street before they become a drain—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave this important conversation there, as Mr. Paul-Hus is well past his six minutes.

Mr. Fergus, you have six minutes please.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank the two police chiefs and Mr. Stamatakis for your presentations today. They were all very interesting.

I'm going to perhaps focus my comments, my questions, on Chief McFee and Chief Sloly.

First of all, Chief Sloly, thank you very much for your presentation. As far as I'm concerned, it almost writes the report, and I think you and Chief McFee have complemented each other tremendously in terms of the testimony that you gave today.

Before I get into some issues, let me allow you to finish off that last point you were making in response to my colleague Mr. Paul-Hus's question. If there were to be all of the array of resources put together to combat dependency and mental health issues, would it be worth considering the question of imitating Portugal, which decriminalized possession of all illicit materials insofar as it is to get people off of that dependency and getting them the supports that they need?

[Chief Peter Sloly]

That's a great question. I'm not an expert in this area, but I'll do my best to answer, sir.

I actually visited Portugal twice, for major conferences around smart cities, in my time in the private sector. The integrated approach to creating a smart city underpins the integrated approach to the process of decriminalization. We have to invest, not disinvest, in policing in order to create the ability for the police services to work in the way that Dale has described and that Tom referred to, for that systemic change, in terms of how we would work in and with community and priority neighbourhoods.

Disinvesting and simply transitioning the money will create another gap in the service delivery social safety net. The best places like Portugal—for me, I've studied Scotland more—have actually maintained investments but produced different service delivery models for the police, while investing more in the other areas around policing, to ensure that we have a smarter and more comprehensive approach to preventing these issues from becoming part of the justice system by off-ramping these people out of the justice system and into the right areas of care and the right community supports.

The other point I wanted to make was that decriminalization, if applied in the same way we did with marijuana, where we provide clemency, will actually give hundreds of thousands of Canadians, many of whom are indigenous and racialized and black, the ability to get back into the job market, earn a wage for their family and contribute to the tax base, which in itself is an exponential financial accelerator for us, as well as being a justice accelerator.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I agree with you in terms of the clemency.

I have a question for either chief.

First of all, let me say that I really appreciate how you talk about giving policing a big rethink in terms of the ways we can talk about increasing community security and health, which would require better partnerships, a different approach. When we had the RCMP commissioner here, she had testified saying that seven in a thousand calls that the RCMP officers get would lead to a violent confrontation.

Chief McFee you talked about 80% to 92% of the calls to the EPS dealing more with social issues as opposed to public security issues.

Is there a rethink going on in terms of what ways police can better respond to what actually turns out to be more the run-of-the-mill calls that they get and the interventions they're asked to make?

[Chief Dale McFee]

Yes, it's a great question. It's really the crux of what we're talking about because, let's face it, a lot of those calls come in and they're not really knowing what they're going to be. Like I tried to say in my opening statement, if it's meth-related sometimes, obviously, it's unpredictable, and a large part of this is drug or alcohol induced, so it requires a partnership approach. What we have in Edmonton and Ottawa and several police services, including Vancouver or Toronto, is PACT teams, police and crisis workers in a police car going together.

When you go together, whoever.... If it's a safe environment, then obviously the lead goes with either the social worker or the mental health worker. If it's not a safe environment, the police stabilize that as well.

We're looking at that now. How can we put mental health professionals in our dispatch centre? How can we coordinate dispatch? If you think about it from a different context, the police services in this country almost run as many ambulances as EMS. Between police and EMS we basically are populating.... Police populate 100% of the justice system, and EMS and the police are almost probably 85% of the emergency rooms—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt. I've been informed I only have a minute left.

Chief McFee, if it's possible, you could write that in a note, if you have the time, and send that to the clerk. We can always integrate into our report what we've received as written as well as verbal testimony.

Very quickly, I'll ask my last question. We obviously have an issue where there is systemic discrimination that exists. When studies have shown that blacks or indigenous people or people of colour are no more likely to commit a crime than any other group, all things being considered, what can we do, then, to stop overpolicing in those areas? What types of approaches can we take so that we're not targeting them and, therefore, finding crime just because we're looking for it in those communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's again an extremely important question, but Mr. Fergus is already way past his six minutes. Possibly you can work a response to his important question into other inquiries.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to speak to Mr. Sloly, but my thanks to all three of you for your testimony.

In 2019, as a result of complaints from residents who felt that there was too much reliance on appearance or skin colour at roadside checks, for example, the Ottawa Police Service admitted that racial profiling was taking place within its ranks. Subsequently, you promised to table an equity, diversity and inclusion action plan to better address biases and “improve the felt and lived experience of the community.”

Has this action plan been implemented? I believe it was planned for January. If so, have you seen any changes? What are they?

[Chief Peter Sloly]

Yes, the EDI action plan was tabled in February in front of our board. It is an evergreen plan, meaning that we've taken what we believe are the top 10 most impactful activities that we can do to address overall equity, diversity and inclusion.

To be clear, that is to ensure that within our police service all of our members are treated with respect and dignity and are able to work in a harassment-free environment; that we address systemic bullying, workplace mobbing, harassment and sexual harassment; and that we provide a safe, healthy and well environment for our members to then be psychologically, emotionally and physically capable of going out and serving in a very diverse and pluralistic community.

The EDI action plan, like almost everything in policing, got waylaid by this giant thing called COVID, but despite that, we have continued to make advancements against those top 10 priorities. We have significantly accomplished three of them, which includes creating the infrastructure.

As Dale McFee talked about, we have created an EDI team and a respect, ethics and values unit within my office, where they have direct access to the office of the chief, the resources, the influence and the power to address the equitable activities of our service to our members, as well as to our community. This includes a strategy around anti-black racism, anti-indigenous racism and systemic racism in the way that I described in my presentation, those three points being used by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in terms of addressing systemic issues within policing.

A lot of work has been done in a short period of time despite other challenges, but we have a lot more work to do.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

In the third point, you talk about identifying and removing all aspects of the organizational culture that sustains systemic racism in your organizations.

In your opinion, are the police officers who work directly on the ground wearing too many hats at the same time? Are we asking too much of them?

[Chief Peter Sloly]

Thank you. That's part of the point I was making before, and I think it has been reflected by Tom and Dale.

It is impossible for a human being in a uniform with a badge, a gun and most importantly an oath of office, and with brains and a heart and arms to wrap themselves around the vast diversity of human issues that we are being asked to go to on a 24-7, 365 basis in small, medium and large communities across this great country. We have done too much of that for too long. It has created an unimaginable amount of stress and strain on our front-line officers. They suffer when they cannot save people and they suffer when they're accused of not doing enough, or the right things or even the wrong things. We've put them in a position of frustration and sometimes failure, and we need to do better for our front-line officers. We need to do better for the communities that rely on them. They must be integrated into a wider set of service delivery opportunities that are available for community members on a 24-7, 365 basis.

A question was asked earlier by MP Fergus that I'll quickly refer to. At the point of contact where the majority of the community calls the police are our communications centres. We have a 911 dispatch centre, but we should have a 911 system, a 311 system, a 211 system, a 411 system and a 511 system, so that right at that point we can properly assess the need for the call and the right services to go, where the police will always be an option. Quite often they will be dispatched in support of the social service worker or the mental health worker, but the immediate contact will be at the right resources and not just the police resource.

We have done a fantastic job in this country and our front-line officers deserve praise and recognition, not condemnation. They need our support, not the defunding and the detasking. The integration is what we actually need here.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Sloly.

We talked about including social workers. Instead of replacing police officers with social workers, it could be a collaborative effort. When the call comes in, people can identify whether a police officer is needed on the ground, or both.

Are you in favour of this idea?

[Chief Peter Sloly]

Yes, certainly.