Evidence of meeting #9 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was officers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Thank you.
I think you've left me just enough time to ask Dr. Benson a question as well.
Dr. Benson, Dr. Schiffer actually alluded to it in his answer. Could you talk briefly about the quality of training for officers when facing cases of mental health?
Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta
Right now, in reviewing what exists, there needs to be some changes. There is a lot of new research and new programs that are available for professionals in addressing mental health, especially around the intervention field. I think there needs to be a review of the training that's there now and an update of it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thanks very much, Mr. Vidal.
Madam Damoff, you have six minutes, please.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you to all of the witnesses who are here. I'm actually going to start with Dr. Schiffer.
Dr. Schiffer, you and I have talked about a pilot. I know you were involved in the development of the Kwanlin Dün model of community safety officers. We haven't talked a lot about the urban context for indigenous peoples, but we know most indigenous peoples actually live in urban settings. I know you're working on a model that would put community safety officers in settings where they're interacting with indigenous peoples. Certainly, that model could be translated over to black Canadians in urban settings as well. Could you tell us a little about that?
Executive Director, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto
Yes, I'd be happy to. Thank you.
A few years ago, I did lead the Office of Indigenization at the Justice Institute of British Columbia, which is responsible for training every municipal police officer in the province of British Columbia. During my time there, I did have the opportunity to support the development of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation community safety officer program. That program has received a lot of media attention and has been really positively received in the community. I'm not only seeing a sharp reduction in the calls for police officers. It's also building positive relationships and attending to a lot of the cultural stuff that I've been talking about.
Those officers are not police officers. They're community safety officers. However, when we were building the curriculum for that program, we asked, “What are the needs in this community?” and said, “Well, we know that this community is struggling with mental health challenges. We know that this needs to be de-escalated through a particular means.” When I think about the 7,000 unique individuals who we support ever year in the city of Toronto at Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, I know that many of them have had very negative impacts with policing.
I referred to a study in my testimonial earlier. It was a study that was done out of the States, but it really showed that about $8 billion is spent every year in the States on police training, and that training has not been shown to change behaviour in officers. Training in itself is something that does not work unless it's deployed with a number of other structural changes.
We've been working on a pilot at Native Child, in collaboration with the community and partners here, to look at what it would be like to have safety officers who are specialized in victim services and mental health be first responders to be able to work with and de-escalate some of the situations that often go wrong with police. We do know that police will need to be involved some of the time, but I do think that we could take a number of these cases off the hands of the Toronto Police Service. What that does, as well, is free up officers for more critical tasks that they often struggle to find time to address.
I think it's supporting police officers to really focus on the things they do well, while also making room for community-led solutions that we know lead to better results.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
We're talking about systemic racism in policing, and there's been a lot of talk about funding. Do you think we should be putting funding into these types of resources, rather than funding more police—resources that can deal with mental health, addiction, sexual assaults and domestic violence? Police are not necessarily the best people to be supporting those individuals who are the victims of crime.
Executive Director, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto
That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that we need to put some thoughtful consideration into what police do well because we need them in our society, and there are many things they do very well. However, there are also other things that they're just not set up to do and aren't trained for. We can pour tons of money into trying to get them set up to do that in a good way and effectively, and that's been the strategy, but that strategy has not been successful.
We've seen through pilots like Kwanlin Dün that when we shift the focus to community-led programs that deal with some of the things like mental health, victim services and family violence, we spend less money and get much better results. This has been done in reserve communities, but it has not been done in any substantial way in Canadian urban centres. When we think about the shifting indigenous demographics, with the vast majority of indigenous people living in [Technical difficulty—Editor] communities, I think we have a real opportunity here to fund some pilots that will lead to real innovation and, quite frankly, save lives, because indigenous people are dying in cities like Toronto when these interactions go wrong.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Dr. Benson, first I want to thank you for your 40 years of advocacy and work. I really enjoy working with you and the knowledge that you have.
When you and I spoke, you were talking about two things that need to change with the RCMP. One is oversight, and the other is discipline. You spoke a bit about the oversight piece, but you didn't speak a lot about how both of those need to be done in tandem in order to make changes in the RCMP. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit.
Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta
Thank you.
The last piece of my talk was around consequences. We've acknowledged, in a number of cases where our organization has been directly involved with the RCMP in managing and dealing with complaints over the many years, that where consequences occurred, we saw a change in community relations. It was more transparent in the community. In the Wood inquiry with the New South Wales police, where consequences were developed and addressed and it became a public document, I think a lot of change happened right after that point. We saw a police establishment wanting to engage better with the community and looking for better ways of doing business. There was more training implemented with the police.
I think consequences are important. In all matters of our society, there have to be consequences for wrongdoing. I think the challenge we have around that is that there's not enough clarity about the use of force, and it's not consistent across the country.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you for that, Madame Damoff.
Madame Michaud, you have six minutes.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to the witnesses for their speeches.
I will speak to you, Mr. Owusu-Bempah. You made an important distinction between systemic racism and institutional racism. From the start, we have talked a lot about systemic racism and making recommendations. Will the means proposed make it possible to eliminate both systemic racism and institutional racism, or do we need a two-step strategy?
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Thank you for your question.
I will need to wait for the translation.
Bloc
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I just need a translation on that, sorry.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I was on the French channel. I can repeat my question.
Can you hear the interpretation?
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I don't have it coming through for me.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Okay, so if it's not coming through for the witness, then we'd better go back to square one.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chair, I think Professor Owusu-Bempah might not have his microphone on the English channel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Do you want to just check that, Professor Owusu-Bempah? There's a little global thing at the bottom.
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes, sorry, I didn't have that. You're correct.
Liberal
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
Could you repeat the question? I'm sorry about that.
Liberal
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I will repeat my question, then.
Mr. Owusu-Bempah, you made the necessary distinction between systemic racism and institutional racism. We have talked a lot about systemic racism since we began our study. We have proposed various solutions and recommendations. Because a fairly sizeable distinction can be made between the two concepts, should the strategy be in two stages, or will the means proposed be able to curb both systemic racism and more institutional racism?
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I think there's an important distinction between perhaps institutional racism and then definitely structural racism. We can put systemic with structural, but there are various forms of inequality present in our society, as I said at the outset, that lead to policing outcomes and that produce racially disparate outcomes in policing.
As I said, discrimination in education and employment creates an environment in which the police, even if they're acting impartially or in an unbiased manner, are likely to produce outcomes with a racially differential impact. Given that the police are state agents, I think that needs to be considered in the context of the work that you're doing.
Is it fair that, just because of where I live or my experiences with poverty, I am more likely to be criminalized for doing something that my peers, who are more privileged, are not criminalized for doing?
I think you should look at and examine institutional policies and practices within policing that also produce racially disparate outcomes, which, again, may on the surface seem race-neutral, like the practice of street checks, for example. Then, importantly, as I mentioned at the outset, there are policies that use various things like street checks or even arrests as a performance measure and some of the risk assessment tools or the way in which release decisions are made when we consider whether or not an individual has a fixed address.
There are various institutional practices within policing that produce racially disparate outcomes, and various phenomena in our society that the police have to address, which also produce racially disparate outcomes. I think that both need to be examined in the context of the work that you're doing, because, if we just focus on what the police are doing themselves, without considering what's happening in the society in which they work, we are still going to have high rates of use of force and violence inflicted upon black and indigenous people. They are a product of institutional practices, but they are also a product of societal practices.
This is why Dr. Schiffer was talking about de-tasking: the more we can remove the presence of police from the lives of marginalized people in instances they don't need to be there, the less likely we are to have these negative outcomes.