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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ghislain Picard  Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador
Terry McCaffrey  Chief of Police, Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service, and President, Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario
Doris Bill  Kwanlin Dün First Nation
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah  Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Jeffrey Schiffer  Executive Director, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto
Allen Benson  Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

I'm sorry to cut people off, but we are well over time.

Mr. Morrison, you have three minutes, please.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Rob Morrison Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's been great conversation today, all day.

My question is for Allen Benson. Allen, you have an extensive background. I'm really curious about some demographic issues. What's been happening in the last 20 years, and what do you, with your experience, see happening in the future with either urbanization or rural communities?

4:10 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta

Dr. Allen Benson

Well, I think there are a couple of things. In Alberta, I've seen some real change where municipalities, first nations and Métis settlements have engaged in some real conversations about community safety and rural crime, and partnering on some service delivery issues around mental health and addiction. I've seen changes occurring that we haven't seen in a long time. This has primarily been driven by the Canadian Federation of Municipalities over the last couple of years.

On the municipal level, we have some real challenges. I'll use Edmonton as an example. We have trained 1,400 city police officers on historical and intergenerational trauma. We've seen some real changes occur. Just yesterday, we had the senior deputies at my office for a discussion about carding. We have seen changes in community engagement with the police at the municipal level.

The problem we have, really, is when we have incidents of abuse by police officers. There was another one yesterday in Edmonton. It tears apart all the building that occurs. Our speakers earlier spoke about this. We think that engaging the community on other levels is very important, such as addressing mental health together and not having officers respond to these things.

As past chair of the family violence death review committee, I saw a lot of these challenges. When we had family violence experts intervene, we had fewer charges, fewer arrests and fewer accusations of abuse, as well. We've actually seen reductions in deaths where there's better intervention outside of the police. That's important to recognize.

The other thing is that we had an RCMP cadet program that was initiated by a couple of RCMP officers with the largest first nations in Canada, the Hobbema first nations, which include four bands. That program has been expanded in smaller centres, and now is being looked at as an urban strategy where we engage minorities in working with police officers on this cadet strategy. That's real community engagement.

I think—

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Unfortunately, it seems, Dr. Benson, I end up cutting you off way too many times. I'm sorry.

4:15 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta

Dr. Allen Benson

That's okay.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Mr. Morrison, we'll have to leave it there.

With that, we're going to Mr. Anandasangaree for three minutes, please.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really appreciate all the witnesses today.

I'm going to try to leave some time for Mr. Sikand, but this question really is for Professor Owusu-Bempah.

Racial representation is quite important. We see some transformation taking place. Peel, City of Toronto and now City of Ottawa police services are led by racialized individuals, and I think within the service itself there are more people who are getting into the system.

How important is it? Is that the solution, and what more needs to be there to change the structures as opposed to individuals?

4:15 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

This is a very good question.

I think that what we would term our representative bureaucracy may be good to help improve perceptions of the police and also perhaps to facilitate good community relations, provided that those racialized officers are policing communities that they're familiar with. I know that a study from a few years ago with the RCMP found, for example, that black officers were being taken from Toronto as their depot and placed in Nova Scotia to communities they had no familiarity with.

Racialized officers are most definitely not the silver bullet, even when they make it to the top of the services they work for. Evidence from the United States, for example, demonstrates that in some jurisdictions African Americans are more likely to be shot by African American police officers than white police officers because those African American officers are deployed to African American areas.

Again, we need to look at the larger structural issues that cause many of the problems that we're talking about. Unfortunately, racialized officers still have to go out and operate in a society in which there are a number of social problems that lead members of the communities they may represent into contact with the police.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON

Thank you, Professor.

I'm going to yield my time to Mr. Sikand.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

He has one minute.

July 23rd, 2020 / 4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

I'd like to continue along that line of thought. Here in Mississauga we have a minority that's our police chief, which is awesome. In Toronto, although he just retired, we had a police chief who was of colour as well. However, my concern is that, once they take that uniform off, things are very different for them. Even with that uniform on, there are probably people in their ranks who perhaps don't necessarily abide by or obey their power per se if they're perpetrating these things to Canadians.

Could you continue on how we could do a better job of dismantling any kind of systematic discrimination?

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

That's an extraordinarily complicated question that you have 13 seconds to answer.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

I'm sorry about that.

4:15 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

It's important to examine the culture of policing and the way that informal social networks within policing continue to privilege white officers at the expense of non-white officers. Hockey and golf and who you drink beer with make a huge difference as to your experiences as a police officer and your level of success, and that needs to be closely examined.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Thank you for your answer.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Madame Michaud, you have one and a half minutes, please.

4:15 p.m.

Bloc

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Schiffer.

We spoke at length about training earlier. You shared your doubts about the effectiveness of training.

As part of an action plan that the federal government could undertake, what model would you propose to replace the existing one?

4:15 p.m.

Executive Director, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto

Dr. Jeffrey Schiffer

I do think that training is important and it is effective, but it's not effective when that's the only strategy that's utilized. There are some studies that have shown that, if you're going to put all your eggs in the basket of training, you shouldn't expect it to yield many results.

Yes, we need more training. I heard one of my colleagues mention how there's been some training already done about intergenerational trauma. That sort of stuff is very important, but I think it needs to be accompanied by many of the other things we've been talking about, such as a focus on recruiting diverse officers and on increasing accountability, and some of the larger structural shifts that we've been talking about in terms of changing systems and ways that will lead to better results.

I think the problem with training is that sometimes it's an easy solution. We think that, if we bring in some training to a bunch of officers, they're going to start acting differently. What the research is telling us is that this is simply not the case; it needs to be paired with other strategies.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Thank you, Madame Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have the final minute and a half.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm interested in the panellists' views on the issue of police training. We have heard, obviously, evidence from the RCMP depot of six months of training. It was suggested earlier this afternoon that the training is 13 weeks in Ontario. I know some requirements are diplomas in police studies, etc., as part of the training, taking several years.

Would each of you just comment briefly on...? Let's start with Professor Owusu-Bempah. Would you give us your views on that?

4:20 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

Less training needs to focus on the officers' ability to swim, use a firearm or engage in high-speed pursuits, and more needs to focus on de-escalation and how to interact with members of the public.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Thank you.

Mr. Benson, would you have a comment on that?

4:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Native Counselling Services of Alberta

Dr. Allen Benson

I agree. I think the other point is that we need to be more inclusive around understanding mental health, and the fight-or-flight that comes from mental health challenges, especially people affected by trauma.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Finally, Dr. Schiffer.

4:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto

Dr. Jeffrey Schiffer

The only other thing I would add is that we should probably take a look at whether or not we want police doing everything they're doing right now, and whether we want to reallocate some of the services to other community organizations, because that obviously would change any training portfolio that we would want to deploy. I do think that other organizations are well-positioned to do some of the mental health work.

Meegwetch.