Public Safety Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Well, I think that if she's out, she's out, and we should start.

With that, Madame Maynard, you have seven minutes, please.

[Robyn Maynard, Author, As an Individual]

Thank you for having me.

I have published extensively in peer-reviewed literature on racial and gendered harms of policing in Canada's past and present, most notably Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. I am also a Ph.D. student and a Vanier scholar at the University of Toronto.

I will be forwarding today an evidence-supported argument that sheds light on the increasingly popular and publicly supported calls across Canada to defund the police and highlight the potential, should this be taken up, to meaningfully address the systemic racism that is embedded into policing in Canada.

The first point I want to lay forward is that rather than upholding them, for many communities policing is more accurately understood as a form of harm, particularly for Black communities, indigenous communities, racialized communities and people living with mental health or substance use issues. For example, an American Public Health Association 2018 policy statement affirms that law enforcement violence is a public health issue, addressing that police violence is itself a form of harm in our society.

My work documents rampant racial profiling since the creation of police forces across Canada, documenting, since the 19th century, the heightened policing of indigenous men and women, Black men and women and other racialized communities. Studies conducted in Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver demonstrate that Black people are stopped by police at a rate anywhere from two to six times more frequently than white residents.

Reports that came out by CBC/Radio-Canada about dozens of indigenous women being sexually or physically subjected to violence by the police, as well as the police assaults of Majiza Philip and Santina Rao and other Black women, addressed that there is also a gendered element at stake in this systemic racism within the policing institution. We know that this also has resulted in death. Black people are 20 times more likely to be shot by police in Toronto, according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Funding has continually increased for policing in Canada in a manner that is unparalleled in many other public services. For example, national spending on police operations has increased since the mid-nineties, reaching $15.1 billion in 2007 to 2018. A 2013 government report noted that the cost of policing nationally has more than doubled since 1997, outpacing the increase, they note, in spending by all levels of government. This includes police salaries, which have increased by 40% since 2000, whereas most Canadian salaries have increased by 11%, according to Public Safety Canada. In a context of a COVID-19 economic downturn, reprioritizing has never been more crucial.

We are also in a period in which we have seen the increasing militarization of policing, with particular harms for Black and indigenous communities. For example, a report by Kevin Walby and Roziere in 2018 noted that the use of SWAT teams or tactical squads had increased by 2,000% over the last four decades, increasingly being used for “routine activities such as executing warrants, traffic enforcement, community policing and responding to mental health crises....”

For Black communities in particular, this militarization has at times been fatal or violent. For example, Somali refugee communities experienced raids in which they were assaulted with battering rams and flash-bang devices—which an elderly Somali woman described as being physically brutalized—and, in one instance, told to die in the context of a tactical raid.

In tandem with rising militarization and budgets, there has been an expanded scope in terms of an ever-expanding role for police officers in response to mental health calls and presence in schools more broadly.

We've also seen a dramatic rise in police killings over the last 20 years. A CBC study called Deadly Force highlighted that the number of deaths at the hands of police have nearly doubled over the past 20 years, particularly impacting Black and indigenous communities.

It is important to look to several limited reforms that have not reduced the funding, power and scope for militarization of police and have also been ineffective in ending racial profiling and violence in policing. A 2018 Yale study, the most extensive to date, for example, found that body cams were not an effective way of addressing racism or violence in policing.

A recent study conducted by Concordia University's Dr. Ted Rutland addressed how community policing, frequently proffered as a reform, has been both ineffective in ending systemic racism and in helping to expand and retrench the harms of racialized policing even further in Montreal.

Decades of feminists' anecdotal evidence, as well as more documented evidence, has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of police training.

Of course, civilian oversights continue to be decried in the media and by access to information requests that show there is not only a lack of independence—being staffed largely by former police officers—but that few investigations lead to charges, and zero or less than 1% of criminal convictions.

This suggests that policing in Canada is not only flawed at a cosmetic level, but that the harms, racial and gendered, are structurally embedded into the institution itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Excuse me, Madame Maynard; you're speaking very quickly, and the interpreters are having a bit of a challenge keeping up with you. If you could just slow it down a touch, it would be helpful.

[Robyn Maynard]

No problem.

I'm proposing that the assortment of changes forwarded under the banner of defunding the police are the most appropriate toward meaningfully addressing the issue of systemic racism in Canadian policing. Ending systemic racism requires that we undertake changes to minimize and reduce people's encounters with the police in a variety of ways. Only reducing policing can reduce the harm in policing.

I will now briefly turn toward articulating what this means. Of course, much of what is being articulated at this time is related to public budget allocation, looking at the grossly disproportionate amount of public money and taxpayer money that is spent on policing each year compared to other vital issues, such as shelters, long-term care, public education and social housing.

More broadly, there is also within this call a move to decrease, minimize and move away from a reliance on police in a way that is vastly more substantive. Reducing the budget, reducing the scope and reducing the power of policing are matters in which we are able to address the issue of systemic injustice more broadly. Reducing the scope, for example, is about minimizing areas where policing has been found to be most harmful.

For example, we can see the removal of police officers in schools in the Toronto District School Board, now seen as well in Hamilton, and there is important work being advanced in this regard in Winnipeg and Vancouver.

Reducing the scope has also been a push to ending police responses to mental health calls, given the tragic deaths of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Deandre Campbell-Kelly, and other Black and indigenous and other people killed by police in the context of a mental health crisis.

Ending police accompaniments to drug overdose calls has long been advocated by harm reduction practitioners as a way to reduce overdose deaths, and ending policing collaboration with the Canada Border Services Agency. These are all ways to reduce the scope of policing and the reach that it has in its harm over people's day-to-day lives.

Another element of this is reducing—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Could you wind it up there, please? You are somewhat over your time.

[Robyn Maynard]

All right. Well, we had to stop for a little while there, but I suppose I will—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes, so I did allocate more time to you.

[Robyn Maynard]

Okay.

In addition to reducing power, there is also reducing the militarization and of course building and supporting alternatives.

To conclude, I would argue that acknowledging systemic racism is a step, but a systemic response is needed to get to the heart of the issue. The push to reduce the budgets, scope and scale of policing and to invest in community-based safety is the most meaningful way to address the deeply embedded crisis of racism in police forces across Canada.

We also have unprecedented public support at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bourbonniere, I don't wish to interrupt witnesses. It doesn't give me any great joy, so could you keep an eye on the chair toward the end of your presentation? I'll try to give you signals at one minute or two minutes, or something like that, so that I'm not interrupting.

Mr. Bourbonniere, you have seven minutes.

[Mitch Bourbonniere, Community Activist, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatawin]

Thank you very much.

My name is Mitch Bourbonniere. I've been involved in community outreach groups that patrol the streets of inner city Winnipeg for the last 30 years, beginning with the original Bear Clan in 1990. Today we have at least six different groups that walk the streets of Winnipeg as racialized peacekeeping groups. We have the Thunderbirds, 204 Neighbourhood Watch, the Initiative, the Mama Bear Clan, the Bear Clan and OPK Manitoba all walking the streets of Winnipeg.

OPK is an organization that supports, welcomes and looks after young men and women who are asking for a better life after being involved in the child welfare system, the justice system, street life gangs and prison. They provide wraparound support around youth issues such as housing, income, employment, education, addiction, mental health and connecting our participants to their original cultures.

Despite experiencing poverty, family breakdown, trauma and violence, as well as involvement in child welfare and youth justice systems, these young people ask for and demand a better life. They work extremely hard to turn their lives around.

It is very discouraging to them when society, and more specifically the police and the justice system, treat them with suspicion and mistrust and as being incorrigible.

I have one young man who was horrifically abused as a child and grew up in an unforgiving child welfare system only eventually to take the life of a rival gang member in a dispute. He was 15 years old at the time. He spent the next 15 years in federal prison.

Coming out a couple of years ago as a 30-year-old, he worked relentlessly to turn his life around, getting his education, his driver's licence and stable housing. He is now fully employed, drives his own vehicle and is a parent to a young daughter.

Because the police have the ability to scan licence plates in traffic, he is regularly pulled over because of his past and questioned aggressively and accused of all kinds of things by police. I know this is anecdotal, but these stories have been told to me over and over again in the last 30 years. Although this is extremely discouraging, he has come to accept that this is just going to happen.

The other young people in my program tell me countless stories of being stopped while walking in the community and being questioned by police and asked for identification for no apparent reason.

Another area of concern is when police are dispatched to do wellness checks of people who are already in crisis and have had previous negative experiences with police, and the situation can escalate quickly.

I realize there are many excellent individual police officers and that the action of a few can taint the reputation and perception of all police. I have heard this being dismissed as a few bad apples. It is my belief that we cannot afford even one bad apple in the police service, as this poisons the perception of police by the community, just as it would not be acceptable for the airline industry to have a few bad-apple pilots. We need to ensure police are properly recruited, investigated and vetted, and that they receive intensive ongoing training around racialized communities and empathy.

I have had some good experiences with the Winnipeg police in downtown Winnipeg with their foot patrol asking us—members of the Bear Clan and OPK—to walk with them because they find it easier to work with the unsheltered folks in downtown Winnipeg when we're there with them. I think it's helpful to community members to see people from their own background who are doing well and are out there trying to help them.

I'd like to see more women in the police, more indigenous people and people of colour.

That is what I have to say at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Bourbonniere.

With that, Mr. Motz, you have six minutes, please.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Bourbonniere, I want to spend some time on your background and testimony.

I've had the privilege of meeting with the Odd Squad in Vancouver and Marcell Wilson with the One By One Movement in Toronto. As a police officer for over three decades in my own community, I know that proactive prevention does pay long-term dividends.

From the work you and others do, can you explain to this committee how that can lead to some better social outcomes over time?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

For me, the key is the relationship. It's ensuring that the community not only is safe but feels safe and has the perception that it is going to be treated in a good way. Unfortunately, that just hasn't been the case over the years. Very many people have had at least individual micromoments with the police that have been awful. Word spreads, and the community gets a certain perception of police.

As I said before, the police service is like any other system. There are some good people and there are some people who aren't very healthy in that system. I think it's incumbent upon us to ensure that we are recruiting good people, that they're well investigated, that they're tested and that they receive all the training they need to deal with diversity, with mental health and with serving the community. It's all about the relationship with the community.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you for those comments.

Mr. Bourbonniere, you have been engaging directly with the community. That's what you do. You're boots on the ground. You deal first-hand with individuals in the throes of their experiences and you try to make things better for their lives. From your experience, how are tensions between the police and victims and calls to defund the police being seen on the ground by the community you serve?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

I welcome what's been happening because we're hearing the voices of marginalized people. We're hearing people speak out, some of them for the first time. Obviously, there needs to be change. There needs to be trust rebuilt. They talk about reconciliation; it's hard to have reconciliation if there hasn't been conciliation to begin with. I think there needs to be way more consultation with the community. The community voice needs to be heard.

I don't believe that lip service is acceptable anymore. This has to be put into action by police services. They need to engage the community. They need to meet with the community. They need to be speaking with the community and inviting the community into their circle, and vice versa.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

You've been at this for how many years?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

We started Bear Clan in 1990.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

You have things figured out. You've been doing it a long time. In those years, sir, what's the best policy that you've seen to date that really improves the community that you serve or work in? What are some things that are really working well in your community?

I've been to Winnipeg. I've heard of the Bear Clan. I've seen some of the work that's been done there by OPK. What community work is being done, in your experience, that really makes a difference and that has not only an immediate impact but a long-term positive impact on the communities we're addressing here in this study?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

I think it's just getting boots onto the street. We deliver food. We deliver clothing. We deliver warmth and good cheer to our community members. They learn to trust us. Then, once they trust us, they reach out and ask for the help that they need to better their lives, in terms of accessing shelter, seeing their children again and taking steps towards rebuilding their lives.

What's really important, and what we do not have enough of, is groups walking together, like the police and community members like Bear Clan and OPK. We need a partnership between the police and the community groups. We need them walking together, not just driving vehicles but actually walking in the communities, talking with people and interacting with the children, women and people of that community.

As well, we need storefront walk-in welcoming centres. Police and groups like the Bear Clan and OPK can be in those centres. People can come in and talk to the police and talk to the community groups and have that accessibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

With that, now we'll have Madame Damoff for six minutes, please.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to both witnesses for the excellent testimony.

Ms. Maynard, you've written about racialized surveillance and, Mr. Bourbonniere, you spoke about it in your remarks as well. You've written, Ms. Maynard, that when it comes to gangs, the number of white kids in gangs is actually greater than the number of Black kids in gangs, and that the number of white kids and Black kids using drugs is actually the same, but it's the Black kids who are grossly overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

Training and education seem to only perpetuate the misconceptions in police services and put these misconceptions into their mindset, so that even if it's not overt racialized surveillance, it's still happening.

How do we change that within police services, bearing in mind that the RCMP is the only police service under federal jurisdiction? I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on how we deal with this racialized surveillance of Black people in particular, but, I would argue, of indigenous peoples as well.

[Robyn Maynard]

Absolutely, and I think you're right that the numbers bear out that indigenous people, in particular indigenous women, also experience very significant rates of racial profiling in Canadian society.

To continue on a bit with what I was trying to get at with my presentation—and thank you so much for your question—whether we look towards increased police training or towards increased community policing, we see that these are things that do not fundamentally get to the heart of racialized policing and the racialized surveillance that you're so importantly highlighting.

I think what we really need to do is work towards minimizing the encounters that Black communities are having with police. If we look, for example, to the deployment of what often are so-called anti-gang squads, they are frequently squads, for example, that have eclipsed.... That was put forward in Montreal, and they were substantively involved in the mass racial profiling of Black communities, particularly in the Montreal North and Saint-Michel regions.

We actually saw a significant budgetary allocation increase because of what they described as increased perceptions of crime. It was unrelated to the actual increase of crime, but this ended up massively expanding the racialized surveillance of Black and indigenous youth in the neighbourhood.

This is why I'm suggesting a reduction, actually, of policing budgets, a reduction in policing those neighbourhoods, and the diversion of funds to things that keep communities safe, such as community centres or anti-violence programs that are not connected to police but are about building communities safely and differently.

If we also move towards the decriminalization of drugs, for example, which we already know increase the rates of hepatitis B, HIV and overdose deaths, as well as contributing to the mass incarceration of Black communities in Canada even as we know that criminalization does nothing to address the real harms associated with drug use, something like the decriminalization of drugs could really substantively impact the well-being of Black communities.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you for that. My next question was actually going to be about the decriminalization of drugs. Thank you for working that into your answer.

One of the misconceptions out there is that if you remove police from a neighbourhood, it makes it more unsafe. From your research, is that actually true?

[Robyn Maynard]

I think we need to remember that the call for defunding is not only about removing police but about providing alternatives that would build safety that would not require policing.

If we were to give an example, we can look to the policing of encampments in Toronto or Hamilton, where people are routinely made to leave the places where they are living outdoors. Of course, being offered long-term affordable or free housing is an alternative that does not require policing, for example, right? The presence of safety, healthy food and decent housing is something that provides much more safety than law enforcement officers can.

Of course, it's always a double-pronged choice, which is not only about divesting but also about reinvesting, about making sure that it's not only about taking something away but also about putting something in place.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm going to stop you only because I have just a minute left.

Mr. Bourbonniere, one of the gaps in what we look at is urban policing. You don't get any federal funding to run your programs. I suspect that you struggle for funding for your programs. If we're going to tackle the issues of systemic racism in policing, does the federal government need to be investing in urban policing?