Public Safety Committee on Feb. 8th, 2022

[Myron Demkiw]

When it comes to the gun violence the city's experiencing, I can tell you that we are seeing more guns being fired and the discharge of firearms in public spaces, not in people's homes and not in confined spaces. It's difficult to draw a clear line between what is a gang shooting and what is a shooting that's drug related or related to protection of turf or illicit business. We know we have a serious issue with respect to the proliferation of firearms among persons who are not readily known to be gang members or associated to gangs.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] more and more shootings and more and more firearms recovered from persons who are not necessarily directly related to gangs, as we identify gangs or have the intelligence to identify them. That speaks to one of the intelligence challenges we face—the ability to understand precisely who is legally to be identified as being in a gang. We know that the proliferation of guns is becoming more widespread, and we see from our demographics as it relates to age, that the age is dropping significantly. We've recently had shootings involving extremely young people. It's a very concerning trend.

As far as how many are domestic violence, I don't have it broken down that way, but I can tell you that the predominant problems are shootings out on the street between rivals or persons with no apparent connection to one another.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'll extend the same question to the Edmonton Police Service, please.

Chief, go ahead.

[Chief Dale McFee]

There is certainly an increase in relation to gangs, but as Deputy Demkiw said, sometimes the data and the correlation.... We obviously have to get this right. As I said earlier, 12 of our homicides in Edmonton were related to gang activity, but out of that, there are at least nine that quite likely could be.... There is also a strong correlation to the drug trade in relation to that as well. Those things are a big concern for us, for sure. It's a smaller number when it actually gets to domestic violence, as you've asked. I think we had only one particular case in relation to a homicide.

Certainly our target...and what we're seeing as trends here is a bit disturbing. In some of our homeless camps, certainly in Edmonton and in Calgary, we're seeing some gang infiltration in relation to the drug trade and in relation to firearms as well. That's another growing concern that seems to be trending upwards as well. It's something that we obviously monitor. We obviously have systems in place in relation to that.

Our ALERT model, a combined law-enforcement model for the province of Alberta, has made some big impacts here in relation to that, but it's a trend that has certainly caused the greatest amount of concern because it's organized and, as mentioned earlier, there are a lot of youth involved.

As we know, it comes back to that whole thing that when you deal with a gang, you also have to deal with the feeder system and ensure that you take that out as well. That is the one we probably pay the closest amount of attention to because of the random shootings. We know that when random shootings happen, obviously innocent victims often get hurt.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'm getting a sense of that, but I'll extend the same question to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and Chief Bray. If you wish to respond to that, that's great. Alternatively, or as well, perhaps you could address the question of the proliferation of firearms.

There's been some discussion that as we interdict firearms from the illegal market, the price goes way up. There's some thought that this might fuel the business, because it makes it much more lucrative to sell firearms. On the other hand, it's more difficult, perhaps, to buy them.

Chief Bray, I wonder if you could opine on one or both of those questions.

[Chief Evan Bray]

In general terms, in the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police work that is going on, we know there are gun problems across Canada. However, they somewhat vary by region. The types of guns being used and how they are being accessed or are falling into criminal hands varies throughout the country.

We need to work in ways whereby we can have laws and legislative change that makes it tough and prevents firearms from falling into the hands of criminals with safe storage laws, record-keeping and those types of things.

I think it's important to understand that you're hearing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

I'm sorry. You're going to have to wrap it up in 10 seconds.

[Chief Evan Bray]

Okay. A very strong theme is that most people who are committing crime with guns are criminals who don't have the ability to possess them. It's not law-abiding gun owners who are committing the majority of these crimes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you.

I would now invite Ms. Michaud to ask her questions. She has a six-minute slot.

Ms. Michaud.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here today. We appreciate it.

I'll turn to Mr. Bray from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Mr. Bray, thank you for your address. It's always nice to have it a little bit beforehand, because we can follow the leads that you give us.

You mentioned that we need to find ways to reduce gun violence in communities “using the best evidence-based practices”. Could you elaborate on this a little more and tell us what those practices are?

[Chief Evan Bray]

It speaks again to some of the practices that work in areas that are sometimes geographically different from others.

I've referred to that because the Lower Mainland of B.C. or Metro Toronto might look different from the prairie provinces when it comes to the sourcing of these guns and the types of guns that are being used.

Handguns are a good example. We see handguns in Saskatchewan, but predominantly the crime is committed by long-barrelled rifles. It's very similar in Alberta and in Manitoba. A lot of those guns are coming from break and enters. The work we need to do there comes down to education on safe storage and not having those guns stolen from a farmhouse and then converted and used in crimes, whereas we're working closely with CBSA in the Metro Toronto area and Lower Mainland because of the high importation of guns from across the border.

It really is an approach that has to look at the region of Canada and the types of challenges we have there.

I'll just quickly say, too, that we can't overstate the importance of seeing the correlation between drugs and drug-related activity and firearms. They are intertwined. People are committing offences because they're involved in the drug world. The drug world drives a lot of violent firearms-related crime in our country. People committing the crimes often have a serious addiction problem, which obviously just perpetuates this and causes it to continue to be a problem in the country.

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

Thank you.

When you talk about safe storage, are you referring to legal firearms? Do you think there should be laws around this storage and that the government and police should be involved? Where should the money come from to support this?

[Chief Evan Bray]

Generally speaking, a lot of laws place restrictions on legal gun owners. I'm not going to say that there isn't a problem from time to time with legal gun owners. We have straw purchasing, for example, which is a situation in which someone who has a licence to possess and purchase guns purchases a large number of them and then sells them illegally on the black market. That sort of thing does happen, but generally speaking, most of the laws we create are not going to be followed by the people who are committing the crimes with the guns. That's really what it comes down to.

I had this conversation on the notion of a ban with Chief McFee earlier today. A ban is only as good as the people who are willing to follow it. I said to Chief McFee that we have a ban on murders in Canada, yet, sadly, we still have homicides happening all the time.

We need to recognize and understand that we need to look at the element of people who are committing these crimes. Yes, we can stiffen and embolden the laws for law-abiding citizens, and we can try to limit access that way, but we have to look at the criminals, in some cases the root cause of why they are committing the crimes, and, on a higher level, what we can do to really come after them from an enforcement standpoint.

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

You talked about a ban, and you also talked in your speech about bills C‑71 and C‑21. In your view, legislative gaps in relation to gun crime need to be closed.

In your view, what are these gaps?

As parliamentarians, how can we contribute to the debate and propose legislative solutions to the government?

[Chief Evan Bray]

I'll just speak quickly about the committee I work on. Firearm tracing is something that needs to be enhanced greatly in this country, yet, in most individual police organizations, the focus on firearms has to do with the offences that are being committed with them.

In Edmonton, any of our major communities or our smaller communities, when a firearm is used in the commission of an offence, we try to solve that offence. We hold the offender accountable. We seize the firearm. We get it through court purposes, but on the notion of tracing the firearm and where it came from, its origin and all of that work that has to be done, most organizations aren't set up for that to be their focus.

Again, on the work we are doing from a CACP level, we need to have some federal funding and resources allocated to tracing so that we can make it mandatory across Canada. I think that will effectively allow us to dig into this problem and understand where they are coming from and what we can do to prevent it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Ms. Michaud, you have 20 seconds left to spend.

Go ahead.

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

Thank you. Your comments are very enlightening.

I will speak again later about screening and gaps.

I would also like to know if there is sufficient collaboration between the different police forces, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much. There will be other occasions.

Now I would ask Mr. MacGregor to take the floor.

Mr. MacGregor, you have a six-minute slot. The floor is yours.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Chief Bray, maybe I'll start with you. I've listened to your opening statement and some of the answers you have given to my colleagues, and you really made that connection between the illegal firearms trade and the drug trade. Two years ago, in 2020, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police came out with what I thought was a very bold statement calling for decriminalization of simple possession.

I need to give a shout-out to my colleague, MP Gord Johns, who represents the riding of Courtenay—Alberni. He has brought forward private member's bill C-216, which would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as your association called for two years ago, specifically section 4.

Can you maybe just talk a little about why the association made that statement two years ago? If we were to move toward decriminalization for small amounts of possession, how would that free up police resources to really tackle the more prominent issues we have been discussing at our meeting here today?

[Chief Evan Bray]

The position on decriminalization with regard to simple possession is trying to understand that putting handcuffs on someone who suffers with an addiction is not going to solve the problems. It's going to temporarily take them out of the stream, but that's all it's going to do. Unless there's a way we can get them the help they need, recidivism is going to happen and they're going to be back in that stream.

Often, people who possess the amount of drugs for simple possession are fuelling their own substance use disorder. We've said before that, many times, they're not criminals by nature. That's not to say they're not involved in crime or highly susceptible to being victimized, just by virtue of the fact that they're in that drug world.

If we can get them the help they need, which often means.... Drugs and addiction are not necessarily a root cause. The trauma that causes people to become addicted is the root cause. It is a big process and the people who need help have to want help as much as the people who are giving help, but if we can find a way to help them get healthy.... It's not even necessarily that it frees up resources to do something else, but what it does is lighten the load in the long run. People getting healthy means they're less likely to come into contact with police, which frees up police resources to continue to do the other work in the community.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I appreciate that. Thank you, Chief Bray.

I'll turn to Deputy Chief Demkiw from the Toronto Police Service. You talked about the trend you're seeing in the increase in shell casings retrieved at crime scenes. Can you extrapolate from that what the evidence is pointing to?

Is it pointing to people using larger magazines? Are they trying to illegally convert weapons into automatic fire mode? What are you extrapolating from that type of evidence?

[Myron Demkiw]

There are a few things. First of all, the amount of ammunition available to illegal gun users is extraordinary, so each of those shell casings represents a projectile that flew in our city. That does not account for the use of revolvers, which don't produce shell casings at the crime scene. The amount of ammunition available is definitely an issue.

You mentioned overcapacity magazines. Our analysis shows that our seizure rate of overcapacity magazines has risen threefold, so there's definitely an issue on the availability of the prohibited devices. We have recovered handguns that were modified for automatic fire with some internal manipulation, which is a growing concern, because we're seeing those being seized as well.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Deputy Chief, you've talked a lot about the efforts the Toronto Police Service is making in gang recruitment prevention and so on. The communities where gangs find some of their most fertile recruitment have traditionally had a lack of trust with police services.

Can you talk more about how Toronto police officers are rebuilding that trust? Is it more of a presence and availability so that [Technical difficulty—Editor] of seeing your friendly neighbourhood police officer who is more open to being proactively approached?

[Myron Demkiw]

One of the key focus points we are engaged on is investing in our neighbourhood community officers. It's not as simple as placing an officer there. It's a lot more than that. We need the knowledge, skills and abilities in our police officers to work in those communities and to understand the unique needs of the individual communities.

This is a city of 140 neighbourhoods. Each of those neighbourhoods has unique needs and unique situations they are living with. We're identifying that our neighbourhood officer program is one of the most important things we're doing by investing in communities and providing a trusting relationship-building opportunity in an effort to rebuild the trust that we know is challenging.

As I mentioned, we've also taken a look at strategic enforcement and recalibrated how we do our enforcement, recognizing the social costs. We are very much focused on our enforcement being geared towards the most impactful offenders and having the least impact on the community while we do our enforcement. We're very conscious of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we're moving into the second round of questioning. There won't be enough time to the top of the clock, so we'll have to divide the time as best as we can towards the end of the second round. Let's [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Mr. Lloyd, you have five minutes. If you could make that a bit less, that would make the decision at the end of the hour a bit easier. The floor is yours now.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I'll try, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Chief Demkiw.

If the federal government announced a plan to spend a billion dollars to buy back hard drugs off the street, would that have an impact on the demand for hard drugs on the streets?