Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members.
First of all, I appreciate the invitation to speak on the important topic of the red dress alert today. I acknowledge that we're the only police service speaking here, or at least, we're the only one that I've been made aware of.
For those who aren't aware, the city of Greater Sudbury covers a land mass of approximately five times the city of Toronto, while it's home to only about 160,000 people.
The Greater Sudbury Police Service acknowledges the historical role the police have played in Canadian history. I also understand why some don't want my police service, or any police service, involved in this important endeavour. However, we all need to be partners in this red dress alert in order to make it more effective.
I encourage family members, community members and community partners to conduct welfare checks on their loved ones when it's appropriate. However, if community-based efforts fail to locate a person, the police should be involved at the earliest possible stage.
Members of police services have investigative resources that members of the general public simply do not. Ontario and several other provinces have an act of legislation, such as the Missing Persons Act, that can be utilized by police officers to obtain the information that wouldn't otherwise be available. We're able to utilize this investigative tool to access information such as cellphone records and financial records, and medical records when appropriate, as well as Internet records. These investigative tools are available only to members of the police service, and are used solely to locate missing persons and ensure their safety. We also have records from other police services from across the country and, when necessary, we can reach outside of Canadian borders.
Early access to these investigative resources brings a higher likelihood of the best possible outcomes when searching for a missing person.
When—not if—this red dress alert system becomes available, I see it as being a valuable resource to assist in locating your loved ones. In order to be effective, I believe the system needs to be tiered. It needs to be scalable from a local to a provincial and then a national alert when the situation calls for it. It needs to be flexible to address the needs of both the local community and the nation as a whole. It needs to balance the privacy of a missing person with the need for assistance from the public. The system needs to use clearly defined risk factors, indicating when an alert is utilized and what the level and scope of that alert would be.
We need to grab the attention of the public with these alerts when they're sent out. We also have to take into consideration alert fatigue. We need the community to engage and provide whatever information or tips they have to move the investigation toward the best possible outcome.
Now I'll hand it over to our indigenous liaison officer, Darrell Rivers, to speak further on community engagement.