Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I'm sorry I missed the first part of the question. I probably missed the first five seconds of it, but I think I got the gist of it. I refer to it as a needle exchange program here in Thunder Bay. Clearly it's not. When you're giving out over 600,000 and only collecting 200,000, it's not an exchange program.

Public Safety committee  Through you, Mr. Chair, there are two issues with that. First, by law we're legislated to provide court security, not so much prisoner transportation. But as the police agency, we must provide security for the courthouse, as it's in our municipality. The other part of that is that civilianization or privatization is very tough with police association collective agreements.

Public Safety committee  Through you, Mr. Chair, off the top of my head I can think of two initiatives right away. As the Thunder Bay Police Service, we belong to the Thunder Bay Crime Prevention Council in which 30-plus agencies are involved, mental health, health, addiction services, all those types of things.

Public Safety committee  Good morning.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I'm assuming I was asked to appear before you to give a perspective on policing in northern Ontario, with Thunder Bay being the largest municipality in northwestern Ontario.