Public Safety committee  Thank you. I think there are a few layers to this aspect. There are the overall budgets that often are driven by the fiscal situation in a particular jurisdiction, as well as things like collective agreements that have been reached with police officer associations, which have be

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  It was communicated as a one-time investment.

Public Safety committee  The discretion as to how they use those funds to meet their policing needs was at the discretion of the province and territory.

Public Safety committee  I think the government was clear, when it announced the program, that it was a one-time investment.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. I think you're referring to the police officers recruitment fund, which was a program initiated in 2008. From the outset that was announced as a one-time investment to support provincial and territorial police recruitment efforts. I understand that the minis

Public Safety committee  That particular initiative was not specifically referred to at the summit, but I think the more general question relates to the fiscal constraints faced by both the Government of Canada and all governments in Canada to a considerable degree. Much of the point of the economics of

Public Safety committee  Thank you. As I mentioned earlier, I think it's not the role of the federal government to tell police services across Canada what they should do in terms of specific programs and how they should approach improving their efficiency and effectiveness. I think our role is facilitat

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I think the challenges are multi-layered. The first is we don't often know how efficient most police services are because we have a measurement challenge. There are a range of indicators that can be helpful. Any one indicator in isolation often gives you mixed or ambi

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Yes, we can certainly look at the U.K. from many different aspects. Their overall numbers in terms of number of police officers per 100,000 population are actually quite high, and their spending per capita is actually quite high, so there was, I think, some scope in the U.K. to i

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  It was about the last 10 years.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. Certainly policing hasn't been cut. In the last 10 years, we've seen police expenditure in Canada rise from $6 billion to $12 billion. The situation is one of looking at those costs and ensuring that the money is being spent as efficiently and effectively as possibl

Public Safety committee  It typically varies to some degree, but human resources represent in the range of 80% of police service budgets. I think the perspective one should have on that is that it's mostly about getting the most out of that salary envelope.