POLICE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES SERVICES POLICIERS
ST THOMAS POLICE SERVICES BOARD
LAZARUS COMMUNITY ACTION COALITION
CONTENTS
Thursday 20 March 1997
Police Services Amendment Act, 1997, Bill 105, Mr Runciman /
Loi de 1997 modifiant la Loi sur les services policiers, projet de loi 105, M. Runciman
Mr Frank Mazzilli
Mr Bill Armstrong
London Police Association
Mr Tom Drouillard
Mr Robert Wilson
Mr Jerry Buchanan
London Urban Alliance
Ms Lorna Martin
St Thomas Police Services Board
Mr Gordon Campbell
Mr Harold Ginn
Windsor Police Association
Mr John Moor
City of London
Mr Grant Hopcroft
Mr Orlando Zamprogna
Mr Hugh MacGinnis
Lazarus Community Action Coalition
Mr Mike Laliberte
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président: Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford PC)
Mr RobertChiarelli (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Mr DavidChristopherson (Hamilton Centre/ -Centre ND)
Mr BruceCrozier (Essex South / -Sud L)
Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Mr TimHudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr RonJohnson (Brantford PC)
Mr FrankKlees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mr PeterKormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
Mr GerryMartiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mr DavidRamsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr DavidTilson (Dufferin-Peel PC)
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr GaryCarr (Oakville South / -Sud PC)
Also taking part /Autres participants et participantes:
Mrs MarionBoyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Clerk / Greffier: Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel: Mr Andrew McNaught, research officer, Legislative Research Service
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The committee met at 1041 in the Westin Hotel, London.
POLICE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES SERVICES POLICIERS
Consideration of Bill 105, An Act to renew the partnership between the province, municipalities and the police and to enhance community safety / Projet de loi 105, Loi visant à renouveler le partenariat entre la province, les municipalités et la police et visant à accroître la sécurité de la collectivité.
FRANK MAZZILLI
The Chair (Mr Gerry Martiniuk): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and members of the committee. This is a meeting of the standing committee on administration of justice and its deliberations in regard to Bill 105. The committee welcomes Mrs Boyd from London to the committee.
We will proceed with our first presenter, Mr Frank Mazzilli. Welcome, Mr Mazzilli. We have allotted 20 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Frank Mazzilli: Thank you, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. I'm a police officer in London and a citizen of this community. My concern with the amendments to this bill are adequacy and how that will be addressed as far as maintaining minimum standards are concerned for municipalities that continually cut police budgets. I will start with some examples in London of crime prevention -- this is addressed in the bill -- and what people's interpretations of crime prevention are.
In London crime prevention programs consist of education and enforcement. The one thing that's often ignored in any prevention program is enforcement. We had a situation three years ago at York and Richmond streets in this city. The situation was that at 1 o'clock in the morning probably 10 bars with capacities of 500 to 700 people were let out at the same time every night between Friday and Saturday. This resulted in 5,000 to 6,000 people on the streets creating problems in the way of property damage, serious assaults and people having to go to the hospital, and when we talk about that there's an element of health care that enters into it.
I conducted a study over a period of four to five months, and it simply showed that when the police were not around between the times of 9 o'clock and 2 o'clock, as the bars were letting out, we would be investigating 10 to 15 serious assaults after the fact. On the weekends we were there -- it takes some time to get hold of a problem -- there would likely be one assault, a couple of thefts, but nothing in the way of serious injury to young people getting out of the bars.
This is a serious concern as far as adequacy is concerned. It simply reduces the crime rate by taking preventive measures. The first thing people look at as crime goes down is a reduction in service. There are those who will say that there's not a problem any longer, that if this problem is not there and the crime rate is going down, we need to reduce the number of officers. As soon as we do that the problem starts all over again.
Certainly, members of municipalities, provincial governments and federal governments will step in when there is a problem, when there's an outcry from the public. As soon as that problem is under control, everybody steps back and there is no maintenance for a problem. I believe adequate funding needs to continue, and it needs to be addressed in this legislation for all municipalities.
I will stop there and take any questions from the panel.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): Thank you very much for your presentation. You illustrate some concerns many of us have with municipal policing services, with the fiscal pressures they're under today with the cutbacks from the federal government to the province and from the province to the towns. Then when we come to this bill, through Bill 105 the province is giving basically total control of the budget of the municipal police force, as you know, to the local police board, which now will have majority control by the municipality.
If this is the situation you tell us about in London at this time, with the changes from Bill 105 it could even exacerbate the situation as the city could now say, "With all the different things that have happened to us and the pressures from the voters not to raise property taxes, we're going to have to cut the police budget 10%." Now the council would have the power to do that.
This is a big concern we have because adequacy is important, to make sure the people of Ontario have the police services they want and deserve. You've really highlighted one of the weak parts of this bill. It's tough for us as legislators, because on the one hand I don't like the idea of the government being paternalistic, being the big daddy for the towns. We have very responsible women and men who are elected to office and run our cities, towns and townships right across Ontario. But there are areas of provincial interest that I think society as a whole in the province is very concerned about and I think policing is one of those, that we have adequate service. So it's a real concern.
With the situation you talked about with the bars being let out, what sort of complaints maybe were generated from that and what did the chief try to do to alter the shifts or something to try to cover that troublesome time spot?
Mr Mazzilli: My concern is with adequacy also. I believe that can be addressed in the regulations. I'll start with that answer.
That was simply one example of crime prevention. When we talk about crime prevention, many people will take the education end of it: educate the youth, educate the public. There needs to be crime prevention through enforcement, through high-profile policing. High-profile policing is simply being in that area at the time when the problems occur. Just by being there you prevent a lot of crime. If you're not there, you get into the assaults, into property damage to buildings.
When you have a problem of that magnitude, at that point the chief had to create a unit to deal with that. The first thing you can do to reverse the problem is to put resources out there. After that occurs, you need to maintain for the problem. You don't need the same amount of resources but you need to continually be there. Instead of being there with 10 officers, you can scale that down to two or three and maintain the problem.
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There needs to be maintenance for crime to be prevented and reduced. Continually, police forces and legislators look at crime statistics to justify their existence and we need to get away from that mentality and look at, what are we doing with our resources? If crime is going down in a city, in a province, that means resources are going into the problem and that's why we're seeing the reductions. Police forces that have reductions should be commended for that. They're doing something right. They're identifying the problems and they're initiating problem-oriented solutions to those problems.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Thank you for coming, Officer Mazzilli. We really appreciate the fact that you, as an individual officer, wanted to address this question.
It's important for the committee to know that London already has a fairly lean police force in comparison to many others, and has taken a very strong stance on the necessity to try to deal with new methods of policing, to have the police involved in prevention.
I know we've had discussions here about the role with youth and we've had discussions about the need to maintain our family response team with the police, to give you the kind of support you need. Those things, those kinds of prevention activities, in addition to the kind of presence of the police you're talking about, are often the first things to go if budgets are cut, aren't they? This bill talks about prevention, but without some standards to ensure the adequacy of policing is there and then the prevention aspects on top, you're in danger of losing both.
Mr Mazzilli: The police have many obligations and first is emergency response. You must have the resources there to respond to emergencies, whether that's a serious car accident, a death of a person, of a child, whatever, and those are your first priorities. You can only initiate problem-solving policing with some extra resources, or taking those resources from elsewhere. While you're initiating those programs, if you will, you have to take from other places. If there is not an adequacy standard, you will never have the resources to get control of those problems or to maintain them after.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Thank you, sir, because we've had some real concerns about the issue of adequacy, especially because of the new structure of governance. When you've got a majority of appointees on the police services board being municipal appointees, but the municipal council setting the budget -- now the argument is of course that the police services board can appeal to the OCCPS for a review, but if the majority of participants on the police services board are municipal appointees, they're going to be disinclined to do that.
You talk about adequacy. Adequacy doesn't, in my view and tell me if I'm wrong, just go to the protection of the community in the broadest sense, because I agree with you, police presence is in itself a major deterrent. It's a maintenance of law and order. We're talking about a health and safety issue for cops themselves. If you're understaffed and you've got to wade into a scenario without sufficient backup, you or any other police officer is at risk, and also that police officer might be inclined to feel compelled to use, let's say, a level of force or restraint that he or she wouldn't have to use if there were more police present.
We're talking of something that's very broad and all-encompassing. Am I sort of on point or am I close to what we're dealing with there?
Mr Mazzilli: I'll start with addressing the municipal council. I have never had a problem with any governance of the police thus far, whether it be three members appointed by the province or three members appointed by local government. As long as the people appointed are responsible people and take the job seriously, are there to oversee the police department and to provide service to the citizens of that community, as long as that stays in perspective and we get responsible people appointed, I don't see a problem.
As far as the adequacy is concerned, I believe there will be municipalities, if it's not addressed in this bill, as far as minimum standards are concerned, that will take the tax issue to heart and it will be their first priority. As soon as you do that, you will compromise the community. Along with policing --
The Chair: Excuse me. We have Mr Carr and Mr Klees.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): I'll be really quick to save some time for Frank. It's on the same topic. Thank you very much for coming in.
The issue of adequacy, of course, is really key and I'm glad you hit in on that. In fact, my question to the minister on Monday was regarding that. Just so you know, it will be done through the regulations. The process we are going to be doing is speaking with people as we go through, and it's the intention to have the regulations ready by the time it's proclaimed. It's very key and I'm not saying it will be easy, but this will be fundamental and key to it. What the minister has said is true. We want to have defined benchmarks of what it means at the process we'll be taking on shortly and going through that.
Having said that, in the bill, for the first time, we've also listed the core functions that are listed: crime prevention, law enforcement and assistance for victims. I was wondering if you wanted to comment on any of those sections, the core functions. Do you like that in there? Can that be of assistance as we go through this task of defining adequacy through the regulations?
Mr Mazzilli: I have checked into the core functions and the one thing that you have to understand about the core functions is that they work together. You cannot have crime prevention without enforcement. You cannot have enforcement without emergency response. So whatever you term it, whether you term it community policing, problem-oriented policing, you need all those working together at one time to have an effective police force that can respond to crime, that can prevent crime, that can initiate problem-solving initiatives.
As far as having them in there is concerned, yes, I believe it is important to have them in there. But they have to work together. You cannot do one without the other.
Mr Carr: I agree.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I think I heard you say, in response to a question from Mr Kormos, that you don't have a problem with the composition of the board in terms of the municipal appointments or provincial appointments, that you have full confidence that as long as they're responsible people, they'll act responsibly. Is that correct?
Mr Mazzilli: That's correct.
Mr Klees: You indicated that the issue of adequacy concerns you about this bill and you gave an example of what apparently is inadequate service here in London under some circumstances. Where do you feel this breaks down? Is it the decision, in your mind then, of the municipal council to fail to fund? Is it the police services board that fails to see the issue of adequacy in the proper light? Given that this bill provides for an appeal to the commission, if adequacy is not being served well, do you have a concern that the commission will let the system down? Where exactly is your concern?
Mr Mazzilli: My concern is certainly at the municipal council stage. In London we have had great cooperation from the commission. As soon as the budgets go to municipal council, that's where they're dealing with the hard numbers and the reductions, and generally those numbers come back to the commission. At the municipal council stage, those people are elected and some believe zero tax increase is the way to go. I'm not opposed to that; however, we need to prioritize what's important to all of us and the one thing we still have in London, in Ontario and in Canada over any of the American cities is the safety issue, that we can walk anywhere we like at any time of the day or night and many American communities just do not have that. That's something I think is a high priority to all Canadians and we need to maintain that.
Mr Klees: You're aware that under this bill, if the police services board feels the municipal council is not acting in a responsible manner towards the issue of adequacy, that appeal can then be made to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services. Do you have confidence that this commission would understand the issue of adequacy and could deal effectively with it?
Mr Mazzilli: I have read that in the proposed amendments. The only concern I have is the time it would take for that hearing to take place.
The Chair: Excuse me, our time has elapsed. Mr Mazzilli, thank you for appearing before us and helping us with our deliberations.
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Mr Ramsay: On a point of order, Mr Chair: Since this issue of adequacy comes up at every site and the parliamentary assistant has said that regulations dealing with the adequacy issue will be forthcoming, I'd like to ask the parliamentary assistant when we'd be able to see those regulations.
Mr Carr: Just so you know, we're going through the process now of dealing with people, and I just talked to the PAO to make sure they were aware, which they were, that they were going to be a part of it. We're getting the position papers done, outlining, so they can follow some form. The final regulations will be ready by the time it is proclaimed, which, assuming everything goes well, is in June. We're now in the process of going through that. The papers will be coming out shortly, and then we'll be sitting down with all the stakeholders and going through those regulations. That's the time line. It is in the works as we sit here and as we speak.
BILL ARMSTRONG
The Chair: Our next presentation is by Mr Bill Armstrong, councillor, city of London. Welcome, Mr Armstrong. Please proceed. Just a question: You're not a member of the police services board for London?
Mr Bill Armstrong: No, I'm not. I should clarify for the record that I'm here representing myself today, though I am a city councillor here in London. The views I express will mainly be views directed towards looking at the full picture province-wide and not views directed towards specifically London. Just so you're aware of that.
I have to apologize for my presentation that will come forward in a few seconds. I haven't had a great deal of time to prepare a presentation because I'm dealing with another issue, which actually may have some bearing on this issue, and that's the closing of psychiatric hospitals in our community. As you may or may not be aware, we're looking at the closure of both psychiatric hospitals here in London. It's a very important issue to our community, and it's an important issue to policing in that the proposals may mean that many people in our community who need psychiatric care may end up in fact not getting that care in institutions.
Having said that, I have had an opportunity to breeze through the act and to review the Halton Regional Police Association's presentation, as well as the Police Association of Ontario's presentation. I've also received and looked at information from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and I've been supplied with other information from other groups which I've had an opportunity to review. I might point out that while I'm not on the police services board, I'm now a third-year councillor, and for the first two years on city council I sat on our CAPS committee, that is the community and protective services committee. The police services budget comes to our committee each year, and we're the first ones to look at that. So I have had some exposure to the policing issues here in London by way of that process.
First, I have about six points that I'd like to express my opinions on to you. The first point is with regard to the retention of the SIU. I feel this particular unit is an important unit, and I'm happy to see the government is going to continue to have that unit in place to oversee conduct with regard to serious injury or death. That's something I see that's going in the right direction.
Another area that I don't support is the downloading to 576 municipalities that are presently not having to deal with the cost of policing. I feel this is going to affect the assessments and what taxes have to be paid by these communities. I think this is the wrong direction to go, that these communities shouldn't be forced to pay for policing. This in fact is a move towards American-style policing and will inevitably cause large municipal tax increases across the province. As you probably are aware, we are already facing some major changes in the near future to do with municipal taxes, and this will just add to an increasing burden for many municipalities.
In the area of complaints, as you are aware, complaints regarding police officers' conduct will be referred to the police chief, and he'll review these complaints and decide whether or not these complaints can be substantiated. I have a number of concerns about the police chief having the authority to insist that these officers have to take treatment or other suggested disciplines in order to deal with these complaints that have been made against them.
Another area I have concerns with is the municipal police boards. I believe the system and the formula we have in place at the present time have been working; they make a lot of sense. I have some serious concerns about -- and this is again looking at it province-wide -- having the police services board appointees mainly coming from the municipalities. I think this will add to the possibility for corruption and municipal interference in those boards. So I support leaving things the way they are.
Generally, I don't support the increased powers that are going to be given to the police chiefs to impose counselling treatment etc, unless it is on an on-consent basis with the officer involved. I have serious concerns about that when there isn't any type of hearing that would take place.
Another area I have concerns about is unsatisfactory work performance. This could lead to abuses. Because of the pressures that will be created to see revenues increase, there is always the possibility that we may see ticket quotas enforced or suggested. That's one area that I have some serious concerns about, and I don't think that's something that should be pursued. Those are all the comments I have for now.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you for coming, Mr Armstrong, and giving a viewpoint as a councillor, because I think that's important. You were talking about the increased abilities of police chiefs to decide upon a resolution for a complaint, and you mentioned your concern around no appeal and no hearing. That certainly seems to be a real issue of natural justice, doesn't it, if someone is going to be forced to participate in treatment and they don't have any kind of a hearing or any kind of an appeal.
Mr Armstrong: That's it, and I agree with those comments. I also would suggest that of course this will lead to a large increase in arbitration and additional costs in dealing with those issues. I certainly support, though, the use of mediation for minor complaints whenever possible. I think that's an affordable mechanism to deal with that type of complaint.
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Mrs Boyd: I notice that the head of one of my colleagues snapped up when you talked about the prospect of the possibility of corruption as a result of the bill as it is, and that certainly has been of concern to a number of groups that have spoken to us, because they look at the Americanization aspect of this. We see cities, for example, New Orleans, where I was not very long ago, where they have a permanent commission now looking at corruption, because in fact there was collusion between their police force and various municipal authorities, both administrative and elected officials, and a very big problem around kickbacks and around that sort of thing. It has been suggested that disciplinary actions taken against police officers who are vigorous in their pursuit of issues like that simply open the door to less independence in terms of policing. Was that the kind of concern you were expressing?
Mr Armstrong: Yes, those are the same concerns that I have under the present system, and I'll speak to London. We have three appointments from the province and two from the city. That's a good balance, and I think we need to have that balance in place. To have the balance of power with the municipality as far as who sits on these boards is concerned -- not pointing at any specific municipality -- especially with smaller municipalities, could lead to some serious problems. Thus far, while there have been some problems province-wide, I see that the system is working fairly well, and I can only see that this change could see us with more problems down the road.
Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford): Thank you, Mr Armstrong, for your presentation. I'll be brief so Mr Klees has an opportunity to ask a question as well. You indicated earlier in your presentation that you did not support smaller municipalities paying for policing; in fact, you wanted it to remain as it was. That surprises me, coming from a city councillor who represents taxpayers and constituents who currently do pay for policing. Throughout our hearings so far, we've obviously developed some common themes that we've got from our presenters. The majority of people who have brought this issue up have supported the government's position that local policing should be paid for by local ratepayers. How would you explain to your ratepayers the inequity that would exist if in fact surrounding communities were not forced to pay for policing and you were?
Mr Armstrong: I think that in these smaller communities we've had a system in place that seemed to work well. The policing that has been in place has been a good system. I just don't see that this type of change, in the long run, is going to be good for the smaller municipalities. This is going to create hardship for many of them. I think that hardship will result in increased pressures on those small municipalities to look to the police for increased revenues, and that would be my concern.
Mr Klees: Mr Armstrong, you made two points I'd like to follow up on, and if you don't have time to respond, perhaps you can be so kind as to get back to us in writing on this. You made two points; one was that you don't trust the chief of police to be counted on to make appropriate disciplinary decisions. Does that come from your personal experience here in London, and if so, could we have some examples of that? Second, your concern is that elected municipal politicians would be more susceptible to corruption than members appointed by the province. Again, is that based on your experience here, and why do you feel that, seeing as you yourself are an elected municipal politician?
Mr Armstrong: I'll certainly respond to those two questions in writing, since you've offered that because of the time factor, but I'll just briefly respond to the first question. I don't recall saying that I didn't trust our police chief, if that's what I heard you say earlier.
Mr Klees: It was police chiefs in general, I think.
Mr Armstrong: Oh, police chiefs in general, okay. Plural. We've had a system in place in the province that I feel has worked reasonably well. It needed to have some tinkering done, some minor changes, but I think some of the changes you're proposing are doing far more than is necessary. When we have police chiefs, for example, being given the authority to basically insist on officers taking different treatments without their consent, that concerns me. In my opinion, that may begin to infringe on officers' rights. That's one area I would have some concerns about.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much, Mr Armstrong, for making your presentation today. You really bring up an interesting point about the new powers the chief is going to have now in dealing with minor complaints the community may have and bring forward. What's interesting about this is that police officers and police associations that have come before our committee are very concerned about that, as well as community people. They look at it as -- the phrase they like to use -- a lack of transparency, that either the police officer named or the complainant doesn't really know exactly how the chief is dealing with the complaint and that there needs to be maybe some neutral party that would deal initially with non-serious complaints.
I, for one, certainly wouldn't want to propose some sort of expensive bureaucracy to handle this. There's got to be somebody locally, who would have the confidence of the police officers but also of the community members, who could handle this at the very first stage and do it expeditiously and effectively. I was wondering if you have any suggestions, from your experience, about how we could deal with those initial complaints locally.
Mr Armstrong: I could only suggest that there could certainly be a system set up where perhaps there could be a mediator who is dispatched to deal with these complaints on a mediation basis to try to deal with minor complaints that way. That would probably be the most cost-effective scenario for dealing with complaints, maybe not necessarily having somebody located in each municipality, but perhaps through the greater commission there could be a number of mediators who could step in and deal with issues of complaints where both the complainant and the police officer would feel that there is a neutral party in place who is there to look at the facts, both sides, to discuss the facts with both sides and try to work out a reasonable resolution to the issue.
Mr Ramsay: Would a city the size of London have in its police force a community relations officer or somebody like that who deals with community relations and maybe informally handles complaints now?
Mr Armstrong: I couldn't really comment on the specific job functions of specific officers. I'm sure that there are, as we have with other departments, public relations people, but whether they have somebody who steps in and deals with complaints, I couldn't comment on that.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Armstrong, for attending here today.
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LONDON POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presentation will be the London Police Association, Robert Wilson and Thomas Drouillard.
Mr Tom Drouillard: I'll just start out by introducing myself. I'm Tom Drouillard. I'm the president of the London Police Association. In that capacity, I represent some 600 members, which includes civilians and the rank and file as well as senior officers. I'm presently serving as a detective constable with the London police, and I'm assigned to the sexual assault section there. Today with me, to my right, is Mr Robert Wilson, the administrator of the London Police Association.
I'd like to first thank the committee for allowing us to address you today and commend the provincial government for their efforts in restructuring the bureaucracy within this province. I hope that the information provided to you by the London Police Association will be of assistance so that Bill 105 will be the best legislation for police and the citizens of this province.
Mr Wilson has circulated, and I believe your assistants have circulated, our brief today. Within that brief, I will be highlighting nine points regarding the bill. Nine of these items have been tabbed individually for you. I'll be briefly making comments on tabs 4 through 11, and then the majority of my time will be spent dealing with tab 3 as it relates to the complaints process. That will be my focus today.
The first is the informal resolutions. Locally, section 59 has been used for swift and cost-effective resolutions to a myriad of complaints to the satisfaction of both the complainants and officers as well. Failure to restore section 59 will result in cases being sent to arbitration. This is a concern for us because it will involve a timely and costly process. Locally, we have not been to arbitration for some 25 years. If this section is deleted, I guarantee that practice will change, as the only resolution for us will be through that arbitration process for a fair appeal. If your goal is a system that is fair and cost-effective, then I suggest that we should restore section 59 of the current act.
The hearing process: I suggest you should also restore sections 108 and 111 of the current act. These speak to fundamental principles of fairness at a hearing, fundamental principles that should be continued. You can refer to the documentation regarding this at your convenience.
The appeals process: This act must allow for the ability for appeal to the commission, and specifically the commissioner. This is another fundamental principle that must be continued. I should add that the request is merely for the ability to appeal. The commission would review any such request and deem whether or not there are grounds for such an appeal.
Amalgamation of police services: This is a very timely topic. Suffice to say it's within the tabbed items for your perusal later.
Municipal control of police services: There are also several points listed within the tabbed items regarding this. I would just like to add that on page 8 of the Common Sense Revolution, the Conservative Party specifically guaranteed funding for police, and I quote from that document: "The people of Ontario are rightly concerned about community safety in our province, particularly the incidence of violent crime. That is why funding for law enforcement and justice will be guaranteed."
When the province abdicates funding of policing to the municipalities, there is no swift provision for appeals if the municipalities fail to provide adequate and effective policing. This must be corrected.
The special investigations unit: This is a lengthy tabbed item, but I would highlight that this act must be clarified to ensure that an officer is afforded the same rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as all other citizens of this country.
Adequate and effective police services: This is another lengthy item which is tabbed for your perusal later.
Police officers and non-police personnel: In this tabbed item there are several issues as well, and I would also like to stress that during the summit process, there were many, many issues in this tabbed item that were agreed upon by all the stakeholders. However, these agreed-upon items during the summit process have not been included in Bill 105, and I would urge you to revisit those items which were agreed upon, which are listed in the tabbed items.
Dealing specifically with the complaints process, where I'll spend the rest of my time, the current act is divided into two complaints processes. One is the internal discipline under part V and the second is under part VI, the public complaints process. Locally, part V has been used for decades to deal with these internal matters and has been successful, as it is modelled under the current criminal law process, where a prosecutor and a hearings officer are appointed and the officer may be represented by counsel if he or she chooses.
The current act, under subsection 77(7), provides for a six-month time limit for the laying of a complaint. However, it also stipulates that this provision can be overruled by the commissioner if he or she so chooses and deems necessary. We believe that this is not an unreasonable section and that it should be included in Bill 105, as it is in the current act.
We also believe the chief should have the ability to make a complaint on internal matters. However, he or she should not have the dual role as prosecutor. The dual role will breed contempt, as the chief will become the complainant and the judge. This will guarantee that no impartial process will ever exist.
Currently, the complainant, officer and the commission are provided with interim and final reports. Under the new bill, no such reports would be required. Interim reports have been found to be of assistance in ensuring that the investigation has been fair and timely. They have also been used to quash hearings when reports have shown that the complaint was not investigated promptly and thoroughly, as prescribed under the current act. These reports also ensure that the officer has been treated fairly, as he or she can verify that they have received complete and full disclosure regarding the complaint.
Final reports assist both the officer and complainant in determining that there are accurate and factual conclusions. They also allow both parties to correct any such facts which may be in error prior to the chief taking any further action. Some of these safeguards mirror the criminal law process, but under the new bill they have been removed. They must be replaced so as to ensure the fundamental principle of fair justice has been adhered too.
There also is a need to restore bad-faith complaints. Under the current act, the chief can determine if the complaint was made in bad faith, and if so, the complaint would not be furthered. This is an important safeguard for officers who are being used as pawns by those who are facing criminal charges. Criminals then become complainants and use their complaint as leverage for their own criminal defence. On a personal note, I have been the subject of such complaints, complaints that have been made by persons whom I have arrested and charged. These complaints were found to be frivolous and vexatious and the complainants were eventually convicted of their own crimes in a criminal court. I submit to you that this is the norm, not the exception. This is why the bad-faith provision of subsection 85(1) of the current act must be reinstated.
The new bill also requires that a crown attorney be consulted for provincial offences. Police officers routinely find themselves involved in minor traffic accidents. They would now be referred to the crown's office, which would involve a costly and timely process. Locally, the crown's office is not consulted regarding provincial offences, nor would they welcome the increased workload. The crown's office is already overburdened with criminal offences. Furthermore, we locally have the officer in charge of our specialized traffic enforcement section review all departmental motor vehicle collisions. This has worked well for the department, as our officers are subjected to a higher standard of care than a citizen would be. If this government is truly interested in streamlining bureaucracy and saving money in the process, then this process, I suggest, should be removed.
The new bill introduces a subsection that will provide officers with the right to a private life. We welcome this section, which has long been overdue. This has been an issue of concern to officers for decades. I trust this section will remain so as to afford officers the protection that they deserve, allowing them to enjoy a private life outside of policing. Currently officers are charged under the code of offences for off-duty conduct which is not related to their employment. This section recognizes that officers are also citizens who live in every community, as well as in the ones they serve.
It is requested that subsection 73(2) remain and that it be amended as follows: "A police officer shall not be found guilty of misconduct unless there is a demonstrable connection between the conduct of either the occupational requirements for a police officer or the reputation of the force itself."
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The current act, as I mentioned earlier, mirrors the criminal law process and provides many of the same fundamental principles of that law. The bill incorporates a new phrase called "unsatisfactory work performance." This is a term that is frequently mentioned in the labour code, which does not presently govern police. This is a catch-all phrase that will render the code of offences found within the current act obsolete. It will allow a chief to rely on this provision when there is no specific code of offence. This will give the chief the best of both worlds and will allow him or her the threat of discipline or dismissal for anything at all, and even worse, for nothing at all.
This will then result in a chief prescribing arbitrary and unreasonable standards that will be subject to discipline. This then puts a great potential for quota systems to be developed, thus taking away any discretionary powers that officers presently enjoy. This will be magnified further when revenue from offences is turned over to the municipalities.
It will also allow for police services boards to discipline if quotas set by them are not met. The consequences for such a catch-all phrase would be ultimately borne by the public. They would be subject to officers giving out offence notices without discretion and solely for the purpose of meeting a quota. Meeting such a quota would then guarantee an officer a satisfactory performance review and ensure him or her no threat of discipline from the chief or the board. The public would bear the brunt of such corrupt legislation.
I urge you to completely delete section 75 from Bill 105. Police are already overregulated under the present code of offences and keeping this section would only serve to alienate police and public relations.
In closing, I would like to again thank the committee for the opportunity to bring our concerns forward. We locally have had an outstanding relationship with the public we serve. Our concern is that the proposed amendments to the Police Services Act, as they relate to the complaints process, will do nothing more than destroy the effective and cost-efficient process that now exists.
The author of the amendments must have had a strong desire for the police to become unionists. I say this because Bill 105 will change the police complaints process into a system that will mirror the Ontario labour act, an act that governs unions. Bill 105 gives arbitrary authority to the chief of police without an internal appeals process. This will force officers, and more correctly, associations, as well as the complainants into a protracted and costly arbitration. If this government's intention is to reduce the bureaucracy and the cost of the complaints process, then these amendments do not achieve this end.
The amendments will also take away officers' basic rights and remove all principles of natural justice that are ingrained in the Criminal Code as well as the current Police Services Act. I have been told that no system is perfect; however, the current act provides legal safeguards for officers that Bill 105 does not, and quite frankly the present system works well.
It is our desire to work with government to design a fair and efficient public complaints process. This process, however, must be fair to both the public and the police. Without such a balance there will be no confidence in the process. Sir Robert Peel said, "The police are the public and the public are the police." This is the principle on which the complaints process should be administered, a process that offers as many safeguards for officers as it does for the complainants.
Thank you. Mr Wilson and I will entertain any questions that you may have.
Mr Carr: I want to thank you for a good presentation; it was very thorough. I'm interested in a little bit more follow-up on the informal resolutions. I think, as you know, everybody wants to have a situation where it can be done informally and have some of them that can be ironed out at that juncture, taken forward. I think everybody agrees with that. Specifically, what is the problem with the informal process now, under this bill, where your problems are? Does it relate to some of the information being used against you? Could you expand on that a little bit, please?
Mr Drouillard: I'll have Mr Wilson respond.
Mr Robert Wilson: Basically, under the proposals, the authority of the chief extends to 40 hours' penalty by way of pay. Subsection 59(1) presently under the Police Services Act allows for the association and the administration to agree on an informal process, which has been done in London and most centres and it works very well. It's in the interests of both the administration and the association that the process works.
Where you've changed this, you've given absolute, arbitrary authority to the chief of police to fine a person up to $1,000, and then you give the officer no right to appeal that process under the Police Services Act. I suggest to you that the only recourse we would have, if the member felt he had not been treated fairly by this arbitrary decision by the chief, would be to use our management's rights clause and to file a grievance. A grievance then takes you into the rights arbitration. This is protracted, this is costly. My experience of arbitrations -- and we haven't used one in London -- is that a good arbitrator will make sure that both parties walk from the table unhappy. You've pleased neither one nor the other; you've cut the baby in half. It's the King Solomon process. What does that do for morale? It's a massive cost to associations. We have to do this out of union dues, and I don't think it enhances work performance or morale.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Wilson, I want to follow up on that, just something you've mentioned, because that's exactly what I wanted to ask. Besides being protracted and costly, what do you think the deletion of this section will do to morale in the London police force?
Mr Wilson: I think it would be absolutely devastating. Right now, 90% of all administrative discipline -- and please remember this is administrative discipline. To compare us to unions is ridiculous. General Motors or Ford doesn't care about the cleanliness and tidiness of a person working on the assembly line. We're charged an administrative discipline with such things. We're charged for off-duty conduct. The level of discipline as subjected to the police officer, the quasi-military style, far exceeds that of unions, and if an officer feels he can't get a fair shake, the morale situation is going to be devastating. They're going to avoid certain activities because, if they know a complaint is going to emanate and that the chief can arbitrarily take $1,000 out of his pay packet, that's going to drastically impact on the quality of service he's giving out there. He's not going to put himself in any risk.
Right now, I can tell you that over 90% of administrative discipline is looked after through the informal process at a minimum of cost. We have a limited number of administrators on our force, senior officers. You go to a hearing, they've got to have hearings officers, they've got to have prosecutors. The informal process right now works extremely well. The officer has the right not to accept it; 90% do. Very little goes to a full-blown hearing. Minimum of cost, and it guarantees the highest level of morale.
Mrs Boyd: I'd like to ask Officer Drouillard a question about the part on having a private life. I'm afraid it may be misunderstood, so I just want to clarify with you. You work with the sexual assault team, for example. Would you regard the amendment that you've proposed -- if a member of your sexual assault team, applying the law on sexual assault, were charged with sexual assault himself or herself, would you see that as an appropriate area for a misconduct hearing?
Mr Drouillard: I'm just trying to clarify your question. If one of our officers is being investigated for sexual assault?
Mrs Boyd: If one of your officers themselves were investigated and indeed charged --
Mr Drouillard: Off duty?
Mrs Boyd: -- off duty, with either a familial or non-familial sexual assault, should that be the subject of discipline, as well as the criminal process?
Mr Drouillard: I would say yes. What I am referring to in my paper are those times where it has happened, not to me personally in this regard, but where you tell your neighbour something that they're not very fond of and as a result of even your language to your neighbour you are subject to discipline under the Police Services Act. If there are serious allegations of criminal offence taking place, then, rightly so, there should be investigations and/or administered discipline within that department. That's correct.
Mrs Boyd: I was fearful that your section might be interpreted differently, so I'm glad that you were able to clarify that.
The Chair: Gentlemen, this is without a doubt the most thorough and concise presentation we've received and I think all members of the committee appreciate your comments.
Mr Drouillard: Thank you for those comments, sir, and thank you for your time.
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JERRY BUCHANAN
The Chair: Our next presentation is by Jerry Buchanan. There's been a slight change in the agenda. We will be hearing from the person who was scheduled at 1140 later on this afternoon. Welcome, Mr Buchanan.
Mr Jerry Buchanan: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr Ginn is unable to be here this morning, he's in court, but I exchanged time with him and I think it might lead me into what it is I want to talk about.
Perhaps first I should identify myself a little bit better. I'm Jerry Buchanan. I was crown attorney here in London and I recently retired, just last year. I was crown attorney for 10 years, regional crown attorney for four years, crown attorney in Elgin county for nine years, and an assistant crown attorney in London for nine years before all that began. Pretty well my whole adult career has been involved with justice and dealing with police officers and the justice system. I come away from that with, still, a great concern about the system.
I only speak to one issue, that issue being the small municipalities that are going to embark upon their own policing, police forces, or their own method of policing. They're going to have to pay for it, which they haven't done in the past. My suggestion to you is that I'd support this legislation in relation to that. I think this is an opportunity for small departments and for the Ontario Provincial Police to learn new ways of policing and producing a product cheaper.
I don't suggest at all that there be any lessening of the duties of police officers. All those standards that have been set ought to be maintained, but there are areas where cost savings -- because there are going to be costs to those municipalities that are presently paying nothing, but those costs can be tempered if one uses some of the new techniques and technologies that are available for policing to save money.
In particular, everybody's aware that police costs are substantially police officers' salaries. What citizens want is police officers to go and investigate crimes, to protect them and to present their evidence in court. Where the major costs to large municipalities and to small municipalities occur is in the necessity of officers attending court, the necessity of officers preparing briefs, preparing reports. I think there are other ways of doing it.
My experience in and around London is that this community has a very active, proactive police force so far as electronic technology is concerned. They are making large strides. They have some computers in their police vehicles. The officers will have the ability to directly place information into their computers so that statements and all that sort of thing can be done at the time. That creates a database that then is available for crowns at a later stage. It creates a database which is available to courts administration by way of the information. All the documents that are necessary to start the process can all be created automatically.
These things can all be integrated into the new small forces and I think the small forces are quite enthused about the opportunity it gives for small communities. I note from your list that you're going to hear from the reeve of Dutton this afternoon and I'm sure he'll talk to you about Dutton, Glencoe, Rodney and those small communities that are clustered together. This is an opportunity for them to try new ways of policing.
Unfortunately, recently some small communities -- Strathroy in our community is an example of a community that has paid for a police force for a number of years; Aylmer in Elgin did as well. Those police forces are quite progressive, but they're very costly and those citizens ought to know that the people down the road in Mount Brydges and Glencoe are going to pay for policing that they didn't do before.
It gives them the opportunity to pod perhaps, if I could use that term, with other small municipalities to provide police services and in particular to provide the administrative services the act talks about.
I look upon that portion of the proposed bill as being an opportunity for police departments and for policing in general across the province to perhaps take a page from some of the American cities that do substantially more technology than we do. I think it is an opportunity. I heard Mr Armstrong speak this morning. He spoke of problems; I tend not to speak of problems. I think this legislation provides an opportunity for policing to create solutions and that's what I'd like to see. I think both the creation of the small municipal boards and the creation of joint forces, I think is the term that's referred to in the bill, are good moves, so I want to support that.
If you have any questions, I said I'd be brief and I think I have been.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Buchanan, I want to thank you for your presentation today, and just to tell you we will certainly be considering what you've said to us as we look to our amendments to this bill.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much, Jerry, for coming. It really is important to mention some of the points you brought out. One is this issue of technology and how we can use technology more effectively.
You're quite right: We have reason in this community to be very proud of the strides that have been made, not only with the police department, because we do have a very modern dispatch system that involves this use of computer in the car, but also the fact of the partnership that was developed between the crown's office and the police department so that this material was produced in a much quicker way. It not only streamlines that process; it makes disclosure easier and it's available easier. It really works in both parts: the enforcement part and the prosecution part of the system.
I have a sense that we've always worked quite closely together in this community, through that whole process, that technical process of prosecution and enforcement, into a better partnership. Would you care to comment on that? Do you think that's fair?
Mr Buchanan: I think it is important. I've looked upon it as a partnership with the police in all my years and they were most cooperative with my old office. We were able to make substantial strides in relation to the needs of the justice system. When the Supreme Court of Canada came out with decisions that sometimes created problems, rather than talk about the problems we looked to solutions. I think that's what I learned and that's what we were able to do here. I would hope some of the other communities in the area would be able to follow up on that.
I know there was an integrated justice committee that talked about cooperation between the police departments and the crown's office and the courts administration and the defence bar. We were able to successfully do that here in London. I'm not so sure what the status of that committee is at present. I'm out of the loop now. I don't know whether that committee continues to exist, but I would hope it would because that is a substantial cost-saving area, especially to jurisdictions where you're going to create a cost they never had before.
What we want to do is make it as efficient as we can for them. They're going to bear the cost, but let's do it better than we have done it in the past. The OPP costings are pretty substantial.
Mrs Boyd: Yes, although small departments often find it impossible to deal with big investigations, so that's the other side that needs to be looked at.
Mr Buchanan: Exactly.
Mrs Boyd: Could you comment, given your experience as a crown attorney, on the point that was made by the police association around crown attorneys being consulted for every provincial offence a police officer might have. That seems to me an enormous red-tape issue. Does it to you?
Mr Buchanan: Yes, it is. I appreciate the comments of Constable Drouillard but, yes, the reality is the crown attorney's office is busy enough to be able to deal with the serious offences that involve officers and that's about it. We do not have time to deal with highway traffic matters and that sort of thing. I've watched the hearings for the past couple of days on TV and I thought I was watching something from another planet when they talked about Toronto.
Mrs Boyd: It is another planet.
Mr Buchanan: I just can't believe what goes on there, really quite amazing. That has not been my experience here. We just don't have those problems; we never had those problems. The hearings they talked about as being informal, they were so informal that I never heard about a lot of them. They were just dealt with. We just looked for solutions and dealt with them. If I had a problem with an officer, I knew I could talk to that officer and if necessary I could talk to his superior. I don't know what goes on in Toronto. It's something quite foreign to me. Maybe I've lived that privileged life by not being there.
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Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): Thank you, sir, for coming with your expertise and giving us your comments on policing. I think policing, like so many other aspects of our society, cries out for change simply in the way of doing things. Small communities can no longer afford specialized services such as homicides and I hope it will be that these small communities will be simply forced to do things differently. I give the example of homicides. I don't see really how, quite frankly, a homicide could be properly investigated with the expertise that a small community can afford. I pick homicide not knowing much about these things, whether it's computer crimes or whatever.
Every once in a while the topic of police being required to attend court for hearings -- there was a story in Toronto recently where time and a half is paid, and enormous amounts of money are paid for police to go and sit in a courtroom waiting for an adjournment that may happen at the end of the day, and time and a half is paid. They list off these enormous amounts of money that are paid. We can't sustain that any more. This bill I hope will encourage people to offer suggestions to improve the whole concept of policing, of law and order, as it were. I don't know whether you have any comments. I'm sure there are other areas where you could suggest savings.
Mr Buchanan: There are. I've a list of them. It is important to recognize that police officers are necessary for court. We're never going to do away with that. What I'm suggesting is that we should do scheduling better than we do. If you look at jurisdictions that obviously I've been very familiar with, London and St Thomas -- I also have had some tours down to Windsor and I understand you're going to speak to some Windsor people today too. Their scheduling system for officers for court is archaic in comparison.
I believe Statistics Canada said the London PF is the second-most economical cost police force in Canada. That didn't just come about because everybody's nice; it came about because everybody worked at solutions, trying to schedule officers, and we were able to do that. All of our POA matters, the Provincial Offences Act matters, for London PF officers are scheduled according to the officers' times. I know there are a lot of JPs who don't like that but it becomes very cost-efficient. The police who are sitting in the courtroom are the most expensive commodity in that courtroom. The justice of the peace is getting paid anyway, the clerk's getting paid, the prosecutor's getting paid, the defence lawyer's getting paid. It's those myriad of police officers who are sitting out there who are the big cost.
Mr Tilson: Particularly when you know they're not going to get reached that day.
Mr Buchanan: If you have better communication between everybody, that'll happen less.
Mr Tilson: I don't know what the issue is with respect to people who are incarcerated waiting for trial. There may be charter problems -- someone such as you may have some comments on that -- but there is even the issue of transporting people back and forth when you know perfectly well there's not going to be a trial, and whether there are ways that don't affect their charter protections.
Mr Buchanan: I can tell you a few things about that. That is a significant cost to a municipal police department, running prisoners back and forth to jail. We have had here in London a pilot project for about two or three years for video remands, so you don't have to run the prisoner back and forth to jail. The difficulty is it's the prisoner, be it a young offender or an adult, who has the say as to whether or not they're going to come. So they're all saying: "No, I want out of here. I want the tour. I can go down to the courthouse and I can see my girlfriend or whatever. I don't want to stay here and go on video and have my remand there." Absolutely nothing occurs. It's nothing less than a remand. It may be to set a preliminary hearing date or anything else, but that's just a foolish cost that we're absorbing.
Mr Tilson: Sir, I hope you continue to come to municipalities or the Solicitor General to offer your thoughts on economizing and doing things better, because it's people like you who have gone through it who may have some ideas where you can economize and still provide a pretty good service. Thank you very much.
Mr Klees: I would just like to follow up on Mr Tilson's comment. Mr Buchanan mentioned that he has a list of things he could think of where economies could be realized. It would certainly be helpful to this committee and to the government if Mr Buchanan would be willing to undertake to provide us, perhaps in writing, with some of his thoughts and recommendations regarding cost savings. If those could be forwarded to the clerk and distributed, we'd appreciate that.
Mr Buchanan: Sure, I'd be happy to undertake that, Mr Klees. I might point out, though, that as a retiree I'm going golfing next week, so I won't do it next week.
The Chair: Thank you very much for taking your time to lend your experience to the benefit of this committee, Mr Buchanan.
Before we adjourn, just for the purpose of the record, I'd like to say that as a result of a subcommittee meeting yesterday, which is not before you and cannot be confirmed until a subsequent date, I have instructed the clerk to schedule the first four days of the Bill 84 hearings by using lists provided in rotation from each of the caucuses, whether or not we may have received formal notice, either orally or in writing, from the individuals involved. The reason for that is simply because of the time element and the cutoff dates and scheduling the first four days. If there's no objection to that, you will be getting the formal resolution of the subcommittee which I believe reflects that, but I just wanted to advise you in advance.
Mr Kormos: I spoke with you earlier this morning, along with the clerk, about that. Simply to make the observation that there was a deadline published and we will therefore, in my view, have to maintain some flexibility to ensure people aren't arbitrarily deleted from any lists because of the published deadline and because of the accumulation of numbers of presenters of views. All I'm saying is I hope we will remain flexible in terms of the time frames, not the days but the times within which we sit to make sure we accommodate all those persons, in view of the very late deadline, which creates problems for the clerk, I acknowledge.
The Chair: I think that's the intent.
We are adjourning now until 1 pm.
The committee recessed from 1159 to 1302.
LONDON URBAN ALLIANCE
The Chair: Our first presentation this afternoon is by the London Urban Alliance on race relations, Lorna Martin.
Ms Lorna Martin: I'd like to introduce the president of London Urban Alliance, Mrs Jean Ottley, who will be a presenter or a question-and-answerer today, and Mr Jim MacIntosh, a volunteer for London Urban Alliance.
We approve of and applaud the government of Ontario's changes proposed in Bill 105. These changes are long overdue. There are those who would bankrupt this province if they could. It has taken fortitude and courage to call a halt to the spending that has taken place year after year in Ontario.
We in the community have watched while bureaucracy was piled upon bureaucracy until the public no longer knew who to deal with. In policing in particular, we at the grass roots in the community have been thoroughly confused about which board or commission we should be dealing with at any one time. We have been inundated with notices and regulations from a half-dozen different agencies all dealing with the same matters.
Throwing money at something does not necessarily make it go away. The chaos and the haemorrhaging of money must stop. Our message is simple: Keep it simple and spend less.
We do have some concerns with Bill 105 that we wish to address at this time.
Political control at the local level is a serious concern, especially when police board members are not mandated to measure up to set standards, undergo any training or to be held accountable for inept or unprofessional conduct.
There must be appropriate safeguards to insulate the police from local political meddling, pressure tactics or influence. For example, if the board is to be controlled by unethical local politicians, who are also the people who hire and fire police chiefs, such a board can merely appoint a chief who will do the board's bidding as a condition of getting the job.
We believe the police services board structure of three provincial and two municipal appointees should be maintained. While appointed from Queen's Park, the provincial appointees are still local citizens. This system has worked well in the past.
The mandated authority of the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services must be in place to oversee, make inquiries of and discipline boards who exercise undue influence, power and control over police organizations. In this regard, OCCPS must have the authority to ensure that police organizations are adequately financed, staffed and resourced; otherwise, it can reasonably be anticipated that some local politicians, with alliances to members of the board who will do their bidding, will surely try to bleed police services. This scenario is more likely with a majority of municipal appointees. Such actions will effectively and without accountability compromise both public and officer safety.
Politicizing the police without appropriate safeguards will surely lead to influence-peddling, unethical outcomes, corruption and conflicts of interest. Moreover, the relationship between the policymakers -- boards -- and the operational entities -- chiefs -- can easily become a master-servant relationship, entrenched in the philosophy of the boards having overwhelming power and control. We are not too far removed historically from the examples of Mayor Daley in Chicago and Camillien Houde in Montreal.
There must be in place well-defined, mandated standards of adequacy for training, funding and support of police services, for which boards and/or municipalities are held accountable. We cannot have accountability without the appropriate adequacy standards; otherwise, individual communities will configure their own version of what constitutes appropriate levels of police service, public safety etc. Adequacy standards must be entrenched regardless of the structure of the boards; otherwise, policing in Ontario will be seriously compromised to the point of disaster.
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The special investigations unit continues to haunt the public and police alike. The initial hiring of untrained personnel to the SIU, with little or no training in investigative procedures, has left the public and the police with no trust in the agenda of this unit. Bill 105 does nothing to alleviate public suspicion or lack of faith in the unit. The SIU has been patched and quick-fixed by successive governments, but its reputation has been so damaged that Band-Aids will not gain the trust of the public or the police. Bill 105 maintains the status quo. An intolerable situation has gone on far too long, without proper focus on the critical need to have in place an efficient police accountability process, one that has the capacity to carry out its mandate and functions in a timely manner. Bill 105 does not deal with this serious issue of public concern. The status quo simply will not do.
The Ontario Police College must be funded adequately in order to sustain the support required by the policing profession. Police training requirements must be considered part of the adequacy standards of policing which speak to crime prevention, law enforcement, criminal investigation and victim services. Without the appropriate recruit, in-service and specialized training curricula, how can there be the lofty expectations of accountability, performance and conduct by police officers? This issue is critical to the whole concept of providing the people of Ontario with the best-quality police services that current and future situations require.
Funding to the OPC has been cut to the point of compromises being made to the current training requirements. If this trend is not reversed, both public and officer safety will be at increased risk. Indeed, OPC cannot at the present funding level fulfil the promises of the Common Sense Revolution, the requirements of the adequacy standards or the recommendations of the Campbell report.
The government of Ontario must support the police with appropriate legislation that will mandate the use of enhanced traffic enforcement technology. Photo-radar and red-light camera systems will save lives. These are proven and cost-effective resources for public safety. This issue, which has absolutely nothing to do with politics, must be addressed and approached solely as an issue of public safety.
As I speak here today, a member of the London Urban Alliance, along with Superintendent Collins of the London police, are in Saint John, New Brunswick, meeting with city officials, police and community groups to outline some of the initiatives and partnerships between community and police that make London a model in North America. Some call it community policing.
This past summer a police officer was sent from Edmonton to gather information on the summer programs for youth presently in place in London. In addition, the Edmonton force was interested in the partnerships between the police, community groups such as the alliance, the London and Middlesex Housing Authority and tenant groups which have made our programs so successful.
This success did not happen overnight. The community and the police have worked diligently for many years in a concentrated effort to promote public safety in our neighbourhoods, to proactively fight crime on our streets and to head off violence in our schools. These joint ventures between the housing authority, London police, community groups and tenant groups, backed financially by the private business sector, are to the best of our knowledge second to none in North America.
As part of this proactive approach, the London police formed a community-oriented response unit. To facilitate access to the unit as well as interaction with the community, the police divided the city into six zones or sectors and assigned one officer as contact person for each zone. In each of the zones, community volunteers act as eyes and ears for the COR unit. When there is any indication of trouble starting, be it drugs, prostitution, or family or street confrontations, members of the unit attend in an effort to head off the problem. Over the years, many potentially violent situations have been averted or defused by the prompt arrival of the COR unit.
The Chair: Ms Martin, there are only about three minutes left. I'm afraid you're not going to be able to get everything on record. I just want to make sure you ensure that you get on public record what is important, if you can do that.
Ms Martin: I can do that. I've said all this about the ongoing programs that have been instituted in London to come to my final point. Crime and calls for service have been cut dramatically in many areas. My final point is that in Bill 105 community policing is missing. We agree that community policing should not be a part of Bill 105. Each community is uniquely different. The first ingredient in the partnership is community. The onus is on the community, not the police. Thank you for listening and for hearing today.
The Chair: Thank you very much for sharing your concerns with the committee. We will certainly give them attention in our deliberations.
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ST THOMAS POLICE SERVICES BOARD
The Chair: Our next presentation will be made by Mr Gordon Campbell, the chair of the St Thomas Police Services Board. Welcome.
Mr Gordon Campbell: I am Gordon Campbell. I am the chair of the St Thomas Police Services Board and an alderman in the city of St Thomas. I would like to thank the hearings panel for allowing me to present a brief today. I understand that all the pertinent factors which will affect Bill 105 are not in place as yet, and that presents some difficulty in trying to address the effects of this legislation on both police services boards and municipalities. It would seem that police services boards will have to use blind faith in adopting this legislation, which will have a significant effect on policing services in our communities.
It would appear that police services boards are being relegated to subservient status to the municipal council, and this leaves anyone open to question whether the adequacy of the service will be determined by the services board or by council. Certainly budget control would seem to direct the onus of adequacy and effectiveness away from the services board and towards the municipal government.
I feel somewhat at odds with myself, as a municipal counsellor and a police services board representative, in taking issue with this matter. As a police services board representative, I am proud of the contribution our service makes to our community. In times of budget-cutting mania, we have been able to maintain an effective service while maintaining a zero increase in the overall budget for the past four years. However, zero budgeting always leads to a decline in the state of the equipment and tools that we use. I am convinced that in these deficit-cutting times we are building a huge deficit by simply delaying the replacement of much-needed equipment and services.
The governments, both federal and provincial, have not helped to solve these problems in any meaningful way. In fact, they have added to our distress by passing through costs that have seriously impacted our budgets. The promotion of the OMPPAC system was a beneficial move for all police services, but after assistance with the original setup costs, police services are left with more and more of the expense for operation and replacement of the system.
The edict from on high that the standard .38 calibre service revolver was unsafe led to a huge one-time cost, and of course the decision to buy the new weapons was in the midst of a budget year, when it was difficult to find the moneys to implement the program.
The pass-through of courtroom security was another hit that took away from the effectiveness of the service and put more financial pressure on the service. It simply took three and sometimes four officers in our city away from active police duties to stand by at court proceedings.
These are a few examples of actions by senior governments that have led to diminishing the effectiveness of the service and have caused increasing demands at budget time.
As a municipal representative and former finance chairman, I found it difficult to explain to my colleagues the necessity for maintaining the police budget at the same level year after year when other departments were trimming their budgets by significant amounts. A new finance chairman this year asked that budgets, including the police services budget, be trimmed by 10%, or $440,000. Had this happened, we would have lost the personnel who do the front-line community service work plus at least one officer from the criminal investigation bureau, a move which would severely limit our ability to function as a police service.
I think there is a built-in aversion on the part of municipal councillors -- I know there is for this one -- to paying the full cost of policing while not having control over the budget after it is passed. It was anticipated that the police budget in St Thomas for 1997 would lead us to a decision by OCCPS. Fortunately, it did not and the budget was approved, with several important updates being delayed again. The police services board must retain the autonomy to not only make the necessary budget decisions but to determine the level of adequacy and effectiveness of the service to the municipality. In a dispute, it must have an arbitrator with sufficient autonomy to make a decision and make it stick.
I'm not sure, by what is known of the legislation, exactly what role OCCPS will play. One can only hope that OCCPS will have a role in budgeting and in the strength of the service. This is not clear at present, and in fact several signs point towards a reduction in the viability of OCCPS's ability to police the police.
The change in the structure of police services boards whereby three members are to be appointed by the community and two by the province indicates that the municipality will make the determination as to police budgets. It seems contrary to human nature that three persons appointed by the municipality would vote for a budget review knowing that it was biting the hand of those who appointed them.
This clearly will lead to disputes as service boards endeavour to maintain effectiveness while municipal councils must wage war to reduce expenditures. The very fact that councils have budget control shifts control and power to councils and reduces the role played by services boards. Without an arbitrator such as OCCPS, this would have to lead to a diminished service. In our budget, less than 10% is for services other than wages and salaries.
This legislation circumvents police services boards in other ways. The Ontario Provincial Police may now make a presentation to municipal councils without so much as advising the services board that it is doing so. It would seem only proper that the municipal services board should be able to assess this presentation and be able to make rebuttals or remarks on such an important matter as who will provide policing services. It should be remembered that once the local service is gone, it can never be replaced. I'm not sure that even as a municipal councillor I could make the decision to disband the local board in favour of the OPP without input from the affected ratepayers.
The amendments to the act also suggest that specialized services formerly provided free of charge by the OPP may now carry a pricetag. The use of canine units, tactical units and special investigations will have to be paid for by the local service. This presents a very difficult task at budget time, when an educated guess is necessary as to whether or not to use the special service if it is needed. It also represents a significant downloading when and if the services are used. Will services boards have any input into the development of these fees or the effect this downloading will have on budgets?
I am asking this panel to give serious consideration to the negative effects Bill 105 may bring to municipalities. St Thomas has been well served by our 50 sworn officers and 10 civilian staff who constitute our service. We are proud of the accomplishments and proud of the efforts put forth by the service. It would be irresponsible to allow a power shift to other hands that would certainly diminish the service at a time when demands are increasing at an alarming rate. It would be more irresponsible to allow OCCPS to be downgraded to a meagre existence as a consultative-type board with no power to intercede when necessary.
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These are extremely difficult times for many people and a tremendously busy time for police services. I have appended to this brief the quarterly crime statistics for the St Thomas Police Service from the annual report for 1996. I believe it says best how we can and are doing more with less.
I implore this hearing panel to take the matters addressed in this brief into careful consideration. We cannot return to yesteryear, when policing services throughout Ontario were left in the hands of local boards at the whim and discretion of municipal government. To maintain universality across the province, we need an independent body such as OCCPS to mediate disputes and to preserve the adequacy and the effectiveness of police services.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Mr Campbell. You've got to understand that there have been views contrary to yours expressed. There have been some municipal folks here, and yesterday the mayor of Renfrew was in front of the committee up near Ottawa saying that he thought the municipality should have this very high level of control.
Along with this legislation there's some companion legislation that talks about the municipalities' ability to take on the responsibility of prosecuting some additional provincial offences, matters above and beyond parking offences, and they'd get to keep the take by way of fines.
Some of the police that have appeared in front of us and the Police Association of Ontario are knocking their foreheads, saying, "Holy zonkers, with municipal control over budgets and with the municipality picking up the take on provincial offences prosecutions that are downloaded on to the municipality and with some of the new misconduct standards, we could be turned into a quota-system kind of police force, where we're out there doing the high-revenue stuff instead of the kind of policing that we'd very much like to be doing." I don't know whether that's crossed your mind as well or not.
Mr Campbell: In the brief I state that I have a difficult job here because I represent not only a municipal council but a services board. The only way I can address the issue is from the point of view of the ordinary ratepayer. I want to see a strong, viable police service. I don't want to see the ambulance-chasing type of thing that you talk of, where we're out to issue tickets to raise revenues. I don't think police services across the province should be put into a position where they have to do their own fund-raising. I think that leads to some rather horrendous problems.
I understand -- and I haven't always been on a police services board; it seems like I've always been on council, but I haven't always been on a police services board -- and I too shared some of the views of your friend from Renfrew. It's the biggest budget in the city of St Thomas. It always seemed to me rather queer that we would give away that amount of money without any control or hands on afterwards. After going to the police services board, I can see why that was done, and I can see why the original Police Act back in 1939 or 1940 was passed to bring order to police services across the province. I'm afraid, as a ratepayer, that we're going to lose the effectiveness of our whole force. That would be, in my mind, very detrimental at this time.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, sir. Very interesting comments.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have just two quick points. On page 5 when you talk about some of the downloading for the canine units and tactical units, investigations and so on, just so you know, because you may not, that is at the discretion of the Solicitor General. So there is that provision there.
The one question I really wanted to ask is one that I think is very valid regarding the powers of OCCPS and their ability. One of the concerns many people have voiced is that if you are going to give control to the municipalities, you have to give some, for want of a better word, teeth to OCCPS, and how long those teeth are is going to be a significant factor. Do you have any specific comments on what OCCPS's power should be?
Just to give you an example, the PAO said that OCCPS should have the ability to force the municipality to pay if they decide there need to be some services added. Is there any specific powers that you think OCCPS could have that would help us in our deliberations?
Mr Campbell: Yes, I do. I think the powers of OCCPS should be measurably the same as they are at the present time. I mention in my statement that this year's finance chairman tried to trim the police budget by 10%, $440,000. That figure represents more than the goods and services portion of the St Thomas police budget. We wouldn't have gasoline, paper clips, telephones or anything else if we wanted to take that amount out of our budget.
If it comes again, if next year when this legislation is in place, the same budget chairman were to come to us with some authority and say, "Okay, take $350,000 or $400,000 out of your budget," it would be nice, it would be necessary as a matter of fact, for us to go to some arbitrator -- and you're suggesting we'll have to pay for it; that really seems to be the method we use today -- who would have the authority to say "No, you can't do that," because the only way we could do that is to cut the force so dramatically -- the whole front line of our community services detail, the community services officers, the Crime Stoppers officer, and at least one and probably two from the criminal investigation bureau out of a three-person department. Our service would be gutted. We would then just have enough to go out and pass out tickets. I think we need OCCPS to maintain a measure of effectiveness and a measure of fairness.
I can speak well on behalf of municipalities, but I think with the misunderstandings that they have of what we're trying to do as a police service, we could get into some very grey areas there. We need someone who, as I say, can make a decision and make it stick.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much. That's very helpful.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Good afternoon, Mr Campbell, and welcome. I noted when you came up you congratulated the previous presenter on a good presentation, and it relates to one point they made that relates to your position as a member of municipal council on the police services board and this question of who should be the majority on the board.
It was stated that politicizing the police without appropriate safeguards would surely lead to influence peddling, unethical outcomes, corruption and conflicts of interest. To varying degrees, that's been raised by other presenters, that to have the local appointments have the majority somehow, aside from the budgetary question, would lead to this politicizing. Do you have any comment on that, sir?
Mr Campbell: I complimented the previous presenter not on the fact that she felt it was unethical to municipal representatives but on the fact that I thought she made a good presentation.
Mr Crozier: I thought it was too, and I wasn't being tricky.
Mr Campbell: No, I realize that. I think that the present standard should be maintained. I think the present standard works very well. We in our service board, for instance, have three provincial reps and two appointed by the municipality, the mayor and myself as a matter of fact, and we have a good cross-section of our community in the provincial reps. As I say in the brief, I think there would be some onus put upon, or suggested at any rate, municipal representatives to toe the line. I mean, "We appointed you and we certainly want to see some results from that."
We haven't had that from the province; at least I'm not aware of it. All of our representatives on all the service boards that I've sat on have been good, fair representatives who work from their own actions. They seem to be open-minded. In a small community you certainly know the political affiliations of certain people, but I've always thought that we work in the best interests of the community. I think that's very important. I think you could lose that if you change the structure of the board.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Campbell, for your presentation.
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HAROLD GINN
The Chair: Our next presenter is Mr Harold Ginn. Welcome.
Mr Harold Ginn: Thank you, Mr Chair and members, for the opportunity to make this presentation. My name is Harold Ginn, and I'm a lawyer at a firm here in town. I do periodic assignments as a part-time assistant crown attorney, and I sit on the London Transit Commission as an unelected municipal representative appointed as a member of the commission. I'm not here, obviously, to speak on behalf of the Ministry of the Attorney General or the London Transit Commission; I'm just here to make some personal observations about this act, which I've read.
One thing I definitely support in this act is a municipality's power under the new act to appoint a community representative to a police services board. The act says that the municipality has to appoint someone who is not an elected council member or a municipal employee. I just wish to point out that London here has a rather rich tradition of appointing through its council, at the recommendation of the board of control, community representatives to various committees. That's what led to my involvement in the LTC, and I think it's a positive step in this act in that I think it's important that a police services board be accountable to elected and non-elected members of a municipality.
That leads me to the second point I wish to make, which ties into the first, and that is on accountability. It's a good thing that municipalities, on whose funds police services are raised, get to appoint a majority of members to a police services board. I say that as a taxpayer here in the city of London. As an Ontario taxpayer, I'm somewhat glad to see that OPP services won't be essentially given away any more to smaller municipalities without their own local police force. I'd suggest that in the new act change has been somewhat tempered with choice in that municipalities which currently are getting services through the OPP for free right now can either contract with the OPP for those services, they can contract with another municipality or they can set up their own services. I think that ties into a theme of being accountable to taxpayers.
I've read a lot in the media recently about complaints that the citizens complaint procedure under this new act is somehow stacked in favour of the police. I don't understand that from my review of the act for this reason: It would seem to me that there's a review procedure provided for in the act on behalf of the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services if someone's complaint is somehow ruled frivolous or vexatious in the first instance. So I don't necessarily buy the commentary that I've been hearing that somehow this is stacked in favour of the police.
It seems to me that the scope of possible citizen complaints under this act is actually broadened in this sense. Unlike the previous act, the act says that complaints can include complaints with respect to the policies and services of a police department in addition to any complaints that someone might have about the conduct of a police officer. I believe the scope of complaints under this legislation is actually broadened. I think it's broadened enough to entitle anyone like me, who is a resident of a municipality and a taxpayer in it, to more or less make complaints under the new act with respect to the level of service and so forth which isn't heard of.
Those are the good things that I see in the act. Upon reviewing it, I do have a few concerns. I can appreciate that perhaps smaller police forces in the outlying areas of London might be concerned about whether they can comply with the core elements of this act with respect to police services such as emergency response teams and those types of facilities.
Being a lawyer, I did note a prohibition against criminal defence counsel acting on police services boards. I can understand the rationale for that. I think it would be rather difficult for a police chief, a police officer or anyone associated with police administration to give evidence in a criminal proceeding when they are in effect being cross-examined by their boss. However, using my own personal situation as an example, if you take on a case in Lambton county, for instance, I don't think that's something that should prohibit you from serving locally in any capacity. It might be something this committee might wish to look at in terms of changing it so that you can't carry on as a criminal defence counsel in the area of jurisdiction which your police services board relates to.
Those are two concerns that I picked out of it. I'd be pleased to answer any questions you might have.
Mr Crozier: Good afternoon. I note that you said you've read the act, and although you haven't specifically covered this, I'd like your comments, since you are a lawyer. There has been some concern by some presenters that, let's say, the general question of police investigating police is not good, but the comparison has been made that to some extent the medical association is self-regulating and self-disciplinary; the same with the legal field. There are others -- chartered accountants, for example -- who carry out their own discipline.
Is there any area in this bill where you have concern, keeping in mind these self-regulatory bodies and self-disciplining bodies, that police participation in investigations internally would be a problem?
Mr Ginn: No, I'm not concerned, on the assumption that the same sort of standards exist within police regulation as exist within legal regulation. My own experience with the regulation of the law society has been that it has done a good job of self-regulating. To my knowledge, people who are appointed in any regulatory capacity with the law society have conducted their job with considerable ability. In the first instance, at least, I can't think of anyone better than the police to investigate police conduct. Certainly, my experience with the London police force would lead me to believe that any such duties would be discharged with the utmost integrity.
Mr Crozier: I appreciate those comments.
You perhaps have heard the discussion surrounding the appointment by majority either by the municipality or the province. You may have heard my question to the previous presenter. Being a past municipal politician, I rather resent it having been said that a municipal appointee might be more apt to be corrupt and those kinds of issues. Whether that municipal appointee will feel pressure from the budget side as opposed to the provision-of-service side I suppose depends on individuals and circumstances. Do you have any comment on that?
Mr Ginn: I've never done anything for the LTC feeling any particular pressure from the municipality, but then that's just me. If anything, putting the emphasis on municipal appointments rather than provincial appointments depoliticizes a police board. If we're talking about party politics when we say "politics," certainly those involved in municipal politics have to serve the whole community. That's basically how they get to where they are, not by picking and choosing who they want to serve.
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Mr Kormos: I appreciate what you're saying about the capacity of the police to investigate the police. I hear what you're saying. There have been two interesting comments made. One comment has been made several times, and that is that the process must not only appear to be fair, it must actually be fair. That's the corollary of, "It must not only actually be fair, but it must appear to be fair." That's a maxim you're well familiar with.
Moving to the issue of appearance, the argument is made, and it was made by several submitters, that an independent or arm's-length and/or civilian review is one which generates at the very least the appearance of fairness, which maintains public confidence in it. From your point of view -- and again, I'm appreciating your point of view -- how do you respond to that argument that's been made to this committee by several groups?
Mr Ginn: I think if you're concerned about the appearance of objectivity, that more or less is addressed in the second stage of any complaint by a review by the Ontario civilian police commission. If for some strange reason someone didn't discharge their duties with an objective review, being associated with the police services board or being a police officer, then I think that very often easily appears on the record of the proceeding and would readily be picked up by the civilian commission if it's properly discharging its duties.
Mr Kormos: Fair enough. Obviously, those same persons and groups who have talked about the appearance would refute and disagree with that and would talk about what they perceive as the capacity of the OCCPS to conduct a merely paper review, rather than its own investigation.
The other thing that's interesting, though, is that the Police Association of Ontario is where there's been a strange -- not strange, interesting -- meeting of minds on the issue. The Police Association of Ontario similarly objects to the role of a chief of police in conducting investigations and determining disputes. The impression one gets from reading the PAO submission and other regional or local police association submissions is that they would rather have a somewhat more independent and arm's-length review, from their point of view. What do we say, then, to police officers who appear to endorse that, perhaps not universally, but certainly through their organizations?
Mr Ginn: I guess it goes to how much you want to spend on putting someone you think is capable of doing that into the process. To my way of thinking, certainly police chiefs, one would hope, are familiar with the administrative end of things, and barring any misconduct, prejudice or bias on their part, I would submit they're the people who are best qualified in the first instance.
Mr Kormos: The issue of subsection 113(9) has also been raised. It was raised in response to a question by the Solicitor General, and that's the requirement that police cooperate in an investigation. Of course, in the broadest consideration of it, it has been argued that it includes a contradiction of one's right to remain silent. The Solicitor General says that issue is still open. It appears he's prepared to consider an abolition of the right to silence. That was the impression he left. Do you have any views on how subsection 113(9) should be interpreted?
Mr Ginn: No. I, quite frankly, didn't give it a close reading before I came here today.
Mr Kormos: Fair enough, because that's not a part of this bill, but it has been raised, obviously, in the course of the hearings. I appreciate it; thank you kindly.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation today. I'd like to follow up on the point Mr Crozier raised with you. At the risk of belabouring this, I do think it's essential, because it deals with the composition of the board. If there isn't confidence in the composition and integrity of the board, the entire issue of police services is undermined.
Interestingly enough, you're a municipal appointee in one of your roles. You refer to that in your presentation. There are those who have repeatedly made presentations to this committee that the change of composition, to have the municipality make that additional appointment, would undermine the credibility of the board, yet you're here saying as your first point that in your opinion it's a positive step. Can you help us to understand why there appears to be such distrust as a result of that additional appointment from the municipality, and is there something we could do to incorporate some changes to perhaps alleviate that concern?
Mr Ginn: I can't explain the distrust. All I could do is repeat the observation that in my opinion it's better than a provincial appointment in the sense that the people who are making the appointment probably know the person they're appointing better, through experience. If the process that London goes through to appoint a municipal representative who's non-elected and not an employee of the municipality is used, there's an interview process and you submit a brief about what you would like to do. I'm only citing the London experience, but if the London experience will be the Ontario experience, then I have a feeling that it will be a better system.
Mr Tilson: I have two questions for you. You may have partially touched on both of them. You've indicated you read the bill. Is the appeal process that is being formulated in this bill adequate?
Second, people have talked about lack of trust in police investigating and chiefs of police getting involved and therefore we should have a civilian investigatory body. You raised the questions, how much do you want to spend, how much do you want to get involved? I guess you could go even further and ask, who is capable of doing that? It all may boil down to the question of, who's going to watch the watchers? We've got the law society reviewing lawyers, we've got judges reviewing judges, we've got the College of Physicians and Surgeons or whoever, who look at doctors who are not acting appropriately, and so on for the different professions. If you really have that much distrust of the system, you could say that about anything: Who's going to watch the watchers? Who's going to watch the civilian body? I think it all boils down to, what's the best system, who can investigate it the best, who can do the best job for the resources that are available?
Mr Ginn: With respect to the first point, about whether I think the appeal procedure is adequate, obviously this hasn't been implemented, we haven't seen it work, but at first blush, upon reading it, there's nothing there that offends me. I'm confident in it.
With respect to who watches the watchers, it comes down to a question of money and how much you want to spend to do that. I think equally it also comes down to the question, just how many incidents arise in the province of Ontario during any given year which cause us to set up an ideal system where the watchers are watched? I can only express my experience with the London police in saying that such incidents are few and far between.
The Chair: Thank you, sir, for helping us in our deliberations today.
WINDSOR POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presentation will be made by the Windsor Police Association, Mr John Moor.
Mr John Moor: Good afternoon, Mr Chair, how are you this afternoon?
The Vice-Chair (Mr Ron Johnson): Very good, thank you. You'll have 20 minutes for your presentation. You can start any time.
Mr Moor: My name is John Moor. I'm the administrator of the Windsor Police Association. I've been a member of the Windsor Police Service for 24 years. I currently hold the rank of sergeant. As you'll recall from our presentation on Monday, I'm also the president of the Police Association of Ontario.
With me today for this presentation is Mr Michael Madden. Mike is the president of the Windsor Police Association. Mike has 29 years as a police officer. He served with Metro Toronto many years ago and is now serving as a constable with the Windsor Police Service. Mr Pat LeBlanc is a director with our police association in Windsor and is a sergeant in our patrol division. This is Mr Cam Meloche. The presentation package we gave you would indicate that it's Mr Rick Houston, but Rick has deferred to Mr Meloche, who's the president of the LaSalle Police Association down in the Windsor area.
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Our association in Windsor represents approximately 395 sworn police personnel and 133 civilian personnel. We represent every member of the police service in Windsor, save and except the chief and the two deputy chiefs. Our members provide professional police services to the 200,000 citizens in the city of Windsor, along with a transient population that increases dramatically on a daily basis in our particular city. This is no doubt attributable to the fact that we're across the river from the city of Detroit, and I'm sure everybody is aware of the crime rate in that particular city that spills into our communities. Also I'm sure our casino, it's a proven fact, draws many people into our community on a daily basis.
There are many aspects of Bill 105 which are of serious concern to our members in Windsor: concerns for their rights as police officers; also their rights as citizens in the communities that they police themselves; and concern for their ability to do the job, to perform as police officers as safely and efficiently as they possibly can. They also have a concern for the citizens they're sworn to protect, that they may not be aware of the consequences of this bill.
This bill, in its present form, will most certainly have a negative impact, not just for our members but for police officers across the province. Over the past three days I'm aware that you've heard presentations made by my colleagues. They've addressed in detail many of the problems with Bill 105 and have spoken at length in particular to the proposed amendments that deal with oversight and discipline. Those seem to be the areas that many presentations have dealt with. They've clearly articulated that the basic rights of our members will be infringed upon with this bill if it's passed, and even eliminated in many areas.
This is certainly the case, I would suggest, in respect to the proposed amendments regarding discipline, unsatisfactory work performance, informal resolutions, public complaints, the special investigations unit and municipal control of not just police services boards but of police service budgets. Our membership in Windsor shares those concerns that have been expressed, but due to our limited time that's allotted this afternoon, we will be focusing our presentation on other concerns within Bill 105.
Having said that, I would like to quickly address one area dealing with the discipline section that just arose with a comment by Mr Kormos regarding the position of many police associations, in particular the Police Association of Ontario, with respect to the chief's involvement in the discipline system. From your remarks, Mr Kormos, I assume you felt our presentation was saying we didn't want the chief involved in the discipline process, that we were looking for an independent body to be involved in that process. That's not the position, and if we left this committee with that position, I'd just like to clarify it.
Our problem very clearly with the discipline system and the chief's involvement, as it's set out in Bill 105, is the fact that the chief of police or his designate can impose what we consider to be an undue and overly harsh penalty without a hearing, that our members don't have the right to have a hearing. That hearing, as we're proposing, would be before a member of the police service of the rank of inspector or above and be prosecuted within the police service at that level in those hearings. Just to clarify that, we were not looking to go back to a system of public complaints with public hearings. We feel that discipline is an employer-employee matter that would be dealt with in that fashion, just to clarify that before we go on.
The four areas that we believe have not adequately been dealt with or have not been dealt with at all as regard the amendments in Bill 105 are amalgamations, auxiliary members, probationary periods for Ontario Provincial Police officers and civilian members within the OPP. We'd like to address these four areas this afternoon.
In regard to amalgamations, currently in the county of Essex, policing is performed by the Windsor Police Service, along with nine other municipal services in the county, and in some locations the Ontario Provincial Police. Over the past many years there has been a great deal of speculation, a great deal of talk going on between either members of councils in that area or members of police services, chiefs, deputy chiefs in regard to amalgamation of one or more of those police services.
Certainly since Bill 26, and more importantly since comments made by the Solicitor General in the past with regard to the amalgamation of police services, and the viewpoints of government indicating that's the route they would like to see municipalities go, there's a lot more talk going on about amalgamation. It's not just in Essex county, but across the province, but I'd like to deal with what's happening in regard to amalgamation down in Essex county.
The amalgamation process is not new. It's been around for 30 years, with the regionalization of policing in Peel and Durham and those areas for many years. What's different now, though, is that unlike in the past, when those amalgamations and regionalizations were taking place -- the government of the day passed specific legislation dealing with the amalgamation process and how that was going to take place so that it would be done in an orderly, fair and efficient manner -- that's not taking place today. Bill 105, while it does provide some ease for municipalities to enter into amalgamation proceedings, for that to take place, certainly doesn't address the rights of the members or how that process will take place.
With any amalgamation of police services, there have to be certain safeguards in place to guarantee the rights of the members who are going to be involved in the process -- not just the rights of the police officers, but the rights of the civilian members of those police services -- and they have to be protected and guaranteed through the legislation. Without it, the police services that are received by the communities where there are amalagamations are going to suffer, there's no doubt about that. If the members are not informed as to what's happening or they're not guaranteed that their employment is going to be there, all sorts of things happen, and the first thing that happens is a vast decrease in the morale of those members of the police service not knowing whether or not they're going to be employed the next day. That can't be allowed to happen and shouldn't be allowed to happen.
One of the biggest areas of concern we have in amalgamations is the lack of involvement of associations from the onset. If it's not going to be legislated in the act or in the regulations that associations have to be included, then I can assure you that 99 times out of 100 they will not be included. As I said earlier, in Essex county there are talks going on right now, very serious talks, among the chiefs of all 10 municipal police services, along with representatives of the Ontario Provincial Police. We have been able to obtain minutes of those meetings. The associations have been expressly excluded by the steering committee, composed of the chiefs, from any discussions.
There are 50 members from those various communities on these committees. They've set up 22 subcommittees dealing with everything from finance to budget to equipment to patrol issues that have to be addressed to investigation services that will be provided -- all things that are going to impact very greatly on all our members in that area, yet there's not one association representative from the 10 police associations in that area that has been allowed. Not that we're not there; we've asked, we've tried and we've been expressly told we will not be there until the whim of somebody on the subcommittee decides they need to ask us a question.
It is difficult to understand how the chaos this will lead to can't be comprehended. If a decision is reached to amalgamate one or more of those police services, if the associations are brought in at the last minute, there are 10 collective agreements that have to be addressed, with a multitude of employee-employer issues that have to be resolved that just won't be able to if we're not there right at the beginning.
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This example that's happening in Essex county is no different from other amalgamations that have taken place where the associations have been excluded. We feel that there have to be amendments made to Bill 105 in the area of amalgamations, not just making it easier for the communities to do it. We're not opposed to that happening. We feel there are some great benefits for our members and the citizens of our communities in cases of amalgamations. We just want to be included in that. As such, we would recommend that the following amendments be considered by this committee for inclusion in Bill 105.
First and foremost, and I won't belabour the point, is the association representation, that it be mandated that we be included in the process from the beginning, and that it not just be a façade; that we be given all the materials and documentation required for us to facilitate working within the committee and assisting with it.
The second issue that we feel has to be mandated is the comparable employment issue, that the same or similar employment will be offered to all members of the police service, sworn and civilian, in the new service, and that would be at the same rank or higher rank or the same classification or higher classification as in the manner of a civilian employee; and that their salary and benefits and working conditions would have to be the same.
We would respectfully request that this legislation include OPP officers, that if they are affected, if there are areas such as occurred up in the Ottawa-Carleton area where Ontario Provincial Police officers were taken on to that service, they be granted the same rights as set out for municipal officers. We are not proposing at this time that this same right be extended to civilians working for the Ontario Provincial Police. There are other issues to be addressed there. I know it was touched upon by the OPPA on Tuesday and we will be touching on that matter a little further in our presentation.
Ranks also have to be addressed in the legislation to ensure that a member's rank is guaranteed with the new service, that if the member happens to be a sergeant with the LaSalle Police Service and it's amalgamated with Windsor, in the case of Mr Meloche, he would come across as a sergeant. He wouldn't have to undergo rank determination hearings. He would come on at that rank.
Seniority is also an issue that needs to be addressed and not left to chance: that a member's seniority would be included and any past seniority that was recognized by the previous police service would be recognized by the new service.
A very important part of this whole process is knowing whom to deal with, and I think this leads to our next issue that should be included in the amendments: police services boards. If there's going to be an amalgamation undertaken, it's our suggestion that an interim board be established at least 18 months prior to the amalgamation taking place. That will allow for an easier transition. It will also allow for contracts to be negotiated prior to the amalgamations taking place, and where you find yourself with 10 police services amalgamating into one and there isn't a collective agreement the same for them. That just creates a great deal of morale problems when you have people with different wages working side by side doing the same job.
Reassignment is also an issue that needs to be addressed. In the situation of amalgamations where you're taking in large areas, there has to be some protection for members so that they're not transferred from an area where they've worked for the past 25 years to an area that could be 40 or 50 miles away. There have to be some provisions to require police services boards and associations to negotiate some sort of compensation package for those types of individuals.
We also believe that retiree benefits must be guaranteed in amalgamations. With the dissolution of municipalities or the amalgamating of those municipalities, retirees should be guaranteed that the benefits they retired with, they will earn for whatever period of time was set out in their collective agreements. There should be no loss of benefits because of that.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Moor, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm just looking at the time here and the amount of presentation you have left. You're down to about three minutes, so you may want to highlight some of the most important points of your presentation.
Mr Moor: Okay. I'll get through it.
Dealing with auxiliary persons, we believe that the act did not adequately address this issue with respect to auxiliaries during the summit in June. I understand there was a presenter yesterday who indicated that the stakeholder groups did not reach agreement or consensus in the area of auxiliaries. I was at that process, and there was agreement and consensus in some areas and just a majority of agreement in other areas with regard to auxiliaries. That dealt with the duties and responsibilities of auxiliaries, it dealt with the uniforms they could wear, things of that nature. We feel it's very important, as you'll see in our brief, and I won't read it out.
The Ontario Police Commission, as it was known then, addressed the issue in 1981, that there was a problem with the use and abuse of auxiliaries, and that's what's occurring across the province. In the past year, we as a provincial association have had to deal with some police services issuing pepper spray, OC spray, to auxiliaries and putting them out on patrol with it. Actually, it's a prohibited weapon and by law they can't carry it, but they're being issued with it and sent out into the public with that.
We've had cases in our own local community where a chief decided that members of his force weren't numerous enough. He needed somebody for surveillance, so he gave an auxiliary officer a shotgun and put him in a car and sent him out on surveillance where shots had been fired. The practice continued until the association intervened with the ministry to put a stop to it. We have all sorts of examples that we brought forward to the ministry on the use of auxiliaries for the purpose of writing tickets, being put out on patrol in police cars. These people aren't trained properly, they aren't equipped properly. They shouldn't be doing the jobs of police officers.
We think there's a place for auxiliaries. They can be used if there are proper restrictions put in place. The regulations need to strictly outline what functions they can perform, and that cannot include any of the duties of a police officer; it shouldn't include it. They shouldn't have any uniforms that appear the same in any way, shape or form as a police officer so that the public clearly can distinguish between a police officer and an auxiliary. We think that is very important and should be addressed within the regulations.
Civilian members of the OPP -- I'll go very quickly through the last two. Probationary period for OPP officers: I know that's been addressed before the committee. We want to reinforce it because we feel that it's going to occur down in our area in Essex county, where if there are OPP takeovers, if you want to call it that, or if they assume policing of some of the municipal areas in Essex county, those police members from the municipal forces should not have to undergo a second probationary period with the OPP. They shouldn't have to do that. They've already served one probationary period. We ask that you amend this legislation to exclude that secondary probationary period, the same as it's excluded for OPP members who would come to Windsor or to any one of the other local forces. They don't have to do that.
Lastly on civilian members within the OPP, we also feel as a local association that civilian members of the OPP should be represented by the Ontario Provincial Police Association. They should be removed from OPSEU and allowed to be represented by that police service. Right now under their umbrella with OPSEU they have the right to strike, as you all know. They're the only police employees in this province who have that right. We feel it's inconsistent with the act and how it treats the rest of the police employees across the province and we certainly feel that the act should be changed, either the Public Service Act or the Police Services Act, through Bill 105 and its amendments to make the necessary change there.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, sir. I appreciate your speeding that up a bit. As you know, we have copies, and the committee members will certainly have a look at the remaining information that you gave. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank all of you very much for the presentation.
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CITY OF LONDON
The Chair: The next presenter is Grant Hopcroft, the deputy mayor of the city of London, and London Police Services Board member. Good afternoon, sir. How are you?
Mr Grant Hopcroft: Good, thank you, Mr Chair. I feel almost naked here without having both the chairs on either side filled, and I want to assure you it's not because of lack of interest on the part of our council. We're holding a hearing across the street dealing with the Health Services Restructuring Commission's report in London and most members of council who didn't have prior commitments are already over there.
I'd like to begin by saying I'm pleased to recognize some of the faces around the table as former municipal colleagues and I hope the city's submission in that regard will fall on somewhat sympathetic ears.
In addition to being deputy mayor of the city, I also serve currently as chair of the London Police Services Board. Because of some of the time constraints in pulling things together I am not able to make any comments on behalf of the board today. Any comments in that regard would be personal ones, if there are any questions, but I am submitting the brief you have before you on behalf of the council of the city of London.
First of all, we would like to congratulate the provincial government for introducing amendments to the Police Services Act. We are supportive of the amendments in so far as they apply to our community and we appreciate the opportunity to present our comments.
We are specifically encouraged about four particular amendments that are included in the bill in the areas of governance, police budgets, the complaints systems and joint police servicing.
On the issue of governance, Ontario municipalities have been seeking improvements to the governance of policing for many years. While police services boards will remain as the governing authority of policing services, the changes to the composition of boards and their relationship with elected municipal councils are welcomed. The bill provides a new governance model that better reflects the public's expectations of their local elected representatives and will no doubt lead to a relationship between police boards and elected councils that is clearer and less confusing to the public.
In London, the proposed changes will result in the membership of the board remaining at five members. However, the composition will change so that three board members rather than the existing two will be appointed by city council, one of those being a non-elected community representative, with two members continuing to be appointed by the province.
We note in particular that with permission we can have a board of up to seven. We really are a little puzzled why district and regional governments would have the authority to apply, but city governments would not be in a position to do so unless they're in a joint board. A technical amendment in that regard would certainly be welcomed, to recognize, with the amalgamations going on and new cities being created, that the boards in those communities that are currently in districts or regions might more appropriately remain at their current size.
It's our understanding that the appointment terms of the existing police board members will be maintained and that there will be a transitional provision. The city supports that smooth transition from the current structure to the new governance model.
In the area of budgeting, London city council has consistently sought greater control and accountability over police in operating and capital budgets. The 1997 operating budget that's been established by the police services board in London is nearly $41 million and is funded almost entirely by London property taxpayers. Under the current legislation, the elected council does not have the ability to amend the police budget to reflect local financial realities or to balance police budgets with all other community priorities. If the elected city council does not agree, the budget is referred to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services for a determination.
The bill proposes to change that process so that boards must submit proposed operating and capital budgets to local councils for their consideration and approval. This fundamental change recognizes that financial control and accountability should rightfully rest with elected municipal councils rather than appointed special-purpose bodies.
London city council is committed to guarding public safety and will not take lightly its enhanced control and accountability over the safety of London residents and businesses. The bill does provide an opportunity for police services boards to pursue their budget demands with OCCPS in those cases where police services boards are not satisfied with budgets as established by local councils. We would agree that this is a reasonable provision, given the importance of public safety and the consequences of neglectfully underfunding police services.
On the issue of the complaints system, the bill introduces a new system of police oversight by merging the existing discipline and public complaints systems so that there will no longer be separate processes for addressing internal disciplinary matters and complaints originating from the public. The proposed replacement of the existing commission, the office of the police complaints commission and boards of inquiry with a single agency will result in a simpler system of oversight that will be easier for the public to access. Additional efficiencies, as well as enhanced local accountability, will also be realized by the expanded role of police services boards in the complaints system that is proposed in the bill.
The bill also introduces changes that will allow any two or more municipalities, with the consent of the Solicitor General, to establish a joint police services board. The proposed changes will enable a police services board to provide some, but not all police services to another board. These joint police servicing provisions will enable innovative joint police servicing options to become more achievable.
The London Police Services Board, for example, has recently entered into discussions with some neighbouring municipalities about police servicing possibilities as a result of the changes to funding with respect to the OPP. The proposed changes will permit such possibilities to become a reality provided a joint board is established. However, there may be situations where a municipality wishes to purchase its services from another municipality's police services board, and legislative amendment to allow such situations would be helpful.
In conclusion, the city supports Bill 105. It contains elements which Ontario municipalities such as London have been seeking. The bill addresses the need for more local control, efficiency and accountability, while at the same time ensuring public safety throughout the province is not jeopardized. We would encourage the standing committee to recommend to the Legislature that the bill be given its final reading and proclaimed into law as soon as possible.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions members of the committee might have.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, sir. I want to deal with your comments on the complaints system because the Police Association of Ontario is concerned about what this bill does in terms of a lack of independence of adjudication in terms of complaints made against police officers.
In its brief the Police Association of Ontario says: "On the other hand, we ask for independent adjudication for discipline. Instead,...the chiefs of police have...greater control.... That's not always fair, especially if the chief is more concerned with public image than fairness for his or her police officers." The Police Association of Ontario, as well, objects to the bill in that it doesn't provide for an appeal by a police officer found guilty to the OCCPS.
Do you support the police officers' positions in that regard, that the final power for adjudication of complaints and imposition of discipline should rest with the chief of police, as compared to an independent adjudicator, and that their rights to appeal should extend to what would be the new commission?
Mr Hopcroft: Perhaps I could preface my answer, Mr Kormos, by saying that London has been blessed, I think, with having an excellent relationship between our board and our police association. We've also I think had a better relationship than most communities between the municipality and the police services board as well.
Our experience in London has been that we have a chief who while very fiercely proud of the role the London Police Service plays in protecting the health and safety of our community, as well takes a very keen interest in the morale and esprit de corps among our officers, the men and women who are on the streets in the London.
I think we have a situation where perhaps some of those concerns wouldn't be as relevant as they are in other communities. Speaking as chair of a police services board for a moment, I think the issue of ensuring the integrity of the men and women who are out there representing the police service in a community is something the chief ultimately and the board are accountable for. To the extent they are accountable for the activities, they should be accountable for the discipline.
There's obviously a need for some rules of natural justice and in many cases those rules of natural justice are established through working agreements and through the Police Services Act. I don't share the concern to the extent it's been represented to me here.
Mr Kormos: Even by the London Police Association?
Mr Hopcroft: I'm sorry, I'm not aware of the specifics of the London Police Association brief. If you have any direct comments from that, I'd try to respond to those.
Mr Kormos: Which I understand endorses the Police Association of Ontario position. Thank you.
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Mr Tilson: I believe I remember you when I was on AMO and we both looked physically much different -- quite a few years ago.
Mr Hopcroft: Yes, grey hair.
Mr Tilson: You have gone on and I think people not only respect the work you are doing in London but also the work you continue to do in AMO. For that reason, it leads me to my question that we have had delegations particularly from Toronto that have come forward and said to us: "Well, you know, politicians are corrupt. Municipal politicians in particular are corrupt and they're going to appoint their pals to the police services boards, they're going to control those police services boards, the police services boards will be puppets, and not only that, in their effort to cut back in restraint they're going to pick on law and order and they're going to cut back on budgets." In other words, there's a total lack of confidence with respect to the involvement of the local municipal politician.
Given your influence with respect to AMO and your influence as a London councillor, or a London deputy mayor I guess you are, would you comment on those general remarks that have been made to this committee?
Mr Hopcroft: I obviously don't agree with those general remarks. I guess politicians as a profession are as prone to having bad apples in the barrel as any profession in the community in which we operate. While there are obviously risks in any political system for the types of abuses you've enumerated, those types of abuses I would suggest have existed under the current provincial appointment process, they've existed with respect to concerns between politicians of provincial office and the OPP, and we've even seen it at the federal level with politicians and the RCMP. So I don't think one can generalize.
To the extent the bill reflects a mixed process of appointments, there is still a provincial interest reflected, although a minority one. It recognizes there is still a provincial interest, but recognizes that the money still comes from the local community. While in some cases it's sometimes convenient for municipal councils to criticize the activity of police boards when it doesn't particularly suit their budget guidelines from year to year, I think ultimately when councils have to make decisions and they're accountable for them, you end up with a little less rhetoric and a little bit more decision-making that's in the interests of the community. If anything, I think it'll cut down on some of the rhetoric we've been hearing in that regard.
Mr Crozier: Good afternoon, Mr Hopcroft. That's essentially the question I was going to ask because I come from a municipal background and I'm concerned about the idea out there that municipal appointments will be more corrupt and the municipal councils will jump on budgets and tear them apart and reduce them drastically. I don't share the view that many do. I noted this morning that the London Urban Alliance on race relations, a group you no doubt would be familiar with and deal with --
Mr Hopcroft: Yes.
Mr Crozier: Did you say you were chairman of the police services board?
Mr Hopcroft: Chair, yes.
Mr Crozier: I found it interesting that they said: "The chaos and the haemorrhaging of money must stop. Our message is, keep it simple and spend less." They were talking about police services, and yet went on to say in another paragraph that OCCPS are going to have to keep an eye on this so "police organizations are adequately financed, staffed and resourced. Otherwise, it can reasonably be anticipated that some local politicians, with alliances to members of the board who will do their bidding, will surely try to bleed police services." So we've got a group saying on one hand the bleeding has to stop, but on the other hand says, "Make sure you have a watchdog in place because we feel these municipal appointees are going to bleed it." Those are the problems we look at, but I don't --
Mr Hopcroft: I've always been an advocate for very strong accountability to local councils on the part of all boards and commissions and local agencies. When you come to talking about law enforcement, I think we all recognize there's a need for the law enforcement net to be a reasonably consistent one across the province so that we don't have the types of problems that have occurred in other jurisdictions, and probably you could even say happened in Ontario years ago as well. So we recognize there still needs to be an oversight mechanism, but the bill I think strikes a good balance, maybe not one that goes as far as I would have preferred to go, but it does strike a balance between those two interests.
The Chair: Thanks, Mr Hopcroft.
Mr Hopcroft: I thank the committee for the opportunity to make the presentation today and in particular to be able to make the presentation here in our community. I would like to commend all the members of the committee for taking these hearings out around the province. It makes the process a lot more accessible. I hope you enjoy your stay in London.
ORLANDO ZAMPROGNA
The Chair: Our next presenter is Mr Orlando Zamprogna. Welcome, Mr Zamprogna. I understand you're a member of the London Police Services Board.
Mr Orlando Zamprogna: Yes, I am.
The Chair: May I thank you on behalf of the committee for accommodating us. I understand there was a change of schedule. I remember, as a member of the Waterloo Regional Police Services Board, the little pay I received and the great amount of work I did for my community. I'm sure you do the same, so thank you for --
Mr Kormos: Things sure have changed, haven't they?
Mr Zamprogna: Are you looking for an increase in your stipend?
The Chair: No, I was just trying to thank you for accommodating the committee and the change of schedule. You have 20 minutes.
Mr Zamprogna: All right, thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity.
You might wish to know some pertinent background on myself -- I don't know if you have it -- that's related to my interest here today. I won't bore you with the rest of my background. I'm a professional engineer, in management. I've been a member of municipal council for 22 years, starting in 1970, 11 years as deputy mayor. I served three terms on the former police commission, including chair, and I am presently serving one term on the police services board. I just wanted to put that as background.
Basically, I support the thrust and overview of the proposed revised legislation. I'm commenting on key messages only, my involvement in getting here today, the result of looking at what appears to be an executive summary of what you've published. I can only confine my comments to that. However, I have discussed some of the elements that are in the more detailed proposal with some of my colleagues and with some of the police.
Regarding the topic of governance, I believe you should identify that the board component from the municipal side need not be a predominance of councillors. I found some vagueness in this brief as to whether or not there had to be a certain number of councillors or whether they could appoint from the public. There seems to be one, but I'm not sure if it could be a majority, a minority. My suggestion is that you have some flexibility in that. It might be useful indeed not to have a predominance of municipal councillors, but that the city council would appoint where appropriate. I will get to the reasoning for that in a minute.
I think you should take great care to define the scope and intent of "municipal authority to set police budgets." This authority should be limited to the overall cost only. The tendency for municipal councillors increasingly, as I've seen through the years, becomes one of checking budgets on a line-by-line basis. I find regrettably that their level of interest, or perhaps of interference depending on how you want to phrase it or I may wish to phrase it, not you, is becoming more administrative than executive or policy-setting. I have reason to say that. I've seen it happen on a variety of arm's-length organizations, boards, commissions, where municipal councils faced with the request for a budget will inevitably become involved in a line-by-line scrutiny and judgment.
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I don't think this serves the purpose. If that is to be the case, and it becomes the case incidentally, then I think you will find that there is probably no purpose in having a police services board. It might as well be a committee of city council. I would rather suggest that would not be appropriate. It would be improper, as a matter of fact, if we are to deal with police at some arm's-length definition of what the service is supposed to be in Ontario. So again I have to caution against what I've seen to be the continuing trend of municipalities and municipal councillors becoming overinvolved in administrative definition of what is called the budget.
We should define clearly how an appeal can be launched to the province if there is a substantial disagreement between the city council and the police services. Perhaps I don't understand it by reading this; it may be well covered in the details, but I note that in theory the police services board is not constituted numerically to be in a position to appeal a municipal decision for the budget. It just happens to be that way. Frankly I don't think it would happen in London; it might happen somewhere else. People appointed, whether it be by the province or by the municipality, are still citizens at large living in the area and presumably they make the right decisions.
However, when it comes to the issue of an appeal of a budget, you propose to change the tables so that -- and I support that; I don't have a problem with that. However, the question is, can an appeal actually be launched? Numerically, it would appear that is not the case. It puts the police association and the police chief in a difficult position. So you might have to struggle with that one. You might have to struggle to the degree I suggested before, that more appointments might be made by a broad constituency rather than by appointing councillors. That's what I meant in the previous statement.
At issue here is the process to define adequate policing and appeal to review adequacy standards. My experience here in London is that if we were to look at the adequacy standards that might apply to the London area, we're probably below what would be referred to as the minimum requirement. Yet there is considerable support by the public, the police chief, the services board and the city council for the service that's being delivered, so I caution against the method by which an appeal is going to be made and how it is to be substantiated.
The streamlining of the oversight model is supportable, in my belief. As in practically all judicial and quasi-judicial jurisdictions, there are too many avenues of appeal presently. This has a tendency to reduce the accountability of people who have responsibility for discipline, judgement and corrective action.
However, having said that in support of the mechanism that is being developed, there is a need to be very wary of the application of this legislative position. At issue is the usual practice of having government officials prepare the regulations; for instance, the definition of "serious injury," as set out for SIU intervention. It seems to be very normal for me to interpret that; I would have no problem. However, once government officials -- not the political stream, for whom I have a great deal of support -- become involved in defining the regulations, then governments and legislation somehow get moved off to whatever appears to be the thinking of the bureaucracy and I believe, without looking at any particular party, and I don't have any support or contamination by any group or whatever, suffer from this problem and will continue to suffer as long as the regulations are set by the internal administration to a large extent.
I have an overall recommendation for you, and please don't get too excited about knocking me off this chair, but I would propose the police chiefs association be asked to develop or to draft the regulations which support the proposed legislation. The benefits of this process include: The chiefs are most accountable for the performance of policing and will have their accountability enhanced; there will be fewer complaints on interpretation of regulations and an annual review to request changes. As you know, they meet every year and they send requests for changes; they complain if things are not working. There should be, as an output, a series of regulations which are more readily applied, with a reduction of blame on the bureaucracy for inefficient processes, documents and reports.
I have heard time and again that the amount of time to process any particular incident is increasing because of bureaucratic requirements as a result of regulations. If the chiefs are indeed serious about this, if they're indeed prepared to streamline the operation of police services, as I believe they are, then they could be made more accountable and they'd be asked to prepare the draft regulations to support the document. After all, it is clear the minister will adopt the regulations as he sees fit, so there is no problem in that respect. I'm only talking about a draft. But this proposal, at the very least, gives policing a chance to streamline procedures, develop efficient processes, increase accountability of the service delivery component and reduce complaints of government bureaucracy.
Thank you, gentlemen. Mr Chairman, I appreciate the chance to speak.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation. I'd like to follow up, simply because of the comments you've just made about the chiefs of police. Through a number of presentations that we've had, specifically coming from officers themselves, there seems to be a great deal of concern about the complaints process in that the chiefs of police under this bill are the point of entry, if you will, and a great deal of authority is placed in the jurisdiction of the police chief.
As a member of this committee, frankly I was surprised at the lack of confidence that there seems to be in the field that the police chiefs will be doing the right thing at the point of that complaint. I would be interested in your perception of that problem, as a member of the police services board, and whether you feel that changes should be made to this bill, given the kind of feedback that we've had on this, or whether you feel the answer lies elsewhere.
Mr Zamprogna: Let's be specific. One of the big issues is whether the police chiefs have five days of disciplinary action, as opposed to the two days they have right now. It works very well at the two-day level and if it gets any higher than that, it gets to the next level. If you ask the police chiefs to be accountable for that regulation, I think you would find very quickly they would not abuse it. They would probably keep to the lower level.
They want to have peace in the family, if you will. They want to make sure things work. They want to make sure it's fair, because that's the only way the system will function properly. They will find the right level of disciplining or the right level of regulation to support that disciplining, and they'll be cautious enough. I've met with a lot of them. We've been away at different opportunities across the country and I've listened to them. As a group, I think their interest will be to make sure that they're accountable and that they will find the right level of jurisdiction.
As long as the regulation suggests a different number, they will be quite able to say: "Well, it's not my fault. They gave me this and I can go up to that point." I would rather suggest I would put that level of accountability and judicial responsibility right at their doorstep, there being an opportunity, then, to have a small appeal mechanism to the services board if it goes beyond that or if there is a need for it to go beyond that.
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): Mr Zamprogna, an issue that's come up here quite often is the issue of people who are appointed to the board, whether they be appointed by the province or appointed by -- you don't seem to have too much concern with that.
Mr Zamprogna: I've been appointed by just about everything you see walking in this city and I don't feel any different, because the moment I'm appointed to a board, I'm accountable and responsible to that board.
Mr Doyle: But it doesn't make any difference who made the appointment, whether it be municipal or provincial?
Mr Zamprogna: If you recall what I said before, there is a trend for municipal councils to become administratively overinvolved. I suggest to you that a citizen at large, whether appointed by the municipality or by the province, has perhaps a slightly better handle to see the broad picture and not become involved in the parochial position which might apply at the time.
What's been drafted here is not bad. My suggestion is you give it even more latitude and allow for additional appointments for the municipal component, if you like.
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Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): Rather than an elected official.
Mr Zamprogna: Exactly.
Mr Doyle: You don't feel there would be a problem with accountability with that?
Mr Zamprogna: Not at all. No, I don't. I have found in my experience, and I suggest to you it's been fairly broad, that people appointed take their appointments quite seriously, and it would be very nice in fact if they were accountable to the degree that they come before people like yourself on a regular basis to give an accounting of how they see things happening.
Mr Crozier: A question just occurred to me and I want to start by saying I ask this --
Mr Zamprogna: May I ask, which of these glasses are polluted?
Mr Crozier: They all are.
Mr Zamprogna: Thanks.
Mr Crozier: I ask this question without prejudice. We elect public utilities commissions so they can be accountable to our citizens. We elect councils so they can be accountable to our citizens. What would you think if police services boards were elected?
Mr Zamprogna: Interesting question. I had not given it much consideration because the system appears to be working rather well. Let me try to back off a bit. We appoint people to boards of hospitals. They spend a lot more than municipalities do. We elect and appoint people to universities. They spend a lot more than municipal councils do. I'm sure that those boards feel that they are accountable to somebody. For the life of me, I don't know to whom, but they seem to function somehow. Incidentally, I've been a member and vice-chairman of the university board of governors etc, so I can speak with some knowledge about the accountability argument.
I think you'll find that if people are accountable for their actions to another group of peers who are very sincere in their activities, whether they're appointed or elected, the accountability does not really decrease. I have a great deal of belief that the political system has been maligned and therefore it is suffering and your question may therefore reflect some of that, I suggest. I don't think that is the case and ought not be the case, certainly not in the future. I don't have any doubt that I'm working on the police services board today with the same interest, willingness and support that I had before when I was deputy mayor and appointed and chair of the police services board. I don't feel one speck different.
You might consider, however, the level of expertise, interest and responsibility of those people who are appointed. Perhaps the answer is in the scrutiny and in the selection, as opposed to the type.
Mr Crozier: I appreciate your attempting to answer that. It's one of those questions I've always wanted to ask, but you seemed to be the person who would answer it forthrightly, so thank you.
Mr Zamprogna: I think you should look at this as appointing people for a job, and they ought to come across as applying for a job and perform for the job and have someone to whom they are accountable or to whom they report at some period of time. I don't think in that case it makes a whole lot of difference.
Mr Crozier: I did appreciate your comment, though, that some are accountable to who knows whom. That's often the case, but thanks very much.
Mr Zamprogna: Maybe they don't speak often enough or they're not responding to someone else.
Mr Kormos: I'm not sure whether Mr Crozier was going in this direction, and it's interesting because I was going to ask, if you've got effectively three municipal appointments, with two provincial appointments, why have any provincial appointments at all?
Mr Zamprogna: I think I made reference to that, and the reference I made was in the case of budgets. If those five are indeed responsible for the administration of the budget, the selection of the five main areas of activity etc, then they will function as five. Any group, no matter how amorphous, eventually finds a leader, eventually finds a reason for being.
If it's not to be that way, if it's to be directed politically and only politically -- and you will be able to judge from your position if that is the outcome -- then there's no purpose for a services board. That's why I suggested to you that the city council should have control only of the budget numbers, provided it's within the minimum requirements etc, but not any further than that.
Mr Kormos: The bill, of course, delegates budget-setting to the municipality. It takes it away from the police services board.
Mr Zamprogna: Well, let's say that in London the municipality decides that the services board should have $41 million to spend. Perhaps they ought to stop at that point and only receive submissions from the services board to the extent that they can do it for $40.5 million: "By the way, we intend to split it in the following manner and here's the reason why we intend to do it, and incidentally, here's the reason why we suggest to you it ought to be a different number." The city council should only have the capacity to look at the overall number; otherwise you're absolutely right, there's no reason to have a services board. That's why I suggest the regulations ought to be drafted in a different way, and to take great care, because the regulations are in effect what will give life and vitality to this bill.
Mr Kormos: You know the line: "There are two things you never want to see being done: One is making sausages and the other is" -- and I'll paraphrase -- "making regulations."
Mr Zamprogna: I made a suggestion to you: Put it to the people who are most accountable for performance. I know it's a very difficult one to swallow, because heaven knows, people will say, "My God, you're putting it into the hands of the police to say themselves what they're supposed to be doing," but I'm only suggesting they prepare the draft and see what happens. It might be invigorating and exciting to have that output.
Mr Kormos: The other issue that's been raised persistently is adequacy. In other words, you've got the competition between adequate police services and the desire of a municipal council to control the cost of policing. You can control the cost of policing easily: Send more cops home; have fewer cops on the street. It's labour-intensive.
The police association requests that they be one of the parties entitled to request a hearing by the OCCPS, the new commission, to determine the adequacy of policing. Let's face it: That means budget at the end of the day. Do you support the proposition that a police association -- that's rank-and-file cops -- should be able to call upon the commission to determine whether or not a budget is adequate?
Mr Zamprogna: The way this is prepared so far and the way I've interpreted it -- you must feel my uneasiness in how I've read this -- I don't think you have much choice but to support that, because the regulations in fact do not allow for the police services board to act in, how shall I say it, a specific-body decision. For whatever reason, it seems to be driven by municipal council control or whatever. If you do that and if you play the numbers game, which I'd rather not do, and municipal council has control, then certainly the police services board can't appeal that. They're outnumbered. The chief would be foolish to appeal that. He'd be setting himself or herself up against everybody else. The only people left who could properly appeal would be the association. So, Mr Kormos, I'm afraid I would have to agree with you.
Mr Kormos: Don't be afraid of that.
Mr Zamprogna: Well, you have to realize that I'm afraid of anything that comes from a political stream.
Mr Kormos: I'm the least political person here.
Mr Zamprogna: I like you. I don't care. You're a good guy.
Mr Kormos: The press had just left the room when you said that.
Mr Zamprogna: I know. I don't mind. What I've told you is precisely how I feel. If there isn't a proper method of defining the regulations as to how that's going to be achieved, then you have no choice but to allow the association an opportunity to make an appeal.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.
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HUGH MACGINNIS
The Chair: Our next presentation is by the reeve of Dutton, Mr Hugh MacGinnis. Welcome, Mr MacGinnis. Excuse my ignorance, but is Dutton a township?
Mr Hugh MacGinnis: It's a municipality right now, but not for long. It will be a township in the near future, for the next election.
I very much appreciate the time I have been allotted to come in and talk. I truly hope your panel will listen a little bit. I think maybe you need some perspective of where the municipal world is coming from right now.
I am the reeve of Dutton. I am a member of 1520 when I work at Talbotville. I am also a past candidate for the NDP; unsuccessful, by the way.
I am not here to speak for Dutton council. I am here to speak for the seniors on fixed incomes; I am here to speak for the unwed mothers; I am here to speak for the people who are making minimum wage; I am here to speak for the people who are on workfare and welfare. I think the voice is not being heard very well for them.
In my opinion, the cost of policing is just another form of downloading on the municipalities. I believe you people are moving far too fast on some of the things you are doing. With everything we have to play with in the municipal world right now, as in restructuring, as in workfare, and everything else that is coming down the tube, I didn't even have time to read this bill. I get a stack of paper every day, and the funny thing is, it always seems to change just somewhat. We are at a point right now where we feel that if this direction is maintained, with all the downloading, at some point in time people will not be able to afford to live in rural Ontario. I see the taxes taking leaps and bounds, and they could go better than 50% up by the time we implement the stuff we have to implement in the next year or so.
It would be my request that you slow down a bit and give us a chance to catch our breath. I'm sure we'll do the best job we can, but it's very difficult. Most of us people in the municipal world are very part-time people and the next thing to volunteer work, and we just don't have time to keep up with this stuff. It's coming way, way too fast.
That's basically all I have to say. I would like some answers on how to tell the seniors on fixed incomes in the village of Dutton how they're going to pay the increases that are coming their way, and I'd really appreciate it if you fellows could tell me.
The Chair: Perhaps we have a few questions.
Mr Crozier: I'm like you. I'm without an answer on how to tell them that myself, so I won't attempt to answer that. If I were still mayor of Leamington, I'd have the same problem that you're having.
Mr Tilson: That hasn't stopped you before.
Mr Crozier: I don't recall that you've been at everything that I've given answers to.
Interjection.
Mr Crozier: That's not what you tell my friend Larry Girard.
I'm going to assume you don't have your own police force.
Mr MacGinnis: We have an OPP force just off the 401, outside of Dutton.
Mr Crozier: There's a detachment there. Do you pay for that service or are you one of the communities that are --
Mr MacGinnis: We're one of the communities that does not.
Mr Crozier: Have you any idea what it's going to cost you per household?
Mr MacGinnis: We've heard anything from $150,000 to $250,000, but nobody can give us the answer.
Mr Crozier: That's part of the problem. Maybe you could tell me why that's part of the problem and why you're surprised you haven't heard.
Mr MacGinnis: That does kind of surprise me, but it doesn't surprise me, because it seems to me that a lot of the work that comes down with the changed operations of the municipal world is that we as councils are to figure that out and implement it. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not, especially with the number of things that are coming our way right now.
We as municipal people have to investigate every avenue of policing, and it's pretty hard to do that when you don't know what the costing is going to be for the OPP. I'm by no means criticizing the OPP, because they do a great job. For the number of them that's out there, they do a great job and I'm very satisfied with what they do. It's just that it's a pretty tough thing to take back to my taxpayers that they have an extra burden in the policing, with all the other burdens that are being placed on them right now.
Mr Kormos: The reality is that many of the residents aren't going to be able to handle that type of property tax increase. Unemployment is higher than it was a year ago here in this province, and we just noted statistics that indicate that the plight of the poor has gotten worse and that the poor and working poor have not managed to escape from that dilemma.
What's interesting about this deal with charging back for OPP services is that the act specifies that the moneys received in payment for OPP services are not to be used to fund the cost of overall police services; they're to be paid into the consolidated revenue fund. They're to be treated as if they were taxes or any other source of general revenue. That's subsection (4) of what is section 19 of the act as amended.
The province has also created a non-competition scenario -- and we heard about this in Ottawa, Chair -- where if you don't have your own police services board, you're forced to buy your policing from the OPP. You can't buy it, for instance, from a neighbouring municipality. That's what we learned in Ottawa, isn't it, Chair? You can't buy it from a neighbouring municipality. So the government has set up a monopoly for the OPP to provide, for pay, policing services, sort of like what the post office did that put couriers out of service. Remember? That was pretty slick on their part.
Has there been no consultation with you, or others like you in similar communities, about what the impact of the downloading of the cost of Ontario provincial policing is going to be?
Mr MacGinnis: None. From what you're saying, if we in the municipality of Dutton decided to purchase our police services from, say, the city of St Thomas, and we're allowed to put a member or two on that board, that would be classed that we still could not do that?
Mr Kormos: You can form a joint board, an amalgamated board I guess it would be close to, but you can't purchase police services from other municipal police services. If you don't have your own police services board, the act indicates you've got to buy it from Queen's Park.
Let me run this past you as well, because the argument from the government is that it's only fair. Dutton and 575 other communities: A few of them have substantial populations, but the vast majority are small-town, rural Ontario, villages and towns with sometimes mere hundreds of people, in the majority of cases almost inevitably no more than a few thousand, with a few examples that can be tossed about with larger populations. The government argues that it's only fair. I suppose that would be a little more palatable or an easier pill to swallow if it weren't for all the other downloading that's coming down at the same time. That's where you talked about the request that there be a slowdown.
Mr MacGinnis: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Would you propose that the whole proposition of downloading Ontario provincial policing be deferred, perhaps kept in the bill but by amendment be deferred, and that it did not take effect for a period of a minimum of three years so that municipalities like yours can start to come to grips with the cost of the other downloading?
Mr MacGinnis: I think that would be an excellent idea. The fear we have in the village of Dutton is that the taxes are going to get out of reach and people won't be able to pay their taxes and live too. There's quite a difference between the price of policing in a city like London and a small village like Dutton. That is really the concern, that when the taxes do go up, people will leave their houses. They won't be able to sell their houses, because the taxes will be just too high. We've worked very hard for quite a number of years to build quite a nice community, and the biggest industry we have in Dutton is senior citizens. They would probably be the hardest hit of all groups by the increases.
Mr Kormos: There's also no legislative formula for how the charge is to be assessed. That is to say, there's no guarantee that it's going to be provided at cost. There's no guarantee that it's going to be based on a per-capita basis or on a kilometrage, mileage, basis in terms of miles of roads to travel. Wouldn't you surely want some legislative protection from being overcharged, firstly, and a means of appealing the charge if you dispute the charge? Surely there are going to be instances where the government says, "The cost of policing there is X number of dollars," and where you can argue, perhaps to the OCCPS, that in fact the true cost of that policing is far less than what the government insists. Wouldn't that be a fair remedy?
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Mr MacGinnis: I would think that would be a very fair remedy, with all the unanswered questions. We are in amalgamation right now with the township, and if it were to go to policing cost by mile or kilometre, that would make it very unattractive for the village to be amalgamated with the township. We are going through with that, and we are doing it because it's what we were pretty much told we had to do or it would be done for us. It would be very convenient if we did have some of these answers before these things took place. It's kind of scary to me to walk into something with none of the answers and wonder what you're going to come up with afterwards.
Mr Ron Johnson: Thank you for your presentation. I know you indicated that you had some concerns about the cost of policing. As a former New Democrat candidate -- I want to read you a quote. "It is our intention to implement equitable police financing, which means all Ontarians pay their fair share of policing, and right now we don't have that. We'd like to obviously do it as quickly as possible because we'd like to institute fairness and clearly the province needs the revenue." Who do you think that was?
Mr MacGinnis: It was probably the past Premier, Bob Rae, but if he was implementing policing at the time, with all the downloading that you fellows are doing at the same time, I'd have probably asked him if he was suicidal.
Mr Ron Johnson: Well, in fact, it's not Bob Rae; it's our former Sol Gen, Dave Christopherson, back in 1993 when he was going to do the same thing. This is my point. I know that you are concerned about the policing costs and you used the general downloading, as you call it, but you don't talk about the uploading. You don't talk about the fact that the municipalities won't be required to pay for education any more as well.
I think it's important that you understand the big picture, that you understand --
Mr Kormos: What does Don Cousens, the former Tory member for Markham, have to say about that, you and your cobra?
Mr Ron Johnson: Just a minute, Mr Kormos -- very clearly that it's not only fair but it's equitable for all Ontarians to be treated the same way with respect to policing costs.
I have a question for you. I want to know what you would tell the people of London, what you would say to them, who are paying big bucks for policing. These people in London are paying, just like most urban centres, significant costs for policing. How do you explain the inequity to them, that the people of Dutton don't pay anything?
Mr MacGinnis: When I discuss things, I like to compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. I don't know how you could compare a city the size of London, with the industry and all the conveniences that draw the extra people here, to a small community of 1,200 like Dutton, where we have no industry, other than the senior citizens, which we take a lot of pride in. I don't really know how you could compare London to Dutton. The revenue is here and it's not in Dutton; we rely on residential revenue. It has to be attractive enough to have people out living in Dutton or they live in London.
Mr Ron Johnson: I understand your concerns. The point I'm trying to make is that there is basically universal acceptance that policing costs are a cost that should be borne by all Ontarians in an equal fashion under the local tax base. That is the general consensus, and despite the hypocrisy that we hear around this table sometimes from our New Democrat and Liberal friends, they have said in the past the same thing, but when it comes to fruition --
Mr Kormos: The hypocrisy is for this member to quote previous sol gens when I can quote a current mayor of Markham, a major Tory in the province, who's prepared to take these guys on because of their cobra. Don Cousens, former member of their caucus, is prepared to take them on because of their downloading.
The Chair: Order. You've woken me up, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Thank goodness.
The Chair: You have one minute to go.
Mr Ron Johnson: I have one minute. My point being, of course, that I think most people in the province, including all three political parties, probably agree in one way or another that policing should be a shared cost by all taxpayers and all communities. It's somewhat distressing to see the hypocrisy from our NDP friends, because they in fact planned to do the same thing.
I understand your concerns. I understand the downloading concerns. You know very well that some of those concerns are currently being addressed through negotiations. We hope to find an equitable resolution for all communities, including Dutton.
Mr MacGinnis: I would be very glad to see that happen, and I believe it is happening, but in my mind, to make our decisions a little clearer, why don't we put the whole thing on hold until you can come out with the whole picture? It's very hard for me to go back to my residents and answer questions that I have got no answers for. I'm supposed to be the guy in Dutton who's got them, but I'm supposed to get them from you, and I'm not getting them.
Mr Ron Johnson: You know full well -- Mr Chair, this is important -- that the OPP costings are being done now.
The Chair: Mr Johnson, we always like to leave our guests with the last word, and that privilege was Mr MacGinnis's. I thank you very much for your attendance here today.
Mr MacGinnis: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
LAZARUS COMMUNITY ACTION COALITION
The Chair: Our next presentation is the Lazarus Community Action Coalition, Mr Mike Laliberte. Welcome. We have set aside 20 minutes for your presentation, including all questions, so I'd ask you to proceed.
Mr Mike Laliberte: Good afternoon. I'm a staff lawyer at Neighbourhood Legal Services, which is a poverty law clinic in London. I'm also a member of the Lazarus Community Action Coalition group. The coalition group is comprised of individuals from community agencies and labour groups. It also has members who are social assistance recipients and people who are classified as the working poor. The group was formed approximately two years ago to respond to issues around social justice.
One function of the group is to respond to federal, provincial and municipal government initiatives that affect the London community. The group has recently made submissions to the city on the city's proposed budget and workfare plan. The group also recently put together an employment standards public workshop forum.
Our group has requested an opportunity to make submissions with respect to Bill 105 because we have serious concerns about the proposed changes to the civilian oversight system and how complaints against police are handled. I have provided the committee with written submissions that summarize our criticisms about the proposed amendments and our recommendations. I will keep my presentation brief because, from newspaper accounts, this committee has already heard these criticisms of the proposed amendments, but I believe it is important that I summarize our criticisms so that the committee again hears that more individuals in the community have serious problems with the proposed amendments.
One goal of the amendments was to enhance the credibility of the system. This goal is not being met. When this committee hears from numerous individuals and groups that the amendments are a step backwards and place the credibility of the civilian oversight system in doubt, this committee must realize that the amendments should not become legislation.
Police in our society play an important role. Because of their unique role they are given wide-ranging powers. Police have a very difficult job and on most occasions they perform their functions admirably, but there are instances where there is police misconduct and abuse of power. Because of the wide-ranging powers police officers have, it was agreed that there must be checks and balances in the system. One of these checks and balances was to have adequate independent civilian oversight to monitor police, prevent and correct abuses of power and hold police accountable for excessive use of force and other misconduct. The proposed amendments are dangerous because they gut this important check and balance.
Institutions in our society that have a great deal of power need to have independent oversight. The police is such an institution that needs to have adequate civilian independent oversight. The problem of allowing an institution with important powers to police themselves has recently been showcased by the military in the Somalia affair.
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The Lazarus group agrees that it would be beneficial to simplify the police oversight process, but the simplification of the police oversight process cannot and should not be done at the expense of independent civilian review of police conduct. That is what these amendments do. In essence, these amendments allow the police to police themselves.
Our submission only deals with the issue of the civilian oversight system. Our silence with respect to the other amendments should not be viewed as our approval of the other amendments.
With respect to the proposed amendments to the civilian oversight system, it is our belief that the amendments place too much power in the hands of a police chief regarding complaints. The amendments place a police chief in an untenable situation. On one hand they are viewed by the public as the head of their police department and its spokesperson. A police chief is also responsible for maintaining the morale of the police department. It is understandable why a police chief would want to support his or her police officers and protect the image of his or her police force.
However, under the amendments the police chief is responsible for all public complaints. This role appears to conflict with the police chief's other functions. This raises the serious issue of perceived bias or actual bias in the proposed system. Perceived or actual bias contradicts the principles of natural justice and calls into question the fairness of the system.
Under the amendments, the police chief has sweeping discretionary powers to decide when complaints are frivolous and not worth investigating at all. A police chief can eliminate a complaint by deciding that it is frivolous, unsubstantiated, not serious or a matter of force policies rather than officer misconduct. It is our position that these powers are too broad and should not be in the hands of the police chief.
Solicitor General Bob Runciman was recently quoted on this issue saying: "Discipline is a management process. I think a manager should have the right to deal with his or her employees." Our group does not believe we are dealing with a normal employer-employee relationship, and therefore the normal rules cannot apply. As stated previously, we are dealing with police, who have extraordinary powers and whose actions affect citizens directly and the community, and therefore a strong independent civilian oversight procedure needs to be in place.
Presently, civilians can access the independent complaints office from the start. The proposed changes back-end the civilian oversight involvement. It is only guaranteed at the end of all complaints and the amount of civilian oversight at this stage is weakened. For example, if there's a disagreement with a police chief's decision that no action is warranted on a complaint, the proposed changes allow a complainant to go to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services, but the commission will have no authority to investigate, which presently exists. The new commission can only review the record.
It is our position that these and other changes result in a loss of adequate independent review of complaints against police officers.
Another problem with the amendments is that currently anyone can file a complaint as long as the commission can locate the person who was directly affected by the misconduct. The amendments give the police chief the power to not deal with complaints filed by people who are not directly affected by the conduct or policy in question. This is a step backwards. The current system recognizes that some individuals fear filing a complaint for fear of reprisal. The proposed amendments fail to take this into account.
We do not agree with changes to the informal resolution of complaints. Presently, a complainant can consent to informal resolution. Again the proposed changes put too much power in the hands of the police chief, who can take steps on his or her own initiative to attempt an informal resolution of the complaint.
Presently, some hearings are done by an independent board of inquiry. The proposed changes outline that hearings will be conducted by a designate of the police chief. In our view, this is a problem of actual or perceived bias and again calls into question the credibility of the system.
Lazarus group's recommendations are as follows:
That there continue to be effective, independent civilian oversight from the beginning of the process. The current level of independent civilian oversight should at least be maintained. In our view, the best option is to have police complaints reviewed and investigated by a civilian commission that is completely independent of the police. This is the best alternative because there would be no issues of bias or perceived bias when a complaint is investigated.
In the alternative, if the police chief maintains the power to investigate complaints, the Ontario civilian commission should maintain the powers held by the current review bodies. Specifically, there need to be broad powers of investigation given to the civilian commission, even where the police chief decides that no action is warranted with respect to a complaint.
The powers of the police chief under the amendments need to be reviewed and limited.
Amendments should allow third-party complaints, which would enable persons who witness police misconduct to lodge a complaint on behalf of the victim. This would deal with the issue of fear of reprisal.
Informal resolutions should not be at the discretion of the police chiefs but only where the complainant advises that it is acceptable to him or her.
Finally, hearings required under the Polices Services Act should be totally independent of the police. The police chief should not be allowed to appoint hearing officers.
Without amendments to the proposed legislation, it is our belief that the credibility of the system will be lost. Although the police may have more confidence in the system, the community may not view the system as independent and fair.
Mr Kormos: Interestingly, as I pointed out earlier, you're in a not dissimilar position, with respect to the Police Association of Ontario, when it speaks of the need for independent adjudication for discipline and complains about the great powers that the chiefs of police have acquired under this bill.
To be fair, a determination of a frivolous complaint can be appealed by the complainant to the commission within a 30-day time frame. That of course puts the onus on the complainant to engage process and prepare documentation and so on.
One of the things the bill does is prohibit third-party complaints. That's not to say, as Mr Carr would be so quick to point out, that a lawyer or an advocate can't assist a complainant. What it means is that if you see what you believe to be misconduct taking place on the street, you cannot of your own accord complain about the conduct of, in that case, that police officer. You are disentitled, by virtue of the bill, to complain about that. Do you agree with that, or would you want the bill to include third-party complaint capacity?
Mr Laliberte: Yes, that's one of our recommendations. I think you put forward the problem that exists, where a third party witnesses abuse by a police officer and cannot file a complaint with respect to what he's witnessed.
With respect to your first comment, my understanding and from others who have reviewed this is that, yes, a complainant has a right, when a finding of a frivolous complaint is made, to request a review by the Ontario civilian commission, but that body no longer has the power to investigate, which in the past has proved important.
Mr Kormos: Quite right. The government would interpret the powers of the commission far more liberally than the statute would indicate they are. The police would suggest, or some at least would suggest, that police investigative capacity is such that you don't need civilian investigation.
Would that be at all tolerable if an overview were returned to the legislation? Right now, you see, the commission doesn't even supervise or get reports back on the process of the investigation. Would you feel somewhat comforted if there were responsibility on the part of the investigative force to report to the commission on, let's say, a 30-day or an interim basis the progress that's being made and the type of stuff that's being done in the course of an investigation?
Mr Laliberte: Yes, I believe that would be a step forward. It would be an improvement of what's before us now. But as I say, our recommendation would want the improvements or amendments to go even further.
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Mr Kormos: What do you think is driving this legislation? Why would this government want to dismantle civilian oversight of police in this province in the way it's done? Why would they want to do that rather than improve upon it?
Mr Laliberte: In my opinion, there are probably a number of reasons. One of them, I believe, is cost-cutting. Another is that there may have been a belief out there that there is too much civilian involvement in the present system. I agree that the system is very complicated right now and needs to be improved, but what they're doing, in our opinion, is taking out the most important aspects of it that would show its fairness and independence.
A number of reasons: cost-cutting; the myth that there's too much involvement right now and the police are not given a fair shake; and that the system is too complicated. We agree that the system is too complicated, but the amendments are a step backwards.
Mr Kormos: The Solicitor General has indicated a cost saving of $3 million a year for the abolition of the current oversight bodies, but he won't commit himself to returning that $3 million to policing, and he won't tell us -- the chiefs of police tell us they anticipate an increased cost because of their new role in oversight and management of investigations and hearings. Just an observation on my part.
Mr Tilson: The issue of a civilian oversight commission that you're suggesting -- you're right. One of the concerns the government has had is that there has been nothing but criticism of the system we have now, that it's too complicated, too cumbersome, too expensive, too lengthy etc. In fact there's a chart that all members have that shows --
Mr Laliberte: Yes, I've seen that chart.
Mr Tilson: If you've seen the chart, there are arrows going all over the place, and the average person would be boggled by it. How do you foresee this independent civilian commission that you speak of -- and you're not the only one who has spoken of that. As you're probably aware, a number of people have, particularly in Toronto. How do you foresee that being implemented? Who will appoint them? What will the cost be not only to set it up but to implement it, to make sure it's not the very cumbersome process we have now? Has your organization gone into that type of thinking?
Mr Laliberte: No, we haven't gone into details of coming up with our own system and how we believe it would work from the beginning to the end. But what we're saying is that the proposed amendments should not go through; that it has to go back to the drawing board and at least maintain what's there for independent civilian oversight in the system that exists now.
Mr Tilson: Let's talk about that, because I want to make sure I understand where you stand on the independence issue. One of the criticisms has been that the police, the chief of police in particular, won't be independent, that he or she will be sticking up for his or her brothers and sisters with complaints, whether they be frivolous and vexatious or perhaps more serious. The question is, who's going to appoint this commission and will that commission be independent? Will you ever achieve the independence? Is it a Utopian dream to achieve that independence?
Mr Laliberte: The problem with the current amendments is --
Mr Tilson: No, I don't want to talk about the current amendments. I'm trying to talk about --
Mr Laliberte: This is what you want to pass.
Mr Tilson: No, that's not true, sir. I'm trying to appreciate what you're saying. You're proposing an independent civilian commission and I want to know what you mean by that. I want to know how much that's going to cost, because I suspect it's going to cost a lot of money, more money than the taxpayer of this province, than the public of this province can sustain.
Mr Laliberte: What is the cost of fairness?
Mr Tilson: Just let me finish for a minute. It would be ideal to have that type of commission, like it would be for every aspect of our society, but you've got to remember that the province is broke. It's gone broke. The problem is that in all our cutbacks, we're not looking at the debt; we're looking at the deficit. I need to have people such as you -- and I respect you for coming forward and offering suggestions, but to do that you can't just blithely say, "We're going to have an independent police commission." You've got to have some clue as to what that's going to cost and where the people are going to come from to do it.
Mr Laliberte: I think our submission has pointed out that the major problem with the proposed amendments is that you have the police chief handling all complaints. That is a problem with perception of institutional bias.
Mr Tilson: I understand that, sir. I'm trying to visualize --
Mr Laliberte: If you're going to set up the system as our alternative recommendation is, you need to have a body that has certain powers to review the police chief's decisions, that has real powers, that has the power to investigate.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Tilson, our time is up. Mr Ramsay -- I mean Mr Crozier.
Mr Crozier: Thank you, Chair. I'm not nearly as good-looking as he is.
Sir, welcome. In your experience, in your daily responsibility for the group you work with as a lawyer, have you had some experience with complaints regarding police services?
Mr Laliberte: Our office doesn't deal with police complaints, but we do refer people to the appropriate bodies they should contact.
Mr Crozier: Okay. My question, had you dealt with those, would have been about what kind of reluctance -- and you may still have some experience with this -- there is on behalf of complainants to complain to the service with which they have a problem. Mr Laliberte: It's just the reality and perception that police have a lot of power and that to complain against them is only going to make your situation worse. To come forward takes a lot of guts. The problem we see is that to come forward, in all circumstances, to another police officer doesn't seem fair.
Mr Crozier: In a general way -- I know you were getting into the question of civilian oversight more deeply. Police services probably have more contact with the public than most other services provided by municipalities or governments. Police officers are out on the road every day, attending at schools every day, even more so than local, municipally elected officials, because they generally have other jobs but these folks are out on the street all the time. Therefore, would you comment on whether you think, when it comes to a perceived problem with police services, that the burden of proof may be higher on them, that there's reason they should be found responsible for some misdoing or not, simply because of their contact, because of the area they work in?
Mr Laliberte: Are you talking about police officers?
Mr Crozier: About police officers, yes. My point is that the reason you feel there should be this high degree of civilian participation in the area of police complaints is because the burden of proof may be higher on police officers.
Mr Laliberte: That is one of the reasons, and the other reason is that the police have such extraordinary powers in our society. They have powers to take away your liberty; they have powers to detain you. When we're dealing with institutions which have those types of decisions and are held in high esteem by the community, for a person to come forward to say there has been misconduct of one of its members, at first instance it's very hard for people to lend credibility to their complaint.
Mr Crozier: The police officers, the police chiefs, the police services boards and all of us are wrestling with that question of to what degree there should be this kind of oversight, so I appreciate your comments.
The Chair: Thank you, sir, for assisting us in our deliberations here today. We appreciate it.
I need the guidance of the committee. Due to a cancellation, our next scheduled appointment is for 4:40, one hour from now, and we cannot confirm, of course, that she will attend. I won't go into detail. There are some alternatives. What I'm going to suggest to this committee is that we authorize the clerk to remain and greet her and authorize him to offer to pay her fees for travelling to Toronto and she can appear at one of our dates later. Do I hear any objection to proceeding in that manner?
There being none, we are going to adjourn this sitting to April 7, 1997, at 10 am at Toronto, the Parliament Building.
The committee adjourned at 1542.