METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD
CONTENTS
Thursday 30 January 1992
Agency Review
Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board
Susan Eng, chair
Dorothy Neilson
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair / Président(e): Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président(e): McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND)
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)
Substitution(s)/Membre(s) remplaçant(s):
Callahan, Robert V. (Brampton South/-Sud L) for Mr McGuinty
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND) for Mr Waters
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Wilson, Jim (Simcoe West/-Ouest PC)
Clerk pro tem / Greffier ou Greffière par intérim : Freedman, Lisa
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1049 in committee room 2.
AGENCY REVIEW
Resuming consideration of the operations of certain agencies, boards and commissions.
METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD
The Chair: Welcome to our witnesses this morning from the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board. Ms Eng, you are going to be on your own. Perhaps you do not want to have anyone else with you at this stage.
Ms Eng: At this point, since I have two people with me, I thought we would just see which questions you had and they would join me at the table as needed. With me today is Mr John Campbell, who is the executive director of the police services board and has been with the board for over 17 years and has a lot of history to share. Also with us is Susan Lewis, who is manager of employment equity.
The Chair: Welcome to the committee. Would you like to make an opening statement?
Ms Eng: Yes, I would appreciate that. Thank you. I would like to begin by outlining briefly the mandate and responsibilities of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board.
The current policing climate demands a much more dynamic role for all police services boards. The recent changes in the enabling legislation and regulations reflect this. Our board's response has been to ensure that a long-term strategy is in place to allow the force to meet future challenges and that short-term measures remain consistent with that long-term plan.
The Police Services Act and its predecessor create the police services board as a civilian authority responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. It has the mandate to provide policing services for all of Metropolitan Toronto.
As you know, we have a seven-member board: The Metro chairman, Alan Tonks, is a member, as are two councillors appointed by Metro council, Norm Gardner and Dennis Flynn. The four persons appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council are Roy Williams, Laura Rowe, Massey Lombardi and me.
Our force was formed in 1956 as an amalgamation of 13 municipal forces and it has now grown to a force of over 5,000 officers and over 2,000 civilian members. We also have the assistance of a voluntary auxiliary force of about 500 members. Some calculations indicate that we have one police officer for every 385 persons in the population. This does not take into account the people who are transients into Metropolitan Toronto for business and for entertainment.
In 1991, the gross operating budget for the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force was approximately $548 million. In 1990, approximately 2.4 million calls for service were received, of which slightly over half were considered to be emergency calls.
We are, as you know, in a period of extraordinary change. In the policing context, the concern for safety in the streets has not changed but the policing environment is transforming at an ever-increasing pace. Demographic changes, economic concerns and international pressures all combine to create a complex and dynamic challenge for policing today.
The new enabling legislation reflects the more dynamic role that is required of the board. First, the preamble to the act declares certain guiding principles which establish a clear community focus for policing services in Ontario. The mandate formerly focused on the maintenance of law and order. Section 31 includes the responsibility to provide for crime prevention as well as law enforcement. The legislation now sets out a very clear policymaking and management role for the board. The different functions of the police services board fall into one or the other of these categories: policy or management.
First, policymaking: This role is more comparable to a legislative function than it is an operational role. Policy development, public consultation and education, and advocacy for legislative change where necessary have always been board responsibilities, but these have become much more urgent in the current policing environment of Metropolitan Toronto.
We have, I believe, an important role as a strong civilian authority. The board is established by legislation as a mechanism for civilian governance of the police. To fulfil that role, the board must take seriously its policymaking function and clearly distinguish it from the operational function of the force. The board often relies on force staff to propose new initiatives to the board. None the less, policy is ultimately decided by the board and the force must help to make sure that the policy is workable. Similarly, the force's operational initiatives must be consistent with policy guidelines identified by the board.
We have an important role as a bridge between the community and the police. There are increasing public expectations. There is an increasing demand for community control and participation in the decision-making process of the police force. The police have been criticized for being isolated and exclusionary, and there is a greater demand for police accountability. Thus, community consultation is a central responsibility for the board. Input from a broad range of the public on its needs and expectations is fundamental to the process of shaping policing policies and priorities.
We have a responsibility to contribute to the broader public debate. The board has been involved in a number of public positions such as on gun control, as well as responding to many of the strategy documents that have been put forward by the province, by Metro council and by the area municipalities. We will continue to fulfil this part of our mandate to the extent that our resources and capabilities allow and develop.
We know that crime prevention is not an exact science. Many economic and social factors are at play, many of which the police force cannot change. In fact, a full employment policy may have a lot more to do with crime prevention than anything we at the police force could do. We will continue to develop our resources to ensure that our research capabilities are sufficient to continue to contribute to the policy debate and to try to define a vision for policing in Metropolitan Toronto.
The second important role for the police board is management; the obvious, as you have heard, is the ongoing budget situation. We have a significant role in budget planning and financial management. As you can appreciate, management of a budget of over $500 million requires significant involvement by the board and ready cooperation from senior officers as well as the financial and administration staff. The budget review process has to ensure than every funding request is justified, but it also must show that the proposed spending meets the force's own goals and objectives.
We can find increased efficiency and productivity through careful review of current programs and deployment. We can certainly use ongoing management review and enhancement of budgetary controls to ensure that the force will have the necessary resources to meet its priorities. The budget is the ultimate tool by which policy is set by the board and, as set by the board, is implemented. Clearly, funding decisions must reflect the goals and objectives of the whole organization as well as its voluntary strategy. In these recessionary times there is certainly a fundamental conflict between increasing demand for service and decreasing resources.
Policy work in the future will increasingly depend on external sources of support and cooperation. The current budget problems in Metropolitan Toronto sharpened the focus on the choices we must make while ensuring that we do not undermine any of the progress we have made. The board also has a discipline function, which in many ways is a management function but also a quasi-judicial function. We are required, under the legislation, to adjudicate discipline appeals. These determinations not only have a direct impact on the lives and careers of the officers involved, but they also set precedents for the conduct and behaviour of the force as a whole.
In closing, I would like to turn your attention to the long-term strategic plan of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, which has been set forth in a report called Beyond 2000: The Strategic Plan of the Metropolitan Police Force. It sets forth the plan for reshaping the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force into a neighbourhood-based policing organization. Paradoxically, modernizing also means getting back to basics. The sense of safety in the streets depends very much on how well we address local neighbourhood concerns. Ultimately, local communities and their neighbourhood police officers will start to set the policing priorities and expectations for their neighbourhoods.
For the organization, we cannot afford to underestimate the degree of change this means in the overall infrastructure of the police force, from the decentralization of authority to the massive investment in training and lifelong learning. The complexities of the neighbourhood-based police force will require management challenges not only to manage the information flow or budgets, but to ensure that we are indeed coming to grips with the local requirements. The process of transformation has already started.
Beyond 2000 seeks to enhance that traditional partnership between the community and the police, but modern skills and technology are not enough. We need to get that sense of participation and commitment not only by ensuring that police officers have a sense that they will be involved in the policy setting and in their own management, but by ensuring that neighbourhoods feel they have a real chance to introduce their ideas into policing priorities and decision-making. It is with that kind of commitment and cohesiveness that we will be able to take on the challenges of the next century.
1100
The Chair: For the members who are substituting on the committee today, normal practice is to rotate, beginning with the party that selected this particular board for review, the Conservative Party, and limit questioners to 10 minutes and do the rotation. If we do not have adequate time in 10 minutes initially, we will have it in a subsequent round.
Mr McLean: Welcome to the committee this morning, Ms Eng. There was a new report released by the Metro police services board with regard to putting a new name and a new face on the Metro board. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? Apparently you enthusiastically accepted that report.
Ms Eng: Actually, I think you are referring to a consultant's report prepared for us. We had asked for some reports from both the -- excuse me, let me back up. It was in the context of employment equity recruiting that we asked for consultants' reports as to how we might better reach the communities that we want to target in order to improve on employment equity recruiting. Two consultants were ultimately engaged. One dealt with the racial minority communities and one dealt with the native communities. Their mandate was to find out what it was about the perception and image of the police force in their communities that would either help or hinder our ability to reach those communities for recruiting purposes.
I think the report you are alluding to is the one that came back from the native community. It made recommendations about how we could make our image much more approachable and how they felt there was a wide gap of mistrust, a lack of accessibility. They gave us almost 40 recommendations indicating how we might improve our image and our behaviour in order to bridge that gap and to recruit from the community. Their recommendations have been presented to the board. We have asked the force to comment on that, and we expect to hear back on those recommendations two meetings from now.
Mr McLean: I am curious about compatibility on the board. When we sent you a letter to appear before this committee, were the members of the board invited to be part of the delegation?
Ms Eng: They most certainly were. As you might appreciate, the other board members are part-time members who have other jobs. Metro council is in session today and I was almost going to be late for this session on account of having to appear there. They are tied up at that. The other members who are appointed by the Legislature here have other positions. They indicated an interest in attending, and if we do go on into the afternoon session I would expect some will be here.
Mr McLean: Thank you. I see that Mr Williams is here, and he is part of the board. The final question I have in this round is, if budget cuts take place, would you relieve some of the officers of their duties? How would you go about any major cuts?
Ms Eng: We have had a significant period in the last couple of weeks trying to find ways in which we could find efficiencies and cuts from within the budget without affecting the jobs of the officers and civilian staff of the force. We have struck a special budget management committee to look for those opportunities. In preparing this last budget in 1992, we had already engaged in a process whereby we were reviewing all of the existing programs to look for redeployment opportunities and so on. Thankfully we were in some good shape to start looking again when the news came down that not only was the increase that we asked for not going to be given to us, but that we were going to be cut back to 1991 levels.
We are now pulling out all the stops and reviewing everything, looking for cuts all the way up and down the organization -- bearing in mind that we do not want to lose sight of our long-term strategy. We have planned for a community-based organization that requires much more labour-intensive activity. We have planned for a greater investment in training of our officers and we do not want to cut back on that. We have planned for improving our technology to allow us to manage better and we do not want to cut back on that. Keeping those as priorities, we are still looking for the cuts. I am hopeful that we will find most of them without affecting jobs.
Mr Frankford: I am very pleased to be here. Now that Mr Ruprecht has left, I am the only Metro member in the room.
Certainly policing is an area of great interest in my riding. I am sure I could ask many questions my constituents would like to hear the answers to. One local question which I think could be of broader interest is around -- I will give you a specific situation. There was a police station which was closed and amalgamated, centralized. Now, as a result of local pressure, it has been reopened. Could you say something about capital funding in the budget and how you plan things like this?
Ms Eng: The reopening of the 42 substation was something that was determined ultimately to be absolutely necessary to provide the residents of that area some accessibility to police services on a much more sort of face-to-face basis. That actually fits in with our long-term strategy of decentralizing, of breaking the neighbourhood patrol areas into a much smaller division. We will be setting up over the long term not only substations, but actual full operating stations in areas to try to reduce the number of people in each division to, say, a working number of 200 instead of the almost 400 in some of the divisions today. All of that is with the intention that the officers in the division will get to know more intensively the residents, the requirements, the priorities of a particular neighbourhood.
Mr Frankford: Do you have thoughts on how much about capital this will need, as opposed to operating?
Ms Eng: This will be significant depending on whether we have to buy the buildings, build them, or whether we can lease them. They are massive investments, as you can imagine. Opening up the substation in 42 Division, we had the building; it was a Metro-owned building. But we had to make extensive improvements in order to make the building safe and to provide for things like lockups and gun cabinets and that sort of thing. That already is a quite serious expenditure. In order to repeat that around Metropolitan Toronto, we are looking at quite a lot of money in order to get those buildings in place. But I do not have exact figures for you, if you were looking for that.
Mr Frankford: No, but when you negotiate with Metro, are you looking at the capital side as a separate thing from the operating?
Ms Eng: The budget is split between the capital budget and the operating budget. The news is all focused on the operating budget at the moment. The capital budget is dealt with separately, and we have put into the capital budget certain requests for improvements to allow us to have the substations both in 42 Division and in 14 Division.
Mr Frankford: And in the overall budget discussions, do you find that the capital side is considered a deferrable item?
Ms Eng: Sometimes there is an attitude that if we defer certain things, we do not have to look at them, and therefore they do not exist. Unfortunately, for long-term planning, that obviously does not work very well. People tend to try to defer things, but if you plan properly, both your capital and operating expenditures should be planned together. You really cannot do one without the other.
Mr Frankford: I would just like to take the opportunity of commenting on what has happened around neighbourhood policing. I think we have seen considerable involvement by the police in community organizations and prevention programs, and I think there is a lot of satisfaction with the way it has been going. That is my comment, if you would like to add to it.
Ms Eng: Well, I appreciate that. I think it is something that people do not notice quite so readily. Community-based policing, in some people's minds, is simply police officers getting out of their cars and walking around. It is much more dynamic than that. It involves police officers understanding the community and how it operates in order to address their concerns and their sense of priorities, rather than a centralized decision-making. It also means the community gets much more involved in setting those priorities. It gets much more opportunity to be educated about what the policing challenges are. That creates a much more cohesive environment, and ultimately the focus, rather than just being on law enforcement, is also on crime prevention over the longer term.
Mr Grandmaître: I must say that as a former police commissioner I am always interested in the morale of police forces. How would you describe the morale of your police force?
Ms Eng: I think police officers have a very difficult job to do. I think it is something that everybody comments about, but it is important to ask the police officers themselves what will make their job better and what will make them a lot happier doing it. You have to recognize that when I first got here I found, somewhat to my surprise, that police officers are one of the few professions left where people stay on the job for 20 or 25 years. When they dedicate an entire lifetime to public service, you know they have a real interest in serving the public. They very much care about what happens to the society at large, and they are very much chagrined when they see the results of what society leaves behind. Police officers pick up where society has failed, and in many ways they are as much demoralized by that as they are by any way that we can have an impact on their daily lives.
1110
The other area where I think demoralization can happen is when they see that they are not managed properly, that they do not have input into their own management -- when they see things being done wrongly and cannot say anything about it or have no way of making some input. I think that in most workplaces you do have a great deal more input from the line workers into what is happening. That is the new era of labour relations where people do get involved in their own management. They get a sense that the institution is investing in them in terms of training and multiskilling. I think these are things we can introduce in our police force to allow for that kind of improvement and ultimately improvement in long-term morale.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you. In my briefing notes, Ms Eng, I have noticed that since your arrival in 1989, there has been quite a change in the upper echelon of your police force. I am talking about staff superintendents, staff inspectors and so on. There has been quite a switch. Since 1989, you seem very top-heavy compared to previous years, let's say 1984-86. Was this your trademark or what?
Ms Eng: No, do not be left with that impression, please. I became a board member in 1989. I became chair in 1991. The board ultimately has a responsibility for approving the management structure of the force. The recommendations come up through the force. We had a report done for us in 1980 -- this is well before my time -- which identified the level of management we ought to have with different functions and different units. That particular structure was changed around 1989, or maybe before. I am not clear on the date at which, on the recommendation of the chief, there was an addition of senior officers. That whole structure is currently under review to ensure that we have the officers where we need them and the supervisors where we need them, and not where we do not need them.
Mr Grandmaître: I see. Would you say you have been more successful in accomplishing your long-term goals since those switches? Have you noticed an improvement, again, at the management level?
Ms Eng: I have only had, of course, less than a year's experience with the chair's position, but my experience so far with the budget preparation process has been very encouraging. I will explain. In the past it struck me that we needed to improve on the kinds of numbers we came up with when we presented our request to Metro council. This year we decided as a group that we would do the cutting ourselves rather than have the municipal councillors make virtually arbitrary decisions at us. As a result of starting early on to look at opportunities for funding from within, we were able to identify redeployments. We were able to identify funding from within. We were able to identify ongoing management review items. We were able to make sure that the program spending was actually targetted towards our goals and objectives. As a result, we brought in a budget that was at a 6.8% increase, with the lowest number of requests for increase in officers and civilians in the last six years, to the point that one of our harshest critics on Metro council called it, on radio, a very responsible budget.
We had to work very closely, the board and the command officers and finance and administration, in order to get that kind of budget put together. As you know, a budget is how you ultimately control how you manage yourself and how you achieve your priorities. So when we set objectives at the beginning of the process, we were able to come up with and ensure that we set our priorities in order to support those long-term objectives and priorities.
Mr Grandmaître: If I may follow up on your neighbourhood policing or community policing, you did mention in your long-term strategic plan that you were planning to open more police offices or precincts, if you want to call them that. How definite is this long-term plan? How committed are you? For instance, in your 1992 budget are there any dollars set aside to create these community --
Ms Eng: In the operating budget for 1992 we focused on planning for that eventuality. In the capital budget we will be asking for money that will allow us to open those stations. We are very much committed to that long-term strategy, because with all the research we have done we have identified community-based policing or neighbourhood-based policing as the most appropriate way of ultimately preventing crime over the long term, of addressing and providing policing services in a very diverse society and ensuring that police officers themselves take some real ownership of the process of policing and of managing those priorities. So we are very much committed in principle and I have tried to ensure in our budget planning and in the cutting we are being asked to do with Metro that we preserve and maintain our sights on that long-term plan.
Mr Grandmaître: One last question, if I may, Mr Chair. Ms Eng, this is a very personal question. What would you claim to be, or how would you describe, your greatest accomplishment since you have been appointed as chair of the Metro board?
Ms Eng: Silence does not mean I cannot think of anything; I just want to think of something appropriate. My hope is that when I am finished here, the police force and the police services board itself will be seen by the public generally as accountable because they can see for themselves that the system is accountable. That means we have to open up the process. We have to identify ways in which the public can participate and we have to leave our policy decisions up for public scrutiny. I hope the processes I have set in motion will achieve that.
Mr Runciman: Ms Eng, when you were appointed the chair, it was a rather controversial appointment. I am not sure why or whether you would agree with some of the controversy that swirled around you during that period of time, but I know one of the things that was talked about was the fact that policemen and policewomen -- at least from the stories we read in the press -- were not terribly supportive of your appointment because they felt some of your views and initiatives and things you stood for as a member of the board were not terribly supportive and in fact your appointment could have an impact in the negative sense on the morale of the force. How would you respond to that?
Ms Eng: I think the important thing is for people to see what I do and not worry about what the media says about me. I have had occasion in the last seven or so months to meet with officers all the way through the ranks, and I will continue to do more of that. What I find when I meet individual officers, and senior officers as well, is that when we have a chance to talk about the issues, they understand where I am coming from. They realize that I do not have horns. They realize that my interest is in making sure that the organization as a whole is respected and is able to operate efficiently and provide the services the public expects. I have had a good opportunity to meet with senior officers directly and as a group and I found that to be at all times encouraging. As a result, I have found the last seven months some of the most exhilarating times.
1120
Mr Runciman: What about your -- we can describe them as public clashes with the chief. What message does that send out to the officers? I just saw one here that you accuse the chief of using scare tactics in his comments in respect to the budget.
Ms Eng: The reporter, when I challenged him on the way it was set up, none the less blamed his editors and so on. The importance here is that there are ways in which we have to present ourselves to Metro council when we are asking for money. We have to convince them of our credibility and that the numbers we have brought to them are firm, that we have looked everywhere for cuts, that we are asking for the money because we need it. Unfortunately, if we go forward and try to express things that they no longer hear, that they are tired of hearing, we will not get very far in terms of moving ahead. So our credibility is at stake, and it is important.
The issue of having differences of opinion I think is a healthy one. I think there has to be a creative tension between the board and the force. The board itself has had to pull itself out of a period of some lack of public notice and it needs to be in a position to identify its policy needs and to encourage the public to come forward to identify those needs.
Mr Runciman: Is that how you would describe your relationship with Chief McCormack, one of creative tension?
Ms Eng: I think that if you have different positions on issues, different opinions on issues, coming with a different experience, a different point of view, different things to ensure happen, then both sides will be heard out. It is an open and free discussion at the board and we have all the opportunity in the world to make sure that there are not issues that are not spoken of.
Mr Runciman: Earlier, in your response to a question from Mr McLean, you were talking about the two studies, one in terms of the native population of Ontario and I think the other was with respect to visible minorities in Metro Toronto. The firm that conducted that for you was a firm called Equal Opportunity Consultants?
Ms Eng: Yes.
Mr Runciman: Do you know who the principals are in that firm?
Ms Eng: Yes, I do, Dr Frances Henry and Carol Tator.
Mr Runciman: Just briefly, what was the objective of that study?
Ms Eng: Both reports were focused upon assisting the force in improving on its employment equity recruiting. One of the problems we have had in the past when we tried to reach into communities that have not traditionally been members of the force or responsive to advertising and recruiting was to find out what it was that was holding them back. Until we found out what it is they think about policing, what they think about policing as a career, we would not be able to target our recruitment efforts sufficiently. So we engaged consultants to reach into those communities and give us a report back as to what those perceptions were, to assist us.
Mr Runciman: Do you think Ms Tator and Ms Henry approached this task in a totally objective way?
Ms Eng: I hope so. They are professionals. They are consultants. They are paid for their work by many people. We screened a number of consultants to look at the issue and we picked them from a number of applicants.
Mr Runciman: What was the cost?
Ms Eng: I think $25,000; Excuse me, it was $20,000.
Mr Runciman: I was just looking at a number of quotes from Ms Henry and Ms Tator. There is a whole host of them, but this was a Globe and Mail article where they are saying: "Senior police management must re-examine policies and practices of all aspects of policing as it relates to minorities. Police commissions should have more than token minority membership; police associations need a more balanced view of the issues," etc.
I guess it just seems to me that you would not have had to pay them $20,000 or $25,000 for the report; simply read some of the articles and letters to the editor they have written over the past number of years. Their positions were extremely well known in respect to that question in the Metro area.
Ms Eng: The process by which they came to those conclusions included research they had done on their own, including community focus groups; they had interviews with police officers and interviews with community informants and so on. I think their research will stand up to the principles of community research, and on the basis of their gathering of that information, they came to those conclusions.
The other important part of the report was to assist us to identify the kinds of images we had to meet and those we had to redress. As a result, they also had a communications strategy that was set up to assist us and give us some direction in that regard.
Mr Runciman: I am curious about the process where you become chair of the board. How does that work? Were you approached by the Premier's office, the appointments secretariat?
Ms Eng: Yes.
Mr Runciman: They simply gave you a call and asked if you would like to stand for this office?
Ms Eng: Yes. I think the Police Services Act originally would not have contemplated a full-time chair. I, unique among all the police boards in Ontario, am the only full-time chair. The process that is contemplated in the legislation is that the appointments would be made by the province or by municipal council and then the members, from among themselves, would at the beginning of each year elect a chair. You can appreciate that if you are asking somebody to be a full-time person, you would leave to serendipity quite a massive change. We operate under the same law, but in practice I think the full-time chair has to be asked whether or not he or she would be able to stand.
Mr Runciman: Who contacted you? Do you recall?
Ms Eng: I think it was the appointments secretariat.
Mr Runciman: Carol Phillips?
Ms Eng: Yes, Carol Phillips.
Mr Runciman: Do they go through an interview process? Do they ask for a CV and that sort of thing?
Ms Eng: Yes.
Mr Runciman: Your appointment expires in a few months, does it not?
Ms Eng: My initial appointment, yes.
Mr Runciman: Have you been asked whether you would be interested in a reappointment?
Ms Eng: Yes.
Mr Runciman: What is your position going to be?
Ms Eng: That I would like to be reappointed. I understand that the process may have gone through.
Mr Runciman: I see. This committee does not have purview over reappointments, so we would not be made aware of that.
Talking about morale, if I have time for a question -- we can go back later to the story of the police being accused of scare tactics -- another thing that bothered me personally was reading a story in the past little while about an individual by the name of Dudley Laws, who seems to pop up on CITY TV every time you turn around. Chief McCormack and other officers of the force, as I understood the article, left the meeting of the police services board when Mr Laws started to speak or was present, because I gather he is under some criminal charges. There are lawsuits he has launched against perhaps the police --
Ms Eng: The association.
Mr Runciman: I just wonder why you and other members of the board felt it was appropriate to hear from an individual like that.
Ms Eng: As you know, the board itself is a public body and we do have a portion of the board set aside for public deputations. I think the board members felt, as I did, that we have an obligation to hear from members of the public when they ask to speak, if they go through the usual procedures of putting in writing what it is they want to speak about and come forward and keep within the time limits. We have had public sessions as well at which anybody is invited to come forward and speak. We try to make sure we avoid any comment on specific cases before the courts in order not to jeopardize those proceedings, but aside from that, as a public body we are obliged to hear from everybody. It is important for us as public servants to make sure we hear from different segments of the community. Any individual, however often he pops up in the public, as you mentioned, none the less has a point of view that needs to be heard by us.
Mr Mills: I have a couple of questions. First of all, I am quite interested in equity. I am just wondering what sort of progress you are making here in Toronto with that issue, because I know in my riding it has become quite controversial, from talking to police officers and things like that. I am just wondering, has the war been won here, or are you making headway?
Ms Eng: I think the underlying principle of employment equity is to ensure that the police force itself is representative of the population it is serving. In Metropolitan Toronto we have certain guidelines in terms of the numbers we would have to have. They are percentages we would have of people from certain targeted communities. In your community it will be probably a different proportion. But the bottom line is proportionality.
The underlying rationale for doing this is not just to arbitrarily set numbers and to change the appearance of the police force for its own sake, but rather to ensure that a community and the police are able to properly cross the cultural barriers that sometimes exist between different communities. To do that, they can gain a lot by having people of those cultures be members of the police force and so they are more able to perform that function.
1130
Mr Mills: Another point I would like to question you on is that as the chair of the board, obviously from time to time the chief will come to you and present certain statistics and say, "If we don't do this, this will happen," and you are under considerable pressure to act upon, perhaps, the way I see it, one perspective. Have you any mechanism within your board that allows you to do some sort of research and ultimately say to the chief, "Well, we don't believe what you are saying because of this and that"? Do you have that and how does that work?
Ms Eng: I actually appreciate that question. The board office has that responsibility. The board office has now, as of this year, reorganized its budget to ensure that we do have in fact a research function. We have just hired a policy development officer, using the budget from another function that was deemed not to be necessary. We do have good cooperation from, say, the corporation planning group and the finance and administration people to assist us in developing our understanding of the situation and to be able to question and to make sure we are making the kind of decision we ought to be making.
Mr Grandmaître: We know you are right in the middle of budget debates. Your chief is saying that any major reduction in your budget would reflect on the services being provided at the present time due to the increase in crime, not only in Toronto but right across this province. You were quoted as saying that this is playing the politics of fear. Can you explain this?
Ms Eng: The response I was making was to a comment that crime will flourish if we do not have more police officers. I think the important thing for us to recognize is that people who are now strapped in the pocketbooks are sitting back and saying, "Is that true?"
We have a responsibility as a public body to be a little bit more incisive in our discussion of the issue. It is true that if you have more street-level enforcement and are able to round up the drug dealers and so on, who are themselves quite often addicts, you will prevent some break-and-enters, you will prevent some of the robberies and you will prevent some of the street purse-snatches. We will have an impact on the level of crime if we are able to do that. But that is set as a priority for the force and we will not remove that even if we do have budget cuts.
The level of service we have right now, if you cut people, cut officers for example, is not an eventuality that we are planning for. It does mean that we are going to have to not be able to get to certain calls as quickly as in the past. But, again, we have always been setting priorities. Emergency calls will still be answered as quickly as possible and we will look at ways in which we can redeploy the officers we have to ensure that we cover off the peak in emergency times without sacrificing service.
Mr Grandmaître: Have you not decreased the number of foot patrol officers in the last couple of years?
Ms Eng: Those numbers are awkward to work with. We are trying very hard to make sure that we can have a much better reporting system. We have had not a decrease in the number of police officers. We have redeployed them to foot patrol in some cases, but some of them are needed for the cars. As people increase in seniority, many of them are on leave, and we have some secondments as well. The figures that show up on the charts are not necessarily accurate in that regard.
Mr Grandmaître: The composition of your board is seven members and eight staff. Can you briefly describe to me what the eight staff are doing?
Ms Eng: We have the executive director, John Campbell, who ensures that the board approval process, decision-making and so on is kept. He is also the person who maintains the records for the board, ensures that we are acting within our legislative authority and ensures that the proper processes are kept in that way.
There are three secretarial staff who have various functions to ensure the production of the agenda and the minutes and ensure the running of the office, handling complaints from the public, forwarding correspondence and dealing with those types of responsibilities.
There is an executive assistant who deals with the type of correspondence that cannot be responded to simply by referring it, but rather doing some investigation and bringing some officers in to assist us in understanding what the current situation is. There is an administrative assistant who assists Mr Campbell with his functions as the executive director of the board. We now have just engaged a policy development officer to assist us in the research function.
Mr Grandmaître: How many new positions, how many new staff, have you hired in the last 12 months for the police commission?
Ms Eng: In fact, I have hired none. I have inherited that structure. We are working at it to ensure that the people are redirecting their responsibilities to meet the board's priorities. One of the functions allocated to the board in the past was a staff inspector whose function was unclear. We were able to use that budgetary amount to allow us to have a research function.
Mr Grandmaître: You are not saying you decreased the active police force or services? Did you say that you abolished a superintendent's job?
Ms Eng: No, it was simply that as far as the board office was concerned, there was a staff inspector who was assigned to our office and we thought we could use that staff complement or budget for the research function, which we had none of.
Mr Runciman: Ms Eng, when you talked at the start of the morning about going to the Metro budget meeting, was your budget approved?
Ms Eng: It has not been approved yet, no.
Mr Runciman: It has not been discussed. That budget was a chopped-down version, from the original $533 million down to $519 million, is that right?
Ms Eng: That is right. We have said that we could cut it to $519 million. Metro has currently set a flat-line guideline of $511 million, together with the fact that we would have to absorb any salary increase within that amount.
Mr Runciman: But in this article that has the headline of accusing the police of scare tactics, you are quoted as saying that the $8 million can be in services and not affect staff, but you are going to have to eliminate sacred cows. When you were talking about that $8 million, was that part of the $519-million submission?
Ms Eng: The $8 million would take us down from $519 million to $511 million.
Mr Runciman: So what you were saying is that although the board itself is suggesting $519 million, we could really live with $511 million?
Ms Eng: No, that reporter did not have it clear in his mind. In my mind was the fact that in order to get the first $14 million in cuts, we had identified very quickly for the first meeting before the management committee $14 million of items that we could cut, but many of them were the new programs that we had planned that would take us further into community-based policing and the Beyond 2000 environment. In order to preserve that, we were looking much more carefully in the ensuing couple of weeks for other kinds of cuts that were much more structural, that were much more ingrained and that would assist us in finding that $14 million, instead of cutting some of the priority programs. If we have to go further and go below that, to $511 million, we will do more of that, and we will continue to do that until we get to the point where we are affecting jobs. But our recommendation to Metro council at this time is that we hold the line at $519 million and that Metro council will have to assist us in paying for the salary increase.
1140
Mr Runciman: And you think you can do the job at $519 million? I know your original submission included 50 new officers, 50 civilians, more community-based policing, etc. I am looking at the statistics from 1990-91. Some of these can be attributed to the decline in the economy, but others I am not sure can be attributed to that. I am looking at homicides up almost 29%, attempted murders up about 60%, abductions up 18%. I do not want you to use scare tactics here, of course, but when you see those kinds of significant increases over a yearly basis, and what you are talking about here is in essence a freeze, what do you think those statistics are going to look like next year?
Ms Eng: I think it is important for us to realize that although police are an absolutely necessary ingredient in fighting crime and preventing crime, they are not necessarily sufficient by themselves. When we went to Metro council and stayed within its guidelines, when it had flat-lined everybody, we had originally said: "We came in with a responsible budget at $533 million. We are prepared, as a result of the current crisis, to look for ways to bring ourselves down to $519 million." We did not recommend that. We had recommended $533 million, which would have included an additional 51 officers. If we are forced to, we will find ways to get the job done without those people.
The important thing, too, is to remember that at this time the crime rates are very much a function of the economy, of, perhaps over the longer term, a certain amount of social deterioration. These are all things where we, as part of the broader community, have an important role to play. But we cannot, by ourselves, change much in that area.
Mr Runciman: Something I do not see mentioned here -- perhaps I am looking at it from a small-town point of view, I am not sure, but talking to police officers in my community, which is only a community of 21,000, they talked about the paperwork burden that has increased over the past decade, and the fact that police are so involved in filing forms, etc, and reports that you do not perhaps have the real police work being done in terms of time committed to it that was the case in the past. When you are talking about recommendations, I do not see anything -- you may have said something in the past about this -- but trying to alleviate paperwork is a role that certainly the provincial government could play.
Ms Eng: Absolutely. It is one of the things I would list. The reporter did not see it as important enough to list for you. The paper burden has become monumental. In fact there are forms existing that we do not know why we fill them out, but we do. What we have started to do is to try to identify those areas in which we have forms that we have not got a purpose for and to try to find out if we are under any legislative or other requirement to actually keep them. That is part of the process, no question.
With the technology we are introducing, and which we hope we will be able to continue to introduce, we will cut much of that paper burden. We in fact now have been in a position to introduce computer assistance in case preparation, for example, which is a massive paper burden. We have tried to introduce electronic notebooks that allow officers to actually file their occurrences in an electronic way so that the information is captured once for distribution throughout the organization on an as-needed basis and so on. We have introduced, for example, a mug-shot system, which will allow the photographs to be shared by different departments in the force without having to photocopy them and courier them to different places. All of this is in the works, and we are trying to make sure that we are getting a grip on that kind of management burden.
Mr Runciman: I appreciate your concern and the initiatives. This may be incorrect information, but I am wondering how that position jibes with the reported view you have that officers who draw a weapon from a holster should be required to file a report each and every time they do so. If indeed that is your view, how do you rationalize that with your concern about paperwork?
Ms Eng: I think the importance here is not whether there should be another piece of paper but why it is we ask for that kind of reporting. There is broad public concern about the use of force.
Mr Runciman: How do you know that?
Ms Eng: Because of the complaints, the concerns of the people, of the public.
Mr Runciman: You said there is broad concern.
Ms Eng: I think there is. I think if you ask people, it is my view and it is also the view of many others.
Mr Runciman: I prefer that phrasing.
Ms Eng: In government, and in passing the new Police Services Act and in looking at the whole issue today, at the use of force, the concern here is that we give our police officers the right to use deadly force, because we have asked them to keep order among ourselves, but the public expects to have the force accountable to the public, as to when the force is used and whether it is reasonable and justified. We now require by legislation that if a shot is fired a report must be written and it is reviewed. The showing, pointing and sometimes accidental discharging of a firearm is also of great concern, I think, to the public. I would think they would support that kind of accountability.
What we have recommended at the board is a process by which the force by itself can ensure some level of quality control by ensuring that training officers and senior officers are able to review when occasions arise when force is used, whether it be from a choke hold or all the way up to a discharge of a firearm. That way the force itself can determine whether its training has been adequately received or whether it has to change its procedures. This will ensure that the public at large sees that the force is looking after its own use of force.
Mr Hayes: Ms Eng, recently you were actually complimented in the Toronto Star for challenging the remarks of Chief McCormack. When he said there was going to be more crime, you said he was indulging in the politics of fear and you would not indulge in that. I compliment you for that.
The question I have, though, is on the budget. If it is lowered and you are not able to hire the extra officers, what are your real plans for dealing with making the streets and the communities safer in Metro Toronto?
Ms Eng: I would like to ensure that people do not get the idea that the police by themselves can make the city streets safe. One of the concerns I have is that if people are frightened by the prospect of crime flourishing they will stay off the streets, making the streets a little less safe as a result. And if scare tactics would get me more money, I would probably use them myself.
But ultimately, in terms of the safety of our streets, we have to realize it is a community effort. People must feel they can work with the police to achieve those objectives. They have to understand what the challenges are and what constraints the budget creates for us. They have to understand that a safe street means not only racing across the city in a patrol car to answer a 911 call; it can also include community groups looking at Neighbourhood Watch initiatives or attending community meetings to identify community problems before they become policing problems. In many ways social and economic problems ultimately become policing problems, something we at the police force cannot do very much about. But we can point these things out, we can identify the problems.
Police officers on the beat have their fingers on the pulse of the city and can actually come forward and tell us about what they see happening, and they in fact do. The crime analysts we have in the force do that. They try to get a sense of things happening before they become serious problems. All these things together over the longer term, if we carefully plan and capture that information, will allow us to plan for providing better safety on the streets.
Mr Hayes: I have another question. You hired Mukwa Ode First Nations Consulting Inc. As a result of that, it was pointed out there were 14 aboriginal officers out of a total of 5,000. Of course Toronto has a population of native people of 65,000. There were some constructive suggestions. What is your viewpoint on this? Do you have any views on how the police force can attract more qualified native persons?
1150
Ms Eng: Certainly I do not think I can improve on the 40-some-odd recommendations made in the report. I have read the report and I have also asked for staff, and the board has asked the force to review the recommendations in detail to ensure they are workable, whether there are any problems with them. We have already done many of those things that they were not aware of.
I think the critical point made in that report was that you cannot expect to get a positive response to your recruiting efforts until you deal with the negative perceptions the communities now have about the police force and policing in general. Some of them are cultural, in the sense that they felt the native communities look at policing as what should be a peacekeeping role, whereas we project ourselves as having a law enforcement role, and that is difficult for them to accept. They find in many ways a lack of accessibility. Some recommendations refer to the actual structures of our buildings and so on. That is something that would be very hard for us to change, but we can try to soften that image. But more than anything else, they were asking us to breach that gap of mistrust.
The Vice-Chair: I would like to ask the committee for its consent. Ms Eng is due to come back this afternoon. However, if we go until 12:30 and do not bother having her back at 2, would that be agreeable with the committee and Ms Eng?
Mr Fletcher: I have somewhere to go.
Mr Hayes: Unless we can get some other members -- I do have a meeting at 12 o'clock.
The Vice-Chair: Then we will come back at 2.
Mr Hayes: Just because I have to leave, I do not want to be responsible for Ms Eng having to come back. Do the members have a lot more questions they want to ask Ms Eng?
The Vice-Chair: If we do not have unanimous consent to sit until 12:30, then we will carry on.
Mr Hayes: I think we can sit till 12:30.
The Vice-Chair: Okay, thank you.
I would like to pose a question, Ms Eng. About eight years ago I had the opportunity to sit on the Ontario Film Review Board. At that time I was certainly surprised by what I saw. In your estimation, is the board operating satisfactorily with regard to the reviews it is doing? Do you feel that some of the pornography has a bearing on some of these statistics we see?
Ms Eng: I think our crime situation is very much a product of the social environment we find ourselves in. Certainly the violence against women and children has become a mounting concern. It is one that has gained current notoriety although it has always been a problem that has been with us. At the force we have recognized this over the years and have at different times improved the different services we have, including now a separate sexual assault squad. We have a victim services program to assist victims of crime of that nature and others. The whole issue of the environment, which tends to have an impact on how people treat each other, is very much something the police must be concerned with. As I have said before, we pick up the pieces when society fails.
The Vice-Chair: In other words, you feel the film review board is doing its job satisfactorily, or could it be improved on?
Ms Eng: I have not really looked at that board. I am much more concerned with what we are doing and looking at some of the broader issues. But I recognize the point that pornography has a great role to play in society's attitudes and behaviour towards its vulnerable populations. Anything we can do as a society to prevent that is something I believe our force and our board would very much support. My personal opinions on that are not those that I wish to share.
Mr Grandmaître: Being responsible for the largest police force in the province of Ontario, how much input do you have to the Solicitor General's office? How often have you met with the Solicitor General or staff in the last 12 months?
Ms Eng: That is a very important question. I am a member of the external consultation committee which is made up of members of the police services boards, the Police Association of Ontario and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. We are now in fact meeting with the Deputy Solicitor General to review the proposed regulations on use of force for the act and all other kinds of regulations for the Police Services Act itself, so there is a direct contact there.
I have also made it a point to try to keep in touch with the deputy in order to keep him apprised, and through him the appropriate departments within his ministry, of what initiatives we are undertaking and to give him copies of the minutes that would be of particular interest to him.
I know the ministry itself has an obligation to ensure some minimum standards at least to maintain policing standards throughout the province of Ontario, to ensure certain uniformity and so on. They issue directives from time to time that assist us with technical requirements of equipment and vehicles and so on.
Mr Grandmaître: With the latest amendments to the Police Act, would you say that most commissioners -- I keep using the word "commissioner" -- board members are satisfied with those amendments? What future amendments would you propose to the Police Act to make your job and also the police force's job not easier, but more acceptable?
Ms Eng: There are some technical, seemingly minor changes that have a very significant impact on us. For example, the probationary period for officers was reduced from 18 months to 12 months. What that means for us, given the amount of time they are actually in training and so on, is that we will have very little time to review the qualifications and capabilities of the probationary officer before he or she becomes a full-fledged officer. Going back to the 18-month period would assist us greatly.
The second area that has created difficulty for a board our size especially, but possibly for other communities as well, is the discipline process. I am sure in your time on the board you would have had the occasion to have to deal with that. We deal with quite a number of them, as you can imagine, and now with lawyers attending on each side and so on, we do sit quite often for a day or so. What we are dealing with there, of course, is a person appealing a disciplinary charge under the Police Services Act. That appeal will have an impact on his own employment. It can in fact lead to a dismissal or any other number of discipline sanctions down from that. Needless to say, it is hotly contested, with the association acting on behalf of the officer and with the counsel for the force and for us assisting us in those deliberations.
The difficulty with part-time members, with legal issues being raised frequently, is the question of ultimately how we handle that. On one hand, it is difficult for us as a group of people with six of the people being part-time members to have the time and the background understanding of the issues from a legal standpoint, quite often, to actually decide and make adequate disposition of the situation. At the same time, we need to maintain that involvement because we set behavioural standards for the force and the officers. We see a need to continue to be involved, but we need to find some way of equipping us better to handle the natural justice issues that come up. I see that as an area that requires some structural review.
1200
Mr Grandmaître: One last question?
The Vice-Chair: Go ahead.
Mr Grandmaître: What are your thoughts on the police college? With the new technology being used today, we need, if I can use the word, smarter police officers and so on. What are your thoughts on the police college? How can they improve their teaching technologies and so on?
Ms Eng: My personal interest and the board's interest is to ensure that we make a massive investment in the training of our officers. Ultimately, they are the backbone of this entire organization. Their capabilities, their training and their sensitivities are absolutely critical to the success of this police force in dealing with crime prevention and, ultimately, safety in the streets.
We are at this point doubling our efforts in training in firearms, for example. We have always had an important priority set on officer training, because we have our own Charles O. Bick College in addition to the facilities we send the officers to in Aylmer.
In the Beyond 2000 report we look at the kind of officer who is going to be required to deal with the kinds of challenges we are looking at in the future. That means we need a person who has the ability to be flexible and adaptable, a person who has an appreciation of some of the social and economic context we operate within, a person who is going to be capable of learning over his or her career and lifetime, because there will be changes at an ever-increasing pace.
I see us going into lifelong learning ethics throughout the force. I see a need for retraining and constant training. I see a need for multiskilling to allow officers to move from one area to another. When we are asking them to take on the kinds of responsibilities in the neighbourhood policing environment, it means they will have to have a broader range of capabilities in problem-solving, in communications, in meeting people, in cross-cultural communications and in technology, because we will need to rely on it heavily to assist us in the future. We are going to be needing all of these skills from our officers, and we have an obligation not only to ensure that they have some of it when they come, but also to provide some of it during the course of their careers.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think these changes, as far as the police college is concerned, are coming?
Ms Eng: Yes. Even subject to the budget restraints, we are hanging on to training as a priority. We have introduced some consultants who have talked to us about adult learning techniques and requirements to deal with in-service requirements; the way you approach people who are already on the job and are not used to a classroom setting, for example. All these issues are important. I feel that this board particularly and senior management of the force see a need to maintain our investment in training.
Mr Runciman: I have just one more area that I want to briefly explore, and that is the old question of crime statistics. I think it was a namesake of yours, Sergeant Ben Eng -- I may be wrong on the name -- who made some headlines some time ago about the question of compiling crime statistics. I am certainly not qualified to take a pro or con stance in respect of this, but I know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States compiles these kinds of statistics.
It strikes me that if there is a particular element of society committing a disproportionate number of crimes, those statistics should be available, for internal use only, at the highest levels of the police force. I do not see them as something you are going to run in the Metro media, but it seems to me, in terms of devising strategies and developing programs, etc, that you would want to know what elements of your community were the source of major problems. It seems to me that the only way that can be achieved is through the compilation of these kinds of figures. I just wondered what your view is on that.
Ms Eng: As you know, the point you are making is crime statistics based on the race of the perpetrator. The FBI has, I understand, collected these statistics, but the FBI does not use them for any purpose whatsoever.
The importance here in the debate is, what can we do as a police force to get the kind of information that is going to allow us to predict, to some extent, what the crime trends are and to do something about it? That is a critical public issue and certainly something we are after doing. What we did do was try to engage in some research to see what our criminologists and police professionals are doing today to get a handle on that information. What we found was that people are no longer pointing fingers at genetic characteristics or single factors. They found that instead we are looking at situational analysis for crime.
We talk to our own crime analysts who tell us that when they look at a situation to try to decide where they are going to deploy, where they are going to look for problems, they look at the crime rates in the immediate past, the types of crimes that are committed and the economic situation as well. In our long-term planning, which you see represented in the environmental scan process, you will see also that we look at demographic changes and economic pressures, all of those things, in order to identify where we should be putting our resources.
We also have seen the federal Solicitor General put together a group of criminologists and other policing professionals and sit them down in a room for a couple of days and ask them, "What would you do with crime statistics based on the race of the perpetrator if you had them?" They said, to a person: "You tell us what you want us to use those figures for. We'll tell you how you get them and what you can do with them or what they will show." But at the present time, we as a group of professionals have found no use for them whatsoever, except for people who from day to day -- every day you find somebody who will rise up on his hind legs to point his finger at somebody for causing crime. Ultimately they said, "If you can tell us what use we can make of these figures, we will get them for you, and we will get them for you scientifically and properly." They found that they could not come to any kind of indication as to how they might use that information.
They did indicate, however, that if you look at what the Manitoba justice committee inquiry did in looking at the overrepresentation of natives in the jail population, it was able to show that there were populations that, because of their own cultural or racial characteristics, were being treated differently from others. They said there was a useful purpose in collecting statistics within the justice system, to show that kind of situation, but as for predicting who would commit crime, they said it would not be very useful, nor would it do anything.
The question for us as public people and policymakers is, when you have that information what are you going to do about it? Are you going to actually find people of that colour, round them up and do something with them? It is a very difficult question and I think it is very important, especially in a very highly sensitive area, for us as policing professionals to decide what exactly we are going to do with this information before we ask for it.
Mr Runciman: Just as a brief comment, it seems to me one area that this sort of information could be useful in is if you are dealing with a particular community within the broader community and there are concerns about police harassment. I think working with the representatives of that community, if you have those kinds of statistics available, they perhaps can convince those folks that indeed there is a problem in this area and that we have to work together to resolve it and simply that the police are not focusing in on a particular racial minority simply because there is some sort of bigotry or overtone of rascism. I think there may be useful areas there as well.
Ms Eng: I understand your concern. There are communities that feel hard done by currently, and they have to be reached. Certainly just the other day one of the deputies came to me and said: "Look, we have to find a way of doing this. We have to find a way of reaching across this gap that there is." I agree and I am prepared to do that. I am prepared to go out into the communities with him and any of the other officers we can gather together to speak to people specifically about issues that occur within different areas of the city and so on. But when you are trying to address a community as a whole and you want to get cooperation and you want them to hear you out and to see if they can look for problems they can help solve as a community, I do not think you start with a process which ultimately lays blame at their feet. I think that if your ultimate aim is to get that kind of cooperation, you have to reach across in a less aggressive way.
1210
Mr Fletcher: Thank you, Ms Eng, for being here. I have heard so much about you. As far as your job is concerned, your position, inevitably your job description, what you do is going to bring you into conflict with the police chief, no matter what happens, on different issues. It could be funding, it could be anything. But the nature of the job sets it up that way. Is that the way it is?
Ms Eng: In many ways there needs to be cooperation and there has to be understanding of the different positions we represent. The board has a vital function to be the voice and a bridge for the community in dealing with the police. We are a civilian authority. We have the mandate to govern the police force. As people who are not policing professionals, we have a lot to learn always, and sometimes there is a great deal of impatience with us as we struggle to get up to speed.
A lot of that also comes as a result of the policy issues becoming much more sensitive and dynamic at the present time. People are asking for change, perhaps with greater impatience, and you are asking a force that is very proud of its tradition to suddenly change quickly, on a dime, things it has been doing, and so necessarily there is going to be a difference of opinion and a difference of approach and a questioning of each other's motives, to some extent. I hope that in the last few months we have been able to have a very good working relationship. We have been productive. We have had good policy advances. We have brought in a very sensible and responsible budget. By and large, the day-to-day workings have been very dynamic and positive.
Mr Fletcher: So you do not see yourself as an enemy of the police force or anything?
Ms Eng: I would not have taken on this job in order to be an enemy of the police force from within. That is a foolish approach to take.
Mr Fletcher: In my community we find it amusing, some of the petty politics that go on in Toronto over some of the issues. As far as the chief's statement that crime is going to increase without spending is concerned, I think what you said was courageous, and also right. It is clear that they are playing politics. I know that in the United States one of the fastest-growing budgetary items in most cities is the police force. Crime is still increasing and they are addressing it by throwing money at it. I agree with you, I do not think throwing money at the situation is going to solve the problem.
As for the concept of this neighbourhood police force, is that just a PR thing or is it going to get into the neighbourhoods and be active? In my community -- again, I am not from Toronto -- when we interact with police, it usually is not when we are being arrested. It is at the arena, at the ballpark, in the schools. Yet here in Toronto, the only time I know anything about the police is what I get from the media, and that is when they are responding to a call or a crime.
Ms Eng: The media are not interested in good news; they are interested in news that sells newspapers. The ones that capture the public imagination are those moments of tension and confrontation. That is why I think the supposed tensions between me and the chief are far overplayed, and for their own purposes.
In terms of dealing with the community, I think getting back to basics is what we have to be about, not only in fact but also in public perception. We would like to get back to the days when police officers very much knew the communities they worked with. Over the course of the last few months I have had occasion to meet with people who indeed fulfil that role, but they are unsung heroes. They are people who know the communities very well and can talk a lot about what the needs are, what the priorities are, but their voices have not been heard and they have not been used anywhere. I would like to see our force actually capture that information and utilize it in its planning.
In the beyond 2000 implementation committee, one of the vital components of the exercise is to involve line officers with the planning process in order to get that proprietorship on the one hand, but also the knowledge and input we can gain from them. I think we can get back to that position. In fact, we have to get back to that position.
The United States, even with its burgeoning budgets and crime rates, is also turning to community-based policing as the solution. One of the greatest proponents of that of course is Lee Brown, the chief commissioner in New York City, which has made a reputation for itself in terms of its problems. They see that community-based policing cannot be a PR function -- if it ever was, for that matter. Rather, it is a vital part of preventing crime over the long term.
Mr Fletcher: Just one more thing, Mr Chair, and it has to do with what is going on as far as Toronto is concerned, the Guardian Angels idea. Are the police receptive to that sort of community involvement or is that going a little too far?
Ms Eng: I think that is beyond what we anticipate as community involvement. The community involvement we are looking for is that which prevents crime and educates the population about looking after its own safety, taking measures to prevent not only the specific incidents of crime but also the factors that contribute to it.
In some cases it is as easy as changing the lighting on a street or changing a deadend street. In other cases it is more to understand that a lot of poverty leads to a certain type of crime that is potentially preventable and that there needs to be community outreach and there needs to be organizations, say, to set up community centres. If people are hanging out at a shopping centre, maybe they need a place to hang out. They are not actually there to rob all the stores. If people look at that as an alternative to just being fearful, then there are opportunities to try to prevent crime over the longer term.
The Guardian Angels you mentioned are something that neither the force not the board endorse whatsoever. We see that as a real problem. We see that ultimately as society giving up and letting vigilantes and the criminals take over the streets.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you. It is a pleasure meeting you.
The Vice-Chair: We have 10 minutes left and we have two speakers. On the list are Mr Jackson and Mr Frankford. I would ask that we split the time between the two of you. five minutes each. Mr Jackson.
Mr Jackson: Ms Eng, welcome. I want to ask you about a couple of women's issues as they relate to the police services board and/or police services. The statistics I have seen with respect to the non-charging for violence in a domestic setting are rather disturbing. In the absence of a victims' rights legislation framework in this province, I have been at least successful with the Halton board, which is where I am from. We have a protocol there which says that victims can be interviewed by officers of the gender of their choice. This is uniquely something we developed out of our area.
Can you indicate if this is something you are considering or will be implementing? Then we can move into some employment equity issues.
Ms Eng: Two things: The charging policy is something that we are working on. It is important to recognize that charging does have an impact on repetition of those kinds of offences. In terms of whether or not we can implement a system whereby a person can ask to speak to a man or a woman if he or she is more comfortable, we are trying to accommodate that as much as we can. But we try harder to sensitize all officers, men and women, to be able to deal sensitively with these issues.
Mr Jackson: Eighty per cent of all crime is a function of the victims coming forward, and the focus is actually whether the victims perceive they have sensitive officers or not. Any sociologist will tell you that. So I support the sensitizing of officers, but the gender issue still is a legitimate issue in the minds of the victims. I am hopeful you will move in that direction. I leave that with you.
You did not close the door to potential cuts of staff. You said you are very hopeful that you will be able to avoid it. As a lawyer, and given that you have your employment equity support staff in attendance, should it come down to layoffs you are bound contractually, and last hired, first fired is the principle in this province. In the interest of assuring a certain number of female officers, are you empowered to lay off the males before you get to the females or must you hire on your alpha code or the day they were sworn in or whatever?
I know this is a difficult question, but it is one I am very concerned about. Whether it is francophone representation -- when there are cutbacks, they are the last hired and they are the first fired. Also visible minority officers will be caught in this. We have a trend that it is now backing up in this process. I have a lot of legitimate concerns in this area. Could you speak to us about this?
1220
Ms Eng: You have put your finger right on the button on that one. Clearly it is a last in, first out option that we have, which is required of us under the collective agreement. We have made most of our gains in employment equity in the last few years, so the obvious is before you. The question of whether we can set priorities in not firing those who are employment equity targets is something that we have to examine legislatively, but certainly from a policy standpoint we have to see whether we can avoid having to do that and to in fact lose all the gains we have made in the last few years.
Mr Jackson: I would just submit to you that that model is operational in collective agreements in school boards. You may wish to examine how it is done there. They allow program protection, and it has been in operation for 15 years in this province.
I want to ask you another quick question that has to do with the issue of pornography. I have had occasion to talk to Inspector Fantino when he was with you under project P. I am not concerned about the tension and the dynamics on the censor board, which is now the film review board. I am more concerned about your officers who are going out and laying charges when the crown attorney's office encourages them to do this, and then the crown attorney's office changes its mind. You are aware this has been an occurrence and has been an occurrence during your term as chair.
In a contracting system, you are looking at specific crimes and having to say to your officers: "We're not getting value for our dollar out here. We cannot be out doing work on pornography if we're having the legal, court-based rug pulled out from underneath us by the Attorney General's office that is saying, `We're not prepared to proceed with an action, when we may have told you two months ago to proceed.'" This is a legitimate politicization which you are caught in. I do not indict you for your responsibilities in this area, but I see the politicians changing their minds about what constitutes community standards. Let's let the courts decide. But if our officers are going to be out there doing the work to lay charges and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled out -- I know this is occurring in other areas as well.
The Vice-Chair: What is your question, Mr Jackson?
Mr Jackson: I think Ms Eng knows my question. I have used two illustrations. Could you speak to us about that, because I see that as an area that could be expensive, and as you have said, you want your term so that our public policies should be more open for public scrutiny. This is an area where the public, the women's movement, is wanting to talk to you about this issue.
Ms Eng: I think you are right about that. As much as we are obliged to enforce the entire Criminal Code and the Highway Traffic Act, we obviously cannot do every little piece of it. Ultimately the public has to help us decide what those priorities are. They will have to make a decision about whether we care more about violence against women and the impacts or whether we want to have our officers round up prostitutes or bust pornography shops. These are decisions that have to be made within the public context, and we have to be in a position to assess that sentiment and to try to create policy around it. But we are none the less confined by the requirements of the legislation; if there is a breach of the law, we are obliged to pursue it. But as to how many resources we apply to it and how frequently and so on, those priorities have to be set with the help of the public input.
Mr Jackson: Thank you.
Mr Frankford: You mentioned to Mr Mills the research you are developing. For police outside Metro, can you tell me what the situation is? Does the Solicitor General provide those sorts of resources, or is there a vacuum which needs to be filled?
Ms Eng: When we have asked for further assistance from the Solicitor General's office they remind us that although they may seem like a big ministry they actually have limited resources themselves. In our own case, we did not have a research function before, and I have had to find room within the budget to get that research resource. The research requirements in Metropolitan Toronto are not unlike those in the other municipalities, of course, but I think we have a greater urgency to settle up some of those points and we have a greater volume of some of the concerns as well. It is really critical, I think, for the board members to be able to equip themselves with the information and the research to help them make appropriate policy decisions.
Mr Frankford: Your research presumably is criminological, looking at correlates of crime and determinants.
Ms Eng: Some of that. The research also includes gathering that public opinion and making sure the public understands what our restrictions are and the things we need to do better. Some of that is capturing that sort of dynamic. Also, in our corporate planning area they look at demographics and social trends and so on. On top of that we have to look at criminological studies as well. From a policy standpoint, in our office, the board's office, we had to take public positions on issues such as use of force, accountability for use of force, the employment equity activities and where we set those priorities. There is concern about domestic violence and there are concerns about youth. Those kinds of broad policy positions and initiatives we can take as a board on behalf of the whole force are things we need the research function for.
The Chair: Ms Eng, thank you very much for your appearance here this morning. It has been very interesting indeed. We want to wish you well with your budget efforts. Good luck.
Ms Eng: Thank you very much.
DOROTHY NEILSON
The Chair: Members, before we break I want to raise one issue that is sort of hanging fire. That is the appointment of Ms Neilson to the Northern Ontario Development Corp. We have unanimous consent to concur with Ms Neilson's appointment; somewhat grudgingly, but we have it.
We are going to adjourn now. Members of the subcommittee, I want to remind you that we are going to have a meeting following this, in two or three minutes from now, in room 230 with lunch. Meeting adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1228.