Police Records Checks
by Non-profit Agencies Act, 1999, Bill 9, Mr Kormos
/Loi de 1999 sur les vérifications des
dossiers de police par les agences sans but lucratif,
projet de loi 9, M. Kormos
East York Baseball
Association
Mr Byron Yankou
Anglican Church of
Canada
Rev Harry Huskins
Bishop Ann Tottenham
Archdeacon Susan DeGruchy
Rev Dawn Davis
Rev Michael Bedford-Jones
Ted Reeve Hockey Association
Mr John McKay
Boys and Girls
Clubs
Mr David Rew
Lorraine
Street
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
JUSTICE AND SOCIAL POLICY
Chair /
Président
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean
PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Research and Information
Services
The committee met at 1606 in room 151.
POLICE RECORDS CHECKS BY NON-PROFIT AGENCIES ACT,
1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LES VÉRIFICATIONS DES DOSSIERS DE
POLICE PAR LES AGENCES SANS BUT LUCRATIF
Consideration of Bill 9, An
Act respecting the cost of checking the police records of
individuals who may work for certain non-profit service agencies
/ Projet de loi 9, Loi concernant les frais de vérification
des dossiers de police à l'égard des particuliers qui
pourraient travailler pour certaines agences de services sans but
lucratif.
The Chair (Mr Joseph
N. Tascona): The committee is in session. I'm Joe
Tascona, the Chair of the standing committee on justice and
social policy. We have a number of presenters. I have to
apologize that we're a little late getting started. The House has
just put us in a position, orders of the day, so that we can
start.
EAST YORK BASEBALL ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our first presenter is the East York Baseball Association. I have
Byron Yankou. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation. If
you don't need to use that, there'll be an opportunity for the
other parties' representatives; Mr Kormos is here and
representatives of the government party, and they can ask you
some questions, if they wish. So go ahead.
Mr Byron
Yankou: My name is Byron Yankou. I live in the city of
Toronto, and I come here today in support of Bill 9. I'm a
volunteer on the executive of the East York Baseball Association,
and I manage my 10-year-old son's baseball team.
Are children being
victimized? Let's look at the facts. The National Foundation to
Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in the United States is the
organization that helped President Clinton draft a bill, which
was signed into law on October 9, 1998, called the Volunteers for
Children Act, which amended the National Child Protection Act of
1993.
The National Foundation to
Prevent Child Sexual Abuse stated these chilling facts: The Boy
Scouts of America reported that at least 2,071 scouts reported
being abused by their leaders between 1971 and 1991. Yet, there
were still at least 14 men who had been charged or convicted of
sex offences who joined the Boy Scouts, including some who'd been
kicked out before. Why? Because the national organization of Boy
Scouts hadn't mandated police background checks.
In Dallas, Texas, at the YMCA
there was a counsellor between 1989 and 1991 named David Wayne
Jones, a 20-year-old. He had been a counsellor in an after-school
program, and he had molested 41 children between the ages of
three and 11 who were in his care. He's now serving 15 years.
In Rhode Island, Michael
Abatto was named Tiverton, Rhode Island's Man of the Year for his
work with community youth organizations. He was convicted of
sexually molesting two boys he had worked with over a period of
five years.
In 1993, Richard DeHuff, who
was a volunteer at Big Brothers in King county, Washington,
pleaded guilty to raping an 11-year-old boy in his care. He was
sentenced to seven and a half years.
Dennis Bedard of Harrison,
Maine, a 44-year-old man, had been a little league coach for
several years when he was convicted of two counts of gross sexual
assault and eight counts of unlawful sexual conduct. The offences
occurred over a six-month period and involved boys between the
ages of nine and 12.
In Canada, we have Graham
James's shocking abuse of Sheldon Kennedy. There is the Mount
Cashel orphanage. These infamous incidents are part of this
country's history.
Professionally, I am a
property and casualty insurance broker. I'm all too aware of the
liability that both for-profit and non-profit organizations have
when they hire or accept as volunteers people who work with young
people. Sexual abuse liability is an area that I have some
knowledge of as a result of my working with the Greek Orthodox
Church of Canada.
The East York Baseball
Association provides both rep and house league programs for over
600 boys and girls, ranging in age from four to 20 years old.
While we have never had any problems with sexual predators, we
want to keep it that way. Previous boards of my association, I am
told, considered doing police background checks on volunteers,
but at the executive meeting we had this past Saturday I was told
they shied away because of the enormous cost. However, in the new
year we will be voting on, and I am sure we will pass, that it
will be mandatory that all
volunteers, umpires and park workers will have to go through a
police background check.
I just went to 40 College
Street, home of the Toronto Police Services Board, last week and
I received this package on doing criminal background checks on
volunteers. The cost for volunteer organizations today is $16.05
per background check. If you multiply that over the 135 coaches,
umpires and park staff we have, the little East York Baseball
Association would have to pay an additional $2,000 a year. I've
included a brief summary of our financial statement, and you can
see here that we only charge our kids half of what we get in and
we do fundraising like everyone else. We have a surplus of
$4,000. If we had to pay an additional $2,000, that would be half
of our surplus, which we use to buy bats, balls and equipment
with. We would just have to do more chocolate almond selling,
bingos and more fundraising.
The East York Baseball
Association never turns away needy children because their parents
can't pay. We find a way to look after our children, many of whom
are from broken homes, homes of hard-working single parents or
those children who come from homes on social assistance. We find
a way for them to have some fun playing baseball. We haven't
raised our fees in three years, but because of rising costs we
will likely have to raise our registration fees 20% this year. If
you want to play in our house league-last year it was $100-this
year it would cost $120 for many hours of fun. But if this bill
doesn't pass, Bill 9, we will probably have to raise our
registration a little bit more because the East York Baseball
Association will be taking the lead and doing police background
checks whether this bill is passed or not.
The businesses of our area
have been very supportive financially, but they're tapped out.
All of the body shops, realtors, insurance brokers, doctors,
dentists, legions and photo studios are inundated with requests
for fundraising because of government cutbacks. Surely the
government can help those volunteer organizations that work with
children and work with the aged, because children may form only
25% of our population, but they're 100% of our future.
Let me tell you something
about human nature. Most people won't buy insurance unless they
have to by law or else if they know someone else who has suffered
a loss. Even though it's mandated by law in Ontario to buy car
insurance, there are still thousands of Ontarians who go without
because of the cost. My point in mentioning this to you, ladies
and gentlemen, about human nature is that our little baseball
association hasn't done background checks in the past because of
the cost and neither have huge organizations, such as the Greater
Toronto Hockey League or the Ontario Baseball Association. If the
government decides to pass Bill 9, the excuse of the enormous
cost will be taken away from the very many volunteer
organizations which work with children. The government's action
will also send a message to volunteer organizations to do police
background checks to help prevent further victimization of
children.
To those of you who argue
that there will be an extra cost for police forces of this
province, I acknowledge that, yet I say to you, look at the
enormous societal cost of those children who have been victimized
and have lapsed into alcohol and drug addiction, prostitution and
continuing the chain of sexual abuse and tell me that a small
investment in doing a background check, in prevention, is worth
it.
Look at the enormous amount
of money that was spent on the inquiry regarding the late Martin
Kruze. May God rest his soul. When it was revealed what that poor
child and young man went through, eventually committing suicide,
we as a society must vow that it will never happen again.
As a civilized society, we
must ensure that it never happens again. When there is an
organization called NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love
Association, that argues that adult society has neither the moral
nor legal right to limit a child's selection of sexual partners,
I say beware. There is a René Guyon Society, that has a
credo of saying, "Sex before eight or it's too late." I say, with
these perverts roaming around, help.
I think we all agree that
society deems schooling, the fire department, policing and snow
clearing to be essential services. With all the reports of abuse
that I've outlined today, I hope you'll agree that police
background checks are essential services that our youth and aged,
the most vulnerable members of society, are entitled to. Please
help prevent further abuse.
The Chair:
Are there any questions from the parties? We have 10 minutes, so
about three minutes per caucus.
Mr Peter Kormos
(Niagara Centre): If I may, Chair, obviously, because of
what went on in the House, we started later than we had planned
to. Are we able to accommodate all the folks who are here
today?
The Chair:
Everybody is here, I believe. We should be able to. There's one
party that's going to present tomorrow.
Mr Kormos:
If I may, then-
The Chair:
We'll start off with Mr Kormos; three minutes each.
Mr Kormos: I
wanted to make this clear. You said the Greater Toronto Hockey
League does not routinely require record checks for its
volunteers.
Mr Yankou: I
don't believe so. I phoned up the Greater Toronto Hockey League
and asked them what their position was. My son plays in the
league. I spoke to a first or second director, Mr Steve Kupresak,
and he said he'd take it under advisement. I phoned Mr Gardner,
who's the president of the GTHL, and he has yet to return my
call. But as far as I know, the GTHL doesn't do routine police
background checks on their coaches.
Mr Kormos:
One of my concerns, and I'm not purporting to have investigated
every single organization, is that I did come across a
surprisingly large number of volunteer-based organizations,
especially those in health care and working with persons with
disabilities, that similarly had never adopted a consistent
practice of record checks. Part of the motive behind the bill is
to create an incentive by
not having the disincentive of a financial cost.
Thanks very much for taking
the time. I appreciate it.
Mr Frank Mazzilli
(London-Fanshawe): To explain the government's position,
we certainly always support the record checks being done. The
issue remains whether it will be a local decision or a
province-wide decision that our police departments be forced into
such actions. That's what the debate is about today and it will
continue for the next few days. As you likely know, some police
services have been providing this service free of cost to
volunteer organizations, and have for some time. Others have been
charging a minor amount for some of these checks. Again, I thank
you for your presentation, but just so you're aware of what the
debate is about, it's about the 50% or so of police services that
charge a minor amount for volunteer checks.
Mr Yankou: I
am aware. To us, $2,000 for our organization isn't a minor
amount. We can't use the OPP checking for free; we have to use
Toronto Police Service, because we're in Toronto.
Mr Mazzilli:
I appreciate it. You're in one of those areas that's certainly
affected.
Mr Michael Bryant (St
Paul's): My question has been addressed. Thank you very
much for coming.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate it.
ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA
The Chair:
Our next presenter is the Anglican Church of Canada. We have the
Reverend Harry Huskins, the Venerable Susan DeGruchy and the
Right Reverend Ann Tottenham. Thank you very much for coming. We
have 20 minutes for a presentation. Please introduce yourselves
to the members.
Rev Harry
Huskins: My name is Harry Huskins. I'm the executive
officer for policy for the Anglican Church in the province. We
became aware that this bill was going to be discussed in this
hearing, so we've attempted to bring together a delegation to you
from across the province. It was somewhat difficult to cancel
some appointments. We managed to bring a couple of the Toronto
bishops here. Bishop Ann Tottenham will be addressing a brief to
you in a moment. Archbishop O'Driscoll, the senior bishop in the
province, sends his regrets. Unfortunately, he was involved in a
meeting this afternoon that has been scheduled for over a year
and he couldn't make it here, but he sends his very best wishes
to you and his thanks to you for considering this matter, which
is very important to but is easily overlooked in the grander
scheme of things. With your permission, Mr Chairman, I'll allow
Bishop Ann Tottenham of the Diocese of Toronto to read our brief
to you.
1620
Bishop Ann
Tottenham: I am Bishop Ann Tottenham. With me are Bishop
Michael Bedford-Jones of the York-Scarborough area of our
diocese, and Reverend Susan DeGruchy who, with Harry, is on the
Anglican executive in Ontario.
Mr Chairman and members of
the committee, I would like to thank you for your generous
invitation to speak with you today. I represent some 400,000
Anglicans and more than 1,000 congregations in the province on a
matter of some concern to us: the problem that many of our groups
and agencies experience in meeting the costs of police records
screening checks of volunteers, the same matter you are
considering in this hearing.
The moral, social and legal
responsibilities we carry when we place volunteers and employees
in contact with the young and the vulnerable have been of
increasing concern to us. For this reason, we have made it a
priority over the last three years to participate actively in
both the national and Ontario screening initiatives. Our senior
elected layperson, Betty Livingston, the prolocutor of our
provincial synod, has taken a leading role in the development of
the sections concerning faith communities. Just two weeks ago
here in Toronto, there was a major training session in screening
protocols and techniques. Leaders from each of our seven
dioceses, and many other faith groups, were involved. They will
now go back to their communities and parishes to enable us to
implement these procedures in our organizations and groups.
These agencies and groups
address a wide range of needs and take many forms. In our
parishes we have the traditional Sunday school, youth and
scouting groups that you would expect to find. We also have an
increasing number of very active groups that work with seniors,
the ill and those with limited mobility, the physically,
developmentally and emotionally challenged and, of course, the
hungry and homeless. We have an increasing number of larger
agencies that work at the diocesan level. In the Diocese of
Toronto, we fund 10 community ministries and agencies with
specific mandates to address the needs of refugees, homeless men
and women, low-income women and children, troubled teenagers, and
women seeking shelter from abusive relationships. We will spend
$650,000 on these 10 ministries in Toronto alone this year, and
it will not be enough. Every day we see the needs growing, and we
find ourselves under increasing financial pressure right across
the province as we try to fill the expanding gaps in our social
fabric.
In addition to these efforts
on the parish and diocesan levels, we are increasingly entering
into joint efforts with other Christian denominations, other
faith groups, other community agencies and, in some cases, with
governments. We believe that these partnerships will increase
substantially over the next decade as all of us try to do the
best possible job with limited resources.
All this work depends on
volunteers; it could not be done without them. As we try to
increase the number of our volunteers and, at the same time,
implement our new screening procedures as widely as possible, the
problem we are encountering is the cost of screening checks. We
did not foresee this, but it is a growing problem as we try to
expand our ministries. We hear about this difficulty more and
more from the grassroots level. The director of community ministries program of
the Diocese of Toronto says, "Without some action to restrain or
eliminate the growing costs of screening checks, I foresee a
deterring effect on volunteer involvement and an increasing
impact on the scope of services we can provide."
This does not mean that we
will not continue to try to do the job. It does mean that how
well we can do that job will be undermined. We are particularly
worried about the emerging situation in which we will not only
have to curtail recruitment of skilled and enthusiastic
volunteers, but we'll also have to turn away some who offer their
services because we cannot afford to pay for their screening from
within our overstretched budgets.
The alternative to this is to
screen only some and not all of those who should be checked. This
undermines the very screening initiatives we have put so much
time and effort into developing in conjunction with the federal
and provincial governments.
Our church's provincial
council considered this problem, and we talked informally with
many of those involved at all levels and in all sectors. One
particular concern which emerged is that we do not want a
situation to develop in which financially stretched community
groups and financially stretched police services are placed in an
artificial but destructive conflict because of this issue. In
response to this, the provincial council, consisting of the
diocesan bishops and elected lay and clerical delegates from each
of our seven dioceses, passed the following motion:
"Be it resolved that this
provincial council, recognizing the financial burden imposed on
volunteer organizations and police services by the fee for CPIC
checks used in the screening of volunteers, urges the provincial
government to establish a fund to reimburse police services in
the province for the cost of these checks and the resources and
personnel, equipment and space needed to carry them out, and that
the police services be given the discretion to determine which
requests for CPIC checks for the screening of volunteers
reimbursable under this fund are appropriate to proceed
with."
We believe this approach
would resolve the four major problems we see in the present
situation. They are (1) the difficulty volunteer organizations
are having in paying the screening costs, (2) the disparity from
place to place of the actual fee being charged, (3) the inequity
across the province, where some of our groups are lucky enough to
be policed by the OPP or by police services that absorb the
costs, and others who have to pay fees, and (4) the disparity of
the financial burden between police services, some of which have
relatively limited numbers of requests and others which must deal
with a far larger number of requests.
We appear before you here
today not as experts in the questions of public finance and
administrative procedures which this problem raises. There are
others present who are far more experienced and knowledgeable in
these areas than we are. Your Chair's experience on the Barrie
city council, Mr Guzzo's similar experience in Ottawa and my
colleague, Mr DeFaria, in the Peel region, have experience in
government that we do not have. We are experts, however, on what
is actually happening on the ground with our organizations,
groups and agencies. I think Mr DeFaria's own days as a social
worker will allow him to relate to this.
We have come here today to
ask for your help. Thank you for allowing us to appear.
Archdeacon Susan
DeGruchy: I just have a few brief additional remarks, if
I may. With regard to the definition of "qualified agency" in the
bill, we have some concerns as to whether or not the church would
be covered by this bill because of this definition. It may or may
not be a problem in anybody's mind but our own.
Our concern arises from the
fact that a qualified agency is a non-profit association whose
main object is to provide services to one or more of the
following client groups: individuals under 18, individuals 60 or
older and individuals with a disability significantly affecting
their ability to carry out activities of daily living.
There is no doubt in my mind,
and in the experience of those within the church, that the church
does provide services to all these groups and provides these
services to a large extent. But the main object of the church is
to worship and to serve Jesus Christ and not to provide those
services. Those services flow out of the service of our Lord.
It would seem to me that we
might wind up in a very strange situation if this bill were to
become law, in that our diocesan camps, for example, do have as
their main purpose serving people under the age of 18 and
therefore might be able to get their volunteer checks without
charge, whereas a parish church that has a Sunday school, that
would serve far more children for a far longer time, might indeed
have to pay for those. We just raise that as a concern for your
consideration.
1630
Rev Huskins:
Just before we have a few minutes for an opportunity to ask
questions, I can say that we have with us the Reverend Dawn
Davis, who is the human resources officers for the Diocese of
Toronto, who deals directly with this situation every day. If a
question should arise in which facts and figures, actual numbers
on the ground, would be helpful, if it's OK with you I'll just
refer things to Reverend Dawn Davis.
The Chair:
Certainly. We have about three minutes per caucus. We'll start
off with the government.
Mr Mazzilli:
How many checks would you do in the course of a year?
Rev Huskins:
It sounds like we're going to call upon the services of Reverend
Dawn Davis very quickly. My field is policy. You know how
detached that can be from pragmatics. Dawn, would you like to
answer?
Rev Dawn
Davis: First of all, what we look at is the various
types of ministries we offer, for example, Out of the Cold
volunteers, nursing home visitors, parish nurses, youth group
leaders, soup kitchen leaders, the whole gamut. What we would be
looking at is approximately-again, this is just the Diocese of
Toronto that I'm referring
to; my colleague in the Roman Catholic Church has about three
times this to consider. We are one diocese of eight within the
province, and we're the third-largest denomination. So keeping
that in mind, just for us, we're looking at 30,000.
Mr Mazzilli:
If this service were free and paid for by the taxpayers of
Toronto, do you expect that number of 30,000 would increase or
stay the same?
Rev Davis:
No, I would imagine there are 30,000, then about 10,000 at the
most every year thereafter. That would probably be at the most. I
would say there would be between 5,000 and 10,000 every year.
We'd have 30,000 to begin with because we'd have to get all the
existing ministries covered.
Can I refer also to a
question you raised earlier? We found that we're having a really
difficult time getting free reference checks. They range between
$20 and $50, and when there's more and more desire for that, it's
becoming less an option that the police are able to give a free
check.
Mr Bryant: I
have a similar question. Maybe you've just told me the answer,
but I'm terrible at math. What was the cost, approximately, to do
these checks, say, last year?
Rev Davis:
We are only starting, so right now we've only begun with our
senior clergy. We have to start with our existing clergy, which
is 600-
Mr Bryant:
I'm sorry, I was dyslexic in my question. What do you anticipate
the cost to be, approximately?
Rev Davis:
I'm anticipating $600,000 at least, for the first year, and then
something around $200,000 thereafter.
My Roman Catholic colleague
is looking at 100,000 people who need to be checked for the first
year.
Mr Kormos:
Legislative counsel who got instructions to craft the bill was,
trust me, not instructed to exclude the church. I appreciate your
comments in terms of how you identify yourselves or might be
identified by others vis-à-vis the definition of non-profit
agency. We could ask legislative counsel to look at it again, and
perhaps seek an amendment. But I hope you people agree that the
criminal record search is not the be-all and end-all. That in
itself is not the sole determinant. That's why I'm looking
forward: The government has announced $1.2 million to be invested
in developing a program to help organizations-because there's
some expertise out there now-to develop a system whereby you can
screen people, and the criminal record check is but a part of
that. I hope I'm singing from the same hymn book as you in that
regard.
Rev Davis:
Yes.
Rev Michael
Bedford-Jones: It's just that in our own diocese our
major effort actually is around educating the volunteers and
putting into practice, for instance, implementing safety and so
forth. We very much recognize that this is only one aspect of
it.
Rev Davis:
The figures I used were concerning medium- and high-risk. It's
not the whole volunteer sector of the church; this is just
medium- and high-risk volunteers, so you can see how prohibitive
the cost is for us.
The Chair:
Thanks very much for your presentation. We appreciate that.
TED REEVE HOCKEY ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our next presenter is the Ted Reeve Hockey Association; John
McKay, chairman.
Mr John
McKay: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, honourable
members. Unfortunately, I have not made a resumé, as I see
the others have done.
My name is John McKay. I'm
the chairman of the Ted Reeve Hockey Association and have been
for the last 20-odd years. I've been involved with minor sports
for in excess of 40 years. Our hockey association came into
service in 1954. At the present time, we have approximately 750
to 800 boys and girls. Most of the people involved in our
organization-the larger number of them-are unpaid volunteers. We
have a great number of volunteers who have in excess of 25 years.
As a matter of fact, one of our members has been with us since
day one. Also, a large number of our coaches come and go as their
children do. Any of you who have been involved realize what
happens. You come in with your child and you leave later on with
your child.
So we do have a variance of
people involved with our association. There are approximately 150
to 200 volunteers. Over the years, like many in the sports field,
we've been very shocked and upset to learn of the many instances
of sexual abuse and abuse of children in the sporting world by
coaches or any others that are involved with these children.
We also feel that anything
that has happened in the past is a matter for the authorities and
the justice system. However, our executive feel that we should do
everything in our power to prevent any such abuse in the future.
At this time, we are looking for guidance from the members of
Parliament on what we can do to prevent future incidents such as
have happened in other sections. As the gentleman from East York
said, we have been very fortunate-and I knock on wood; I am
superstitious-that as of this time, we have not been inundated
with sexual abuse or abuse of any kind with the children of our
association.
At this time I would like to
draw your attention to a letter dated March 16, 1998, to the
Honourable Charles Harnick. This letter is in the material which
is in your possession. We at that time asked some pertinent
questions, the answers to which we have not fully received at
this time. We have been involved and very concerned about this
subject for quite a few years. Our executive has been back and
forth, but I think the first letter was to the Honourable Mr
Harnick. We had spoken to our members of Parliament, both the MPP
and the MP.
So we have been concerned
about this situation over the years, and at this time we're
looking for guidance. Since we wrote to the Honourable Mr
Harnick, we've written several other letters to government
departments, but as you
can see by the replies, we have no proper guidance or plan on how
associations such as ours are to deal with this issue.
The issue is the safety of
our boys and girls, or any children that we're involved with,
from any sexual abuse in the future. We want to know what we can
do to prevent this, and we'd request some guidelines from people
such as yourselves.
1640
Some of the replies to our
letters, as you can see, suggest that we contact the police or
that we contact a lawyer and seek legal advice. We have had a
dialogue with the police department. We've sent several letters
to the police department. Incidentally, they've been very
co-operative, but they, like ourselves, are in limbo as to what
they can and can't do when you're taking on volunteers. They've
not been able to give us any real, helpful information in our
quest for ways to weed out undesirables. We feel that the
suggestion to such legal advice seems geared to covering civil
liability than to get a plan to prevent the abuse of our
children.
Further, as a non-profit
organization we do not always have the financial resources. If
any of you have been involved, you know we're always looking for
money. One way or another, as the gentleman from East York said,
we're always looking for ways to raise money, and we don't always
have the ways and means to look for legal advice.
Incidentally, we do carry
liability insurance for injuries to our children, our coaches or
managers, but we were informed-I think it was two years ago when
our contract came out-that we would no longer be covered for any
sexual abuse. I don't know if this is the time to say this, but
it has put our organization in a bad position if anything should
happen. Our big concern is for the children, but we must be
realistic to realize that there's also a concern for the people
who are doing the job. We don't want them out on a limb.
We have received a form
from the police, a reference check. I guess you probably have it
somewhere, or you've seen it. One of the things we're concerned
with is that there's no age stated on the form and how young a
person can be to be asked to sign this form to release
information. We would like to make you aware that we have many
volunteer members who are under the age of 18. Some of them are
15, 16, 17 years of age, and we wonder if it's proper and legal
to ask them to sign a consent form of any kind. These are some of
the things on which we look for guidance from yourselves, the
Legislature.
Included with the form from
the Toronto police there's also another form-I think you have it
there-stating, as the gentleman from East York mentioned, that it
will be $16.05 for each and every member to have them looked at.
This would run approximately $2,500 to $3,000 a year for our
organization. Listening to the members from the church, I suppose
it would be a humongous amount of money for all these checks to
be done, but I suspect it would cost more to run one or two court
cases than to pay the money to make sure these people are not
around children.
One of the questions we
asked ourselves was, should we do this check once a year at a
total cost of $2,500 to $3,000, should we just do the new ones
coming in or should we do it every second, third or fourth year?
Once again, we're asking for guidance.
Another thing that cropped
into our minds was the idea of asking our volunteers to pay for
this check. For any of you who have been involved in any kind of
volunteer work, you're giving your time, and then to ask that a
police check be done on you, maybe we could lose some very
good-well, not the check being done; I agree fully with that on
every one of them. But to ask them to pay for this, we might lose
an awful lot of good volunteers in the future, and not only
sports but any other organizations that are involved.
On behalf of the Ted Reeve
Hockey Association, we support Bill 9. This support is for the
700 to 800 boys and girls playing at Ted Reeve and any other
children who are involved in sports or anything else which might
require older people looking after them in Ontario. We agree with
the bill in that respect.
I don't know if I'm in
order or not, but we would also like and hope that the committee
might consider an amendment to Bill 9 to deal with the underage
volunteer and clarify that situation if it is not already covered
by law.
It is the hope of our
association that the members of the Legislature will develop
detailed guidance for organizations such as ours to assist in
determining who is suitable to work with children and who is not.
I've used the word several times; give us your guidance.
I must also say that it is
obvious that a criminal conviction of any kind should not
necessarily result in a complete ban from volunteer work.
Sometimes the nature of the crime does not warrant such a ban. At
present, the courts are convicting people, juveniles, and then
sentencing them to community work. You've got to be very careful
on how that ban is worked if they have been convicted. Assault of
any kind? I don't know, gentlemen and ladies. But we do know that
you cannot ban them all. These are people who might've been in
trouble for different reasons. It doesn't matter what they are.
As a matter of fact, we have five, six or seven young offenders
who have come to our organization to work with young boys and
girls because the court has given them community work to serve.
So we not only serve the children; we help to serve the young
people who get themselves into trouble.
I would like at this time,
in closing, to remind each and every member of this committee
that there are thousands of children in your constituency
involved in minor sports and other fields that require senior
people looking after them. These children at the Ted Reeve Hockey
Association, along with the other children in the communities,
need your help in providing protection from sexual abuse or any
other abuse that a child might be subject to. Remember, when
these children, for a few hours a week, are under our guidance, they're
our obligation. We would like to see them leave our arena in a
safe situation.
Ladies and gentlemen, these
children are your children. They're your obligation 24 hours a
day, 365 days a year. Please enact some laws-guidance-that would
help us all to protect our future generations.
Thank you, ladies and
gentlemen, honourable members, for allowing me to have my say
today. If there's anything you'd like to ask, if possible I will
answer it.
The Chair:
We have about a minute for each caucus.
1650
Mr Bryant:
My only question is that you asked for an amendment. Do you mean
an amendment to the initiative or do you mean an amendment to
this act?
Mr McKay:
An amendment to the act. I can't see it, because my eyes are not
good either way. What we'd like to see is something in the act
that would give us permission to check children, because 15-, 16-
and 17-year-old children could easily sexually abuse or abuse
younger children, and we have the right to ask for that
information. Or is it already a law? If it's the law, it's fine,
we can ask them.
We're in a ticklish
situation. We have people my age and people 14, 15, 16, 17. We
have great variances, and one of the things that came up at one
of our meetings was, can we ask these children-they're still
children to us-to sign a form such as the police form to get
permission to check these children?
Mr Kormos:
Section 3 says, "This act does not authorize a police records
check that is not otherwise authorized by law." Having said that,
you will recall it was the scenario around a throne speech a few
years ago where a young offender's name was mentioned as a result
of his parent's giving consent, and it was concluded as a result
of that investigation that a parent couldn't consent, but the
clear inference was that the young person could have consented.
It was a learning experience for everybody.
So it's my submission-and
Mr Mazzilli raised that with me as well-that yes, you have every
right to know if a young offender, who is still a young person,
has been convicted of an offence that would otherwise bar him. I
think you have every right to be able to screen him. Otherwise,
every young person you have, if you can't do a criminal record
search, you're bringing them on at great risk.
Mr McKay:
You're saying it's OK, but is it law? Can I do this? Could we be
sued? Could I be taken to court? Could we spend a lot of time
back and forth to court if the parents were to decide to sue us
because we asked? I don't know. Is it law at the present time
that we can ask this child?
Mr Kormos:
I'm not aware of it being clearly specified.
Mr McKay:
That's my question, because we do have these boys and girls who
are involved, and for me to take it back to my executive, "Hey,
Peter Kormos said it was fine"-
Mr Kormos:
Heck, I don't practise law, and even when I did I wasn't that
effective.
The Chair:
There's one more questioner.
Mr
Mazzilli: Mr McKay, I just want to thank you on behalf
of our members for appearing. The same question you had, of
course, I had with Mr Kormos. As you are well aware, some of the
intent and the good spirit in this legislation covers into
federal jurisdiction, as to the Young Offenders Act. I don't know
that right now any member in any of the three parties is quite
clear on the question you have. Again, thank you, and we will be
debating it.
Mr McKay:
Thank you very much on behalf of the association, but please give
us some guidance on what we can do and can't do.
Mr Kormos:
On a point of order, Chair: May I please advise the Chair that
the representatives from the provincial synod of the Anglican
Church of Canada will be submitting a request for reimbursement
to the clerk for the two persons who travelled from Sudbury. They
had to leave promptly.
The other thing is, could
we perhaps ask Mr Fenson, with apologies for the short time
frame, if any material is available to him in response to the
query put about the ability of a young offender to consent to his
or her record being obtained and/or the need for a consent to be
by both parent and YO. We know that the parent isn't
enough-that's what was revealed a few years ago-but do parent and
YO suffice?
The Chair:
Understood.
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS
The Chair:
Our next presenter is the East Scarborough Boys and Girls Club,
David Rew, executive director.
Mr David
Rew: I'm here actually representing Boys and Girls Clubs
of Ontario and Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Toronto, as well
as the Scarborough Boys and Girls Club, all three of which I am a
member of.
My experience with children
and youth goes back over 24 years full-time, and things certainly
have changed. The environment out there has changed very
dramatically over that period of time. In fact, I grew up through
the Central YMCA here in Toronto and swam naked until I was 15
years of age-was required to swim naked until I was 15-and we
certainly aren't in that position any more. That was the policy
of the time. It was a YMCA and you did that. Obviously, we're not
in that kind of situation any more and we are now moving towards
a whole different ballpark in terms of that whole thing.
The previous speaker talked
about insurance. My agency's insurance went from $8,000 to
$18,000 a year two years ago for liability insurance. If I didn't
want abuse and harassment coverage, I would have $8,000
insurance. If I wanted abuse and harassment coverage, it was
$18,000. We went to market; the best I could do was $18,000. The
other quotes were $28,000 and $30,000 for liability insurance, for my agency alone.
That's one Boys and Girls Club. There are 24 in Ontario.
Clearly, there's a real
issue out there around that. Police reference checks is one of 10
steps that we do in our agency to look at the whole issue. I know
the previous speakers talked a little bit about high risk.
High-risk volunteers are ones that you're going to place
one-on-one with children and youth or with seniors or in their
home. That's what they consider a high-risk volunteer. It's not a
volunteer who is with five other people and never alone with a
child. They'd be considered very low-risk volunteers, and
therefore there are some issues around how many people and what
you would do in those cases, if they're never alone.
However, having said that,
there also is a case, and Boys and Girls Clubs is in front of
this case in BC, where the individual made contact within the
organization, then had the abuse outside the organization. This
was 20 years ago. However, we still are being looked at for
vicarious liability, that we allowed the contact to happen within
our organization. There's no cut-and-dried issue around abuse and
harassment coverage, around how you can protect yourself as an
organization.
One of the things we
believe in is volunteerism. As part of our core values, we are
committed to volunteerism. We believe in that. There are 24 clubs
in Ontario, and part of the package talks about that, talks about
the number of members. We dealt with 52,535 kids last year in the
province in the 24 different Boys and Girls Clubs. We dealt with
over 1,000 staff and over 3,341 volunteers-that's an amazing
number of people-for over 240,000 hours of volunteer time. I did
a little calculation there. There are 52,000 children, 3,000
volunteers. Almost half of those volunteers were youth volunteers
within our structure and organization. There are 212 full-time
staff, 864 part-time staff.
The other issue is
part-time staff. Most of them are youth in our communities; most
of them are at high risk, are low income. They don't have the
$15; they don't have that money. I use $15, because it is the
Toronto Police Services Board's current fee, but they add GST to
that, so it becomes $16.07 or whatever. That is a deterrent.
Interestingly enough, the
Ministry of Education has now put into their process that youth
will volunteer. Well, that's interesting. I had a whole classroom
of students come down the other day to the Boys and Girls Club
wanting to volunteer. I said: "That's nice. Thirty times $15.
Who's going to pay for that? Are you, the student, going to pay
for that, or am I, the agency, going to pick up that cost of
having you come down and volunteer in my organization?"
1700
It is a requirement by law,
as well, in my organization that we screen volunteers and do a
police reference check. I have licensed child care and I have a
number of other programs that fall under the ministry's
guidelines. Again, the ministry comes down with guidelines and
then no money to follow up the guidelines. To back off on the
child care is a prime example of that. I have nine full-time
staff in child care, plus about 10 or 15 other child care staff
in my organization alone that we were going to have to do police
reference checks at $45 a piece for. Then the ministry said:
"Wait a minute. We'll grandfather those folks in, but any new
employees you hire must have a police reference check." So now,
currently, the policy says that any new employee hired must have
a police reference check.
A lot of the individuals we
deal with are from low-income families and there aren't the
dollars to do that, so it's a choice we have to make as an
organization. Are we prepared to put up the money for them, or
are we going to say they can't volunteer in our programs and
provide services to our community?
There's also a ripple
effect. That's one of the other things I did at the bottom of my
last page: 240,000 hours of volunteer time, at $8 an hour, which
is very close to minimum wage, represents $1,921,134. That's what
it would cost our organization, Boys and Girls Club of Ontario,
to provide services if they weren't able to use volunteers.
I guess the other one is
workfare. That's another interesting program, but if anybody
wants to volunteer in my organization, they must get a police
reference check and have that done as well.
The other thing-don't quote
me on this, but I believe it's $25 to change your name in the
province. I think we need to look at that. Predators are becoming
very creative in their access to kids. They're having to become
creative because we are becoming more vigilant about making sure
they don't get access to children that are vulnerable and leaving
them alone. We're also doing the police reference checks and
we're training children, teaching children. However, you can
change your name for $25, and if you have a police reference
check on this new name I don't believe it's cross-referenced. I
don't know, but I'd like somebody to check that out. But I
believe it's $25 to change your name legally in this province,
and once you've done that, if you have a criminal record I'm not
sure it's cross-referenced against the new name.
The other concern I have is
the delay in process. It's simple to say that we're going to have
no-cost reference checks, but if it takes me eight weeks to get a
reference check on a volunteer, the volunteer is either gone or
they've gone somewhere else or they are no longer interested. If
you look at the school year, by the time you get to-and we do
cycles as well, which is another issue that needs to be looked at
in terms of that whole process. It is a time delay. Now we pay
for it so it's probably somewhat fairly quick. If all of a sudden
Toronto Police Services weren't getting any money and they had
all these requests, I would hate to see how long it was going to
take for me to get a police reference check back from the
police.
That concludes my comments
today. We definitely support the bill. We see the value in doing
police reference checks, as I said before, as one component of
doing volunteer reference checks and staff reference checks. We certainly support the
bill and we believe it would save our organization a substantial
amount of money.
The Chair:
We have about three minutes per caucus.
Mr Kormos:
Thank you for emphasizing the business of a police records check
being but one component of a broader screening process. You heard
me make reference to it a few minutes ago.
The government has
announced the $1.2 million. I think the government is going to
realize pretty soon that $1.2 million for the type of thing that
really has to be encompassed isn't going to go very far. We're
going to support that goal, but with the numbers you talk about,
$1.2 million probably won't do the job, so that means it's just a
beginning.
You talk about the
insurance. What does your insurer say about how you screen
volunteers or whether or not you screen them? Would you get any
insurance at all if you didn't have some sort of disciplined and
identified screening process?
Mr Rew:
No. I would not get any insurance at all if I didn't have a
process in place, and they actually review that process. Ours is
about a 10-page document in terms of the screening process and
the policy around that, and they actually get a copy of that
policy and review that policy.
Mr Kormos:
Do they require police records checks as a part of the
screening?
Mr Rew:
Certainly. If we didn't do it, I don't think I could get
insurance.
Mr Kormos:
If you didn't have insurance would you be operating?
Mr Rew:
No.
Mrs Brenda Elliott
(Guelph-Wellington): Good afternoon, Mr Rew. I have a
question for you. You indicate that you're supportive of the
bill, but do I understand correctly that you have a concern that
if the checks were free, there would be such a deluge of checks
requested that the delay could be such that it wouldn't be as
valuable to you as they may presently be?
Mr Rew: I
can't answer for the police services, but you've heard today the
kinds of numbers you're talking about. It would have to be phased
in in some sort of process. And the question arises that a police
reference check, once you've completed it, is good today, but,
you know, tomorrow they're convicted. Clearly, we'll also have to
look at a process of, how often do you do it? One of the other
speakers talked about that. Do we do it annually? Do we do it
every three years?
If you've got a staff on
staff and you've got a volunteer who's with you, you would hope
to know that if charges had come forward you would be aware of
those and subsequent charges and deal with it at that point, but
it's a very tricky thing. If a volunteer comes in seasonally, if
they come in and spend only the summer months with you, or
part-time staff-we have a lot of staff who work for us in the
summertime. They're in the higher-risk area where they're taking
kids swimming, they're in with younger children all day long.
Clearly, you want to make
sure they are done and done annually. The issue gets into the
whole timing of that process. When a part-time staff gets hired,
it's the end of May or June when you hire them, and you have to
have them in place by July 1 to start working in your programs or
they're of no value to you; you can't use them.
Mrs Lyn McLeod
(Thunder Bay-Atikokan): I want to pursue Mr Kormos's
line of questioning because I was staggered by your risk and
liability insurance being $18,000 and the fact that $10,000 of
that is for abuse-harassment liability protection.
You said to Mr Kormos that
you couldn't get insurance at all if you didn't take appropriate
procedures, including following along on the police security
checks. But does the fact that you take 10 steps reduce the
$10,000 in any way, or is it just that it's a flat rate no matter
how many precautions you take?
Mr Rew: It
reduced it a little bit this year. The reality is that it's only
reduced because we've had it for a year. A lot of organizations
do not have abuse and harassment coverage any more in this
province. This is not unique.
I made a decision that I
wasn't going to expose our organization and our staff, primarily,
and volunteers to not having some kind of coverage. You could
have a false accusation against a staff. Technically, if you
don't have any abuse and harassment coverage, you get no lawyer;
you get nothing. Even if it's found to be completely unfounded,
the individual would have to cough up that money out of their own
pocket right now, in most organizations.
In fact, the waiver came
through as a waiver, a rider, added to your insurance policy. Our
insurance broker made it quite large, in red, bold letters,
saying you no longer have abuse and harassment coverage. Most
carriers put it on the back page, in the bottom line, in fine
print, "You no longer have abuse and harassment coverage as part
of this policy." And the policy didn't reduce in its cost. It
just stayed the same, so everybody thought, "We've got the same
coverage as we had last year." But they did not have abuse and
harassment coverage any longer.
Most organizations actually
operating in this province right now do not have abuse and
harassment coverage.
Mrs
McLeod: It seems to be that Mr Kormos's bill has led to
the raising of a number of questions about the whole state of
volunteerism in the province that need to be addressed in
something much broader even than the bill.
Mr Rew:
And the coverage I have currently is called coverage from the day
it's signed forward. It doesn't cover anything previous to that.
Not only am I paying $10,000 just for that coverage, it's from
today forward-nothing to do with anything that happened in the
past. It's a real Catch-22 that a lot of organizations have found
themselves in.
The industry has been
meeting around this. Two weeks ago, the broker called me and said
most insurance companies are running for the hills right now
around this coverage.
There are only two or three that will even give it to you in the
entire province. A lot of them, even the large ones, are not
providing abuse and harassment coverage any more.
1710
LORRAINE STREET
The Chair:
Our next presenter is Lorraine Street. Thank you very much for
coming.
Ms Lorraine
Street: Thank you for the opportunity. My name is
Lorraine Street. I'm here speaking as an individual. I work as a
private consultant in employment practices risk management. But I
have a long background in this issue, which I'll describe to you
in a moment. In the document outlined before you, I would like to
draw your attention to the appendix at the end, which, if we have
time, I would run through.
I am writing and appear
before you today to voice my opposition to Bill 9, An Act
respecting the cost of checking the police records of individuals
who may work for certain non-profit service agencies.
First, let me say that I
applaud Mr Kormos's good intentions in sponsoring this bill. I am
very sorry to be at odds with the representatives of non-profit
organizations whom I have heard this afternoon, but I believe I
have no choice but to do so. Having worked in, with and for
non-profit organizations as a volunteer and paid staff member for
35 years, I can attest to the serious, often desperate financial
difficulties facing agencies trying to serve children, youth,
seniors and persons with disabilities. Yes, paying a fee for a
police records check does add a burden to already overburdened
organizations. However, the solution to that difficulty, I must
strenuously argue, does not lie in prohibiting police services
from being able to recover the costs of providing them.
I am opposed to Bill 9 for
two simple reasons: (1) It is unfair to Ontario's police
agencies; and (2) it will damage and harm the very agencies it
intends to support.
I believe I am qualified to
make this statement because I have spent the last 10 years
studying, researching, writing about and training organizations
on risk management and screening and, in particular, on the use,
abuse and misuse of police records checks as a screening tool. I
have done more work on this issue than anyone else in Canada.
From 1993 to 1996, I had
the privilege of working with the Law Enforcement and Records
Managers Network, LEARN, a subcommittee of the Information and
Technology Committee of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of
Police, while LEARN members developed recommended protocols for
the release of information held by police, this document.
From 1994 to 1996, I led
the research team and was the principal author of The Screening
Handbook, the central resource of the first phase of the national
education campaign, funded by the Solicitor General Canada,
Justice Canada and Health Canada.
In 1995, I wrote Screening
Volunteers and Employees Providing Direct Service to Vulnerable
Individuals Through Police Records Checks, a resource document
commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social
Services to assist its 5,000 transfer payment and licensed
agencies in complying with the ministry's directive on criminal
reference checks. That document was distributed by the ministry
to its 5,000 agencies.
Since 1998 I have worked
with the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture, and Recreation
on the development of risk management tools for sport
organizations dealing with harassment and abuse, and since 1994 I
have conducted over 175 workshops on screening, making
presentations to representatives of over 4,000 organizations in
Ontario and other parts of Canada.
With specific respect to
Bill 9 and the effect of Bill 9, first on police agencies, in
order to respond to current levels of requests for police records
checks, police agencies must already dedicate significant
resources, including significant human resources. In keeping with
the recommendations of LEARN, endorsed by the Ontario Association
of Chiefs of Police, many police agencies in Ontario have been
providing police records checks which include not only a check of
databases held at the CPIC, the Canadian Police Information
Centre, but also a check of local records, and often checks of
local records of other police services. "Doing a police records
check" is not, as many think, a simple matter of simply keying in
a name and date of birth and receiving a computer-generated
report that is then sent on to an agency or given to an
individual
The best police records
check service to non-profit agencies is one that includes this
check of CPIC, local records, and, when warranted and possible,
checks of other local records, followed by the preparation of a
report that may or may not include all of the information
gleaned, depending on the policies of the police agency and the
specifics of a memorandum of understanding signed with the
non-profit.
Such a memorandum, among
other things, forces the non-profit agency to recognize and
accept its own serious obligations in receiving confidential
information such as this. In fact, a thorough police records
check includes far more than is outlined in section 1 of Bill 9.
Criminal matters and judicial orders are not the only categories
of information important to screening efforts. Information
relating to non-criminal matters-for example, apprehensions under
the Mental Health Act, convictions or admissions of guilt under
the CFSA-is equally, if not more, important to good screening
efforts.
While not every police
service in Ontario currently provides such in-depth police
records checks, every effort should be made to encourage, rather
than discourage them, from doing so. The point cannot be made too
strongly: These thorough checks are infinitely more valuable in
the screening process than are checks related solely to criminal
matters and judicial orders. If police are not allowed to recover
their costs by charging organizations for doing these checks,
then I believe we will
see one or more of the following scenarios result in short
order:
(1) If they are to continue
to provide the same or better levels of service, and if they are
not allowed to recover the cost through fees, police services may
be forced to divert resources from other programs or
services.
(2) Instead of diverting
resources from elsewhere, police agencies may decide to reduce
the level and depth of their police records check service,
restricting them to a check of CPIC databases and limiting their
reports to a simple "hit" or "no hit" statement. This would be
the least expensive way to proceed, but this kind of report is
almost useless in screening.
(3) Police agencies may
conclude that they cannot afford to provide this service and may
discontinue it, referring individuals and agencies directly to
the RCMP.
In terms of the bill's
potential effect on the non-profit sector, while the bill has
laudable intentions and on the surface may seem to be a good
thing for non-profits, I would argue that it will have very
serious "effets pervers"-unintended adverse medium- and long-term
effects that will outweigh its superficial and short-term
benefits.
(1) The first potential
adverse effect is that police agencies may in fact decide to
significantly restrict their programs or to stop them, as
outlined above. Neither of these would help the non-profit
community in any way.
(2) Before police arrive at
this point, I believe the system, now overloaded as it is, will
be swamped. Currently, it can take as long as six weeks in some
areas for a police records check to be completed and returned.
Many agencies already place individuals in positions, even
positions of trust with vulnerable clients, on a probationary
basis pending the receipt of a police records check. That itself
poses risks, but many agencies feel they have no choice. If that
waiting period increases from two or three weeks, past six or
eight or 10, to 12 or 14 or more, the risks posed to vulnerable
clients skyrocket. Abusers often know the system best, and they
will take full advantage of this extra time.
(3) I believe that passage
of this bill will place an inappropriate emphasis on police
records checks, having the unfortunate effect of encouraging
agencies to make police records checks their primary screening
measure, rather than discouraging them from doing this.
It is clear from the
research-including the federal government's Information Systems
on Child Sex Offenders and Report of the Federal Ad Hoc
Interdepartmental Working Group on Information Systems on Child
Sex Offenders and the national research conducted for the
national education campaign on screening-that many non-profit
agencies believe police records checks to be the most important,
if not the only important, screening tool available to them.
Despite the availability of resources which demonstrate how
untenable that belief is, it continues to be widely held, and is
reinforced, I believe, because agencies are increasingly afraid
of their exposure to liability, as you've just heard.
Many seek, consciously or
not, to transfer responsibility for screening to the police.
Understandably, agencies want the police to tell them if someone
is "a good person" or "a criminal." In reality, it is neither
possible nor desirable for the police to do this. The
responsibility for screening must be shouldered by the agency and
its representatives, the only individuals with full knowledge of
and control over the situation in their organization, and
therefore the only people who can properly screen paid and unpaid
staff. They have an obligation to educate themselves about this
issue and to do serious and proper pre-hiring, but especially
post-hiring, screening through a variety of measures in order to
be duly diligent.
Please let me be clear: If
a police records check could "tell" agencies if someone is or is
not a criminal or a person of bad character, I would be in favour
of encouraging them, perhaps even requiring them. The fact is
they cannot. To suggest otherwise does a disservice to the
agencies which use them and places their clients and workers at
great risk.
A police records check,
with all its limitations, is a screening tool which must be used
by agencies, particularly in screening for positions of trust
However, organizations must never, ever rely on police records
checks as their primary or, worse, sole screening measure. A
police records check simply cannot bear that weight, as the
police themselves are the first to point out. Any measure which
places a spotlight or gives some kind of prominence or primacy to
police records checks only undermines the work of educating
agencies about what really constitutes good screening.
Before I finish, I would
like to address two issues that were raised by other presenters,
if I may. One is the question about the Young Offenders Act. The
question is that actually there's a grey area in the Young
Offenders Act in terms of whether or not information related to a
young offender can be disclosed to anyone other than the young
offender himself or herself. There is an Ontario case of a young
offender suing the chief of police in Belleville-it's called YO
v. Begbie-in which the chief of police and the commissioners were
sued by a young offender. The issue was whether or not that young
offender had given informed consent to having his record searched
and the information being released. But Mr Kormos is also right,
the agency also has the legal right to request the screening.
The other issue that was
raised is that of name changes. Under the Community Safety Act
that was passed last year, from now on when an individual changes
his or her name in Ontario, that information will connect, there
will be a cross-reference with the change of name registry and
police records, but prior to that year there is no such
connection.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. We have three minutes for each caucus.
1720
Mr
Mazzilli: In your view, would record checks increase if
they were free of charge?
Ms Street: Absolutely, yes.
Mr
Mazzilli: What do you base that opinion on?
Ms Street:
The day after I read the bill, I asked the question of the
executive director of an organization I'm doing work for. I asked
her what she would do if they were free. She said she would send
every name that came in on an application form. Instead of
waiting until they had the final five or three or two applicants
through their other screening measures, because of the time
involved they would send all the names in. That would have the
effect of swamping the system, certainly in Toronto, and in some
other communities as well, I have no doubt. I understand why she
would do it; I understand it absolutely. But the fact is, and
this is the most important point I hope to make in this
presentation, this is going to have an opposite effect from the
one that's intended, that agencies will end up getting less and
less information rather than more and more, and they'll get it
later and later rather than sooner.
Mr
Mazzilli: And in your professional opinion, having
worked with agencies, do they see this as a way of avoiding
liability, by doing more checks?
Ms Street:
With all due respect to Mr Kormos and the questions he asked of
the previous speakers, it is true that agencies will say, "No, we
don't believe police records checks are the primary source of
screening." Even what they assume about them is most often
incorrect and they place a greater reliance on them than is
warranted. For example, in a room of 100 people, if you ask them
if their assumption is that a police records check would tell
them if someone had a criminal record, most of the people in that
room would say yes. The fact is that it can't guarantee to tell
you anything. It may tell you that, but it can't guarantee to
tell you a thing.
Mr
Mazzilli: Having worked with non-profit agencies, the
definition of a "qualified agency" under this act means a
non-profit corporation or association. What would that mean to
you?
Ms Street:
I'm not sure I understand your question, sir.
Mr
Mazzilli: A "qualified agency" under this act is
specified as a non-profit corporation or association. Is that a
pretty wide term, that you know of, for a-
Ms Street:
Sure. If I understand it correctly, it would include sport
organizations, recreation organizations, incorporated and
unincorporated non-profit organizations, registered charities.
It's a fairly broad definition, if I understood it correctly.
Mrs
McLeod: I appreciate the concern you've expressed very
adequately about the inadequacies of police checks in terms of
providing the kind of security that's needed. I think I
understand what you say, that if it's free, somehow the system is
going to be overloaded. But my understanding is that the police
checks are required and therefore they have to be done no matter
what.
Ms Street:
No.
Mrs
McLeod: I'll let you respond to that, but my other
question is that we've heard from the non-profit organizations
the financial burden they're bearing. It seems to me that simply
being opposed to this bill doesn't solve the problem of their
financial burden or create a more adequate security check. I
would appreciate knowing what you think a better alternative is,
because obviously you're not suggesting there shouldn't be a
security check at all.
Ms Street:
No. A security check is not screening, a police records check is
not screening, and all too often it's equated as such: a police
records check equals screening or screening equals a police
records check. It's a very dangerous approach to this. Screening
involves many steps, pre- but especially post-engagement of
someone. The most important screening measures that any
organization can take are supervision, observation, monitoring
and evaluation of their individuals on an ongoing basis. Those
are far more important. The limitations outlined on page 5 of the
presentation identify to you that virtually anyone who intends
to, can find a way to circumvent a police records check
report-virtually anyone. I can also give you the example of Gary
Blair Walker, currently serving as a dangerous offender, who for
30 years sexually abused boys in eastern Ontario and underwent
two or three police records check in the course of that. There
were no reports because he had never been arrested until
1992.
So in answer to your
question about what the alternatives are, they are : (1) to
finally, and hopefully for all time, although I doubt it can
happen, disabuse organizations of the notion that there is any
kind of equation between screening and any kind of security
check; and (2) as the gentleman who spoke before me was talking
about, to encourage and educate organizations in the various
steps that need to be done. I think there is need, very serious
need, for financial support for organizations to do this. In my
personal opinion, those funds should come from the funder,
because this is an appropriate risk management activity. But
those funds, if they're simply going to fund 100 or 10,000 or
whatever police records checks, as far as I'm concerned that's
money wasted. That money would far better be spent on having
staff who are doing serious ongoing supervision, observation,
monitoring and evaluation of individuals in positions of
trust.
Mr Kormos:
Yes, I did enjoy your comments. I read them before you made them,
because I was starting to cover my tracks because I knew you were
going to refer to them. I agree with everything you say except
where you disagree with me, but that's not unusual around
here.
Look, I hear what you're
saying. I have some intimacy with the CPIC system and the
broader-based police records checks that you talk about, for
reasons that I'll not explain now.
First of all, let's talk
about pedophiles. You're right. Most pedophiles, by the time
they've been convicted, have probably offended X number of times.
Because they are secretive, the very nature of the process is
designed to avoid even apprehension, to avoid being turned in,
never mind convicted. So I agree with you in that regard. The
fact that somebody doesn't have a conviction for child molesting doesn't mean he or she
isn't a child molester. But pedophiles are among the offenders
most likely to be recidivist because of the nature of the
obsession and the sickness and the perversion. So the fact that a
person does have a conviction is a pretty good sign, unlike
somebody who maybe got convicted of a theft-under 10 years ago,
youthful shop-lifting, for instance. It isn't that same-so I
think we're very much on line.
You say the funds should
come from the funder. I agree. I call that the taxpayer. I agree
that at some point somebody's got to pay for this. I have no
hesitation. My argument, very briefly, is that as a taxpayer-you
heard Mr McKay talk about, what's the cost of prosecuting an
offender? Obviously, it can be tremendous.
So my response to you is
that, yes, the ultimate source of funding-and the government
members say there's only one taxpayer; they're right-is the
taxpayer. I'm saying as a taxpayer I understand. I think, for
instance, if an applicant as a volunteer knows that a records
check is going to be done, instead of hit and miss, then the
convicted pedophile-and I appreciate that there are all sorts of
ways of wriggling around the system. But if I know that they're
going to do a records check on me and I got a recent conviction
for a sex offence or an assault or something like that, I'm not
going to bother applying, because I'm banking on those that don't
do the records checks.
I leave that with you. I
don't know how you-
Ms Street:
May I?
Mr Kormos:
Sure. Please.
Ms Street:
I would suggest to you that I agree with you in terms of the
recidivist rate and that pedophiles are likely to reoffend etc,
but all it would take for a pedophile who didn't want to avoid a
police records check is to simply go to Nova Scotia, as I did
three years ago, spend $5 at the bureau of vital statistics and
walk out with a new birth certificate.
Mr Kormos:
Fair enough. Quite right.
Ms Street:
It would take nothing for someone to do that. It is not a
difficult issue.
Mr Kormos:
You're right. Locks are for honest people only.
Ms Street:
I feel in a very awkward position here, because I certainly do
not ever, ever, ever encourage organizations not to do police
records checks when they're required. They have to do them.
The issue is, do they do
them on the first hundred or on the last five? The issue is, what
reliance do they place on them and where do they hold them in
their hierarchy? And last, in terms of the funding issue, I think
the funding needs to be there to fund the most serious work of
screening, which is not police records checks; it's ongoing
supervision, observation, monitoring and evaluation.
Mr Kormos:
Fair enough as well.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it.
The committee adjourns
until tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.
