Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (CONTINUED)

On vote 1603, supervision of police forces program; item 2, Ontario Police College:

Mr. Chairman: I believe before the dinner hour the member for Lakeshore had the floor.

Mr. Lawlor: Before the dinner hour, I was making some remarks which were meant to be, and I am sure the Solicitor General (Mr. MacBeth) took them to be, completely impersonal remarks. They had nothing to do with him personally. They had to do with the state of mind. True, he is shrouded in that dementia to some extent, but that’s neither here nor there. We remain above mere personalities, if I can put it that way, in this House. States of mind are terribly important, even in this House, mindless as it mostly is. It is the state of mind which I was concerned with. I’ll just say one further word on that and then get onto the proper vote.

It’s to say to the opposite side we’re not perfect, as though the opposite side didn’t know that.

Mr. Young: Speak for yourself.

Mr. Lawlor: Secondly, as though the opposite side were, as on this All Hallows Eve, seeking for goblins, witches and various forms of mythical creatures, such as perfection -- we’re not asking you to shell out --

Mr. Worton: This is Hallowe’en, my friend.

Mr. Lawlor: -- nor are we such cretins that we think perfection to be possible. We are all, to some degree, Manichees in legislatures; knowing the frailty, if you will, and even the wickedness in human beings. But what we do think is feasible, and which we beg for on occasion, is a little inching up the slippery slope of a greater possibility than has yet dawned upon the government and the ministerial function that’s presently under scrutiny.

We don’t want perfection; just a little. We just want improvement; some slight, if possible, improvement. They seem, over there, if you listened to it, to have subverted that particular stage of the argument as a crying for the moon or something like that. It is a rhetorical trick which you use -- and I mean this impersonally -- constantly throughout these estimates, which I find somewhat irritating.

On item 2 of the vote, the college, my only submission to you in this set of estimates, in this way, is something you said earlier today that has to do with the public perception of the role and function of the police. Because of any number of television shows, I suppose, it is in the North American consciousness that the police are out rounding up robbers and that most of their lives and time are dedicated to a fastidious reading of the Criminal Code. This is the chief overview. That isn’t true at all; it’s a complete myth.

Earlier in these estimates, a few days ago, I mooted the situation of perhaps considering doing a study -- I’d like to see one -- as to what allocations of time over the whole police apparatus are dedicated to various forms of activity. I would put it to you that the average policeman, in his life, doesn’t encounter in a direct and personal way that many rapes, that many robberies and certainly not that many murders. When he does, he immediately calls upon the specialists; the morality squad, the fraud squad and the homicide bureau to move in. They take over. These men are specially trained and skilled.

That’s where the training of the police lies in a diverse professional way directing their attention to these things. It is being done, but to pretend that the average policeman is overwhelming or primarily or even secondarily concerned with that is to distort the whole possibility. Far more of his time is spent with respect to traffic offences and with respect to guidance of traffic. I would suspect -- and I’d love to see the figures -- about 75 per cent of police time is spent in doing community work in the very broad sense of that, aiding people in trouble in one way or another and not in laying charges and not in leading or hauling people off to jail. This is somewhat commensurate to what is the de facto or actual job, from day to day, for the rest of his life, as long as he is out there working. It is likely to be in that kind of proportion or somewhere like that

It cannot be completely that; they do have to study the Criminal Code to some degree and to some extent, and that is a concentrated and demanding study.

But there is the far wider implication -- and when my friend speaks of educating them, I am sure that is partially at least what he has in mind -- of the attitudes, the deportment, the ways of behaviour, imported partially from contemporary psychology but from basic human decency generally, which doesn’t particularly have to be hammered away at. But the sociological should be given the knowledge of the currents running in a vastly changing society, a society which is changing its modes of styles of life and its deportments probably now about every five to seven years.

Our youths’ mentality, their attitudes and ways of acting, are altering. They alter constantly, not just because of the growing-up process, but as an overall cultural thing. We must have sensitivity to that, awareness of that, and the feeding of it into the police, because they are the ones responsible in terms of the maintenance of degrees of order in a society. They must have a sense of the currents and how to forfend against them or direct them or give them purpose and meaning within a context.

Our jails are loaded to the doors; we all know that. Our courts are coming to an appalling state of snarl; we all know that. We will come later in these estimates to the police role in helping to bring that about. They have made their contribution. I will spend a moment on it.

All these areas live in some kind of isolation from each other. You are the overall minister, over all the Justice portfolios. There is this self-imposed isolation. The judges say it is not their job, they don’t give a hang as to whether the jails are full; that is for the Ministry of Correctional Services to look after. The police over here say, as far as they are concerned they will lay all the charges in the world, it is for the courts to look after, it is not their problem; they are doing their job.

But somehow, some kind of coherence is going to have to be established among all these branches to work together in the greatest degree of harmony and with the least detriment to the general citizenry. Putting people in jail doesn’t often very much help them or the taxpayer whose interest is affected.

You talk about restraint and wring your hands over there in this particular area. Do you coalesce? Do you bring the various segments together into some kind of mutual interrelationship and working arrangement? On the whole, standing over here, no you do not. I don’t see you are doing it at all. Therefore, on the police training thing, I do not think there is a proper balancing out as to intercommunity relationships nor a heightened sense of the role of the police as community officers.

[8:15]

When we talk about mitigating the role of the military aspects and those things, we mean recognition of these men who -- because of their usual brightness, their physical aliveness, and because some of them are the best elements in our population and open their minds and open their lives to a particular kind of hazardous job -- take the full brunt. People who are prepared to do that are, to some degree, quite extraordinary human beings. And we must give them credit for that too. This particular kind of individual is, perhaps, more willing to attune himself than most caught up on routine jobs -- those who do mechanical chores, et cetera, and whose sensibilities are dulled and deadened to some degree, by that kind of occupation.

That’s not the role of the police. The policeman can be, and most of them are, very sensitive, alive human beings. My feeling is that you don’t develop the kind of sensitivity I’m speaking of. You don’t give sufficient encouragement to it, nor is your police college set up to handle the best thinking in this particular field. What makes people tick? What is the fundamental thing? Why do certain groups in our community, namely criminals, make an exception of themselves vis-à-vis the law? Why do people do that?

Take a look at that young guy last Saturday night. Did you ever see a more bizarre case of mixed paranoia and schizophrenia? Here is a human being living in an impersonal society who feels that he isn’t given enough attention. So what did he do? He dressed up in cowboy clothes, for heaven’s sake, and went into a trust company office and held everybody at bay. He shot 14 times into the ceiling and the wall. It was quite bizarre.

And what was he doing? He was trying to get attention. Maybe you think that’s too simplistic, but the individual said “Why do you think I’m standing here? I’m trying to get attention. I know I’m not going to get any but having been here long enough I’ve been enured to inattention. I rather enjoy it now. It’s a part of the smell of the place.”

That’s a sense of self-worth. We don’t breed it. We don’t give much recognition to it. It will take a lot of time to begin to get some gleanings of what really causes this particular kind of grotesque activity in society. How do you approach it? How do you forfend against it?

I gave Adamson some credit the other night, you know. He says he usually doesn’t make deals with liquor or with guns. You can see why. Feeding a person liquor in that kind of jeopardy is unquestionably likely to heighten the temperature rather than to cool it out. But that was a smart move. He used good psychology on that occasion.

The single 40-ounce bottle appeased the fellow. That was the first time he’d been given a gift in months. Maybe it was the first time he’d been given anything but a slap in the face in his whole life; who knows, this is quite possible. So in that particular context, it worked. The Metropolitan Toronto police and the provincial police, on the whole, have a sense of that. But I’m sure it’s not taught.

If there’s one subject that’s taboo among men in public life it’s psychology. You should never talk about it.

Mr. Smith over there is a psychotherapist. He never talks about it. I thought it very strange. He never mentions it; and yet it runs like a disease through our society, all the way through. And if you want to feel better tonight -- we all are a bit infected -- sometimes we say that health is what we do with our own sickness; what do you do with your own sickness? Do you use it well? Do you turn it to account? Do you help other people? Do you give blessings? Do you take all the time? Do you take everything you can get? That’s the difference, right there.

All right. I think some of the elementary lessons are necessary. How often does a psychiatrist, not any psychiatrist -- because half of them are nuts too -- but some psychiatrist in whom you have confidence and who has a deep sense of the interpersonal come in and speak to the police college? These are the currents that run.

The criminal mind is not all that different from yours and mine, except it makes exceptions for itself which we don’t think we are justified in doing. Our sense of responsibility is such that we deny ourselves the exception.

There are first rate people around, at McMaster and all over the place in the fields of sociology. Stay away from the guy who deals only with numbers. He’s a menace, but the fellow who is aware of the plight, particularly of youth with whom you largely deal -- overwhelmingly deal -- is the man. You have to choose your people with great care; those who are going to lecture there -- not anybody by any means; one out of 15 perhaps, and I am being generous now.

Okay, that’s the basic nostrums I would forward to you this evening. If you can do that, then you can fructify and bring about very great changes. There would be no diminishment in the role of police. It would be an enhancement all the way along. No criminals will escape who otherwise would not have done so, but there will be a lifting of the quality of the whole society, because the police are so central to the heart of that society.

I will end by saying that to this date I get a feeling that now it’s done perfunctorily, more by rote, less by sensitivity; and less blessed by orientation and a way of looking at the world; rather than by a kind of mechanistic saying, “We will meet the demands of the wretched opposition, because they will be raising cain anyhow, so we will throw in a little sociology here, two-and-a-half hours on a Tuesday afternoon”; that kind of thing.” I just don’t think that works.

Mr. Chairman: Does the hon. minster have any comments?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I buy a great deal of what the hon. member for Lakeshore has been saying. It’s good to listen to him as he philosophizes in a very practical way on the kind of training the police college should give to policemen.

I understand they have some 24 periods of 45 minutes each, representing same six per cent of their time, dealing with matters of public relations and community affairs. Now that goes further than the three hours dealing with psychological problems in particular. When it comes to public relations, I understand that some six per cent of their time is spent on that. Maybe it should be more.

Mr. Lawlor: Fifteen for a start.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Well, we could all take figures out of the air and certainly 15 per cent is better than six per cent.

We should look at the progress the college at Aylmer has made. As you know, it has expanded dramatically in the time it has been there. We are announcing in these estimates an increase in the length of the courses. So we are making progress in giving the police, the young police officers, better and more formal training. As we give them this more formal training, we are trying to put the right academic background into it as well -- including the kind of things that the member for Lakeshore and the member for Dovercourt have been talking about. As those courses are increased in length, as I am sure they will be over the years, I am likewise sure that the points that you have made will be the points that need emphasis.

You are right that a very small proportion of the average policeman’s time is spent in dealing with the criminal law. He deals with the whole gamut of human relations, whether it is settling a domestic fight or trying to persuade some youngster that it is time he went home and didn’t create a nuisance on the street, or risk his own personal welfare by being in places where perhaps he shouldn’t be.

Mr. Joe Mennill, who I think is probably in our last budget session with us tonight, is retiring at the end of the year. He has been the principal of that college. He has a wide background but his academic background in the field of teaching is probably as predominant as his police background. Certainly when it comes to teaching the police, he has not simply taken the point of view that some policemen might, that all he has to be taught is the martial sciences and not the philosophy of good policing.

He has handed me a note dealing with -- I shouldn’t say his philosophy, necessarily, but the attitude of the college on the problems you raised. “The candidate must be prepared to handle any situation when it occurs, thus he needs to be trained for these emergencies. His day-to-day experiences since he was born have given him more or less skill in dealing with people. We must pick those who have developed these skills, and then sensitize them to some of the more critical human interrelation problems with which he may be faced. Many have courses in sociology and/or psychology.”

Not only do they all get those, but some go on to specialize in other types of courses that we offer from time to time at the universities or elsewhere -- specialized courses of one sort or another -- and he is reporting that many take courses in sociology or psychology.

So we are not forgetting these things. I agree a great deal with what you are saying, and don’t want to take issue with that. I know that many police forces, Metropolitan Toronto, for example, have officers who do nothing but community work. They go into the schools and talk to the young people about dealing with the police and keeping out of trouble. My ministry has put out a very good movie that was well received which tries to teach young people the danger of getting involved in any type of criminal activity. That’s all part of the training you are asking us to do in the community; that is training in the community and we do do that.

Just a week or so ago I was reading an article in the OPP Review on the OPP detachment at Rockcliffe in the Ottawa-Carleton region. From reading that article, you would think 95 per cent of the Rockcliffe detachment’s time was dealing just with matters of public relations. I guess the problem is that instead of specializing, as we do in our police forces today, with some people dealing specifically in criminal intelligence and others in community relations, that they are too specialized. Perhaps all police officers, whether in criminal work or even in traffic -- and maybe traffic above all -- should have more training in public relations and in the arts of psychology rather than leaving it for specialists in community relations. I think if there is a message you are giving us, it is that this should be universal in approach rather than letting a few specialized officers deal with public relations.

I’ve taken your lecture, and I regard it in part as such, to heart. I gave you 100 per cent of my time when you were speaking, so I feel your own psyche should not be disturbed by your wish of attention, because I find it is always good to pay you attention, that you have words of wisdom to impart.

You said police budgets must be open to scrutiny. I agree with you. I agree they should be at the municipal level, as well as at the provincial level. I find it, as a minister, difficult to deal with figures when you want to say how much is spent on a particular item at the House level. I think that can be done much more effectively at the committee level, where we can pass papers back and forth and have more detailed discussion as to what is being spent on this item and what on that item.

[8:30]

But I assure you there is very little of our budget that is regarded as confidential. We have one item there dealing with rewards which are actually paid through the Treasurer. There was very little of that spent this year. I don’t know what it was, but very little.

Parts of that may be confidential as to whom those payments are made.

We don’t have that much in the field of security that I think we need have any hesitation in telling you what is being spent on security. If there is any part of the budget on which you want further figures or further information -- don’t necessarily ask for it now, though it’s your right to ask for it if you want it now -- I think it would be more satisfactory to get it from people such as Mr. Lorne Edwards who can give you all the detail you want. I assure you there’s very little, if anything, sacrosanct about our budget.

Mr. Stong: Ordinarily, when I have to agree with my colleagues on the left, Mr. Chairman, I do it with very much regret. But I must say, the only thing that I regret with respect to what the member for Dovercourt (Mr. Lupusella) and the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) have said is that I did not say it first.

I agree basically with what they have said. I’m very much impressed with the fact there is a lack of direction and a lack of thrust towards public relations in police training, as is evident from the material supplied to us in preparing ourselves for these estimates.

Earlier this afternoon I recounted an incident in which the police had stopped a car on Yonge Street. I in no way recounted that story with an intention to fetter the discretion of police officers, because we cannot, if anything we must give them more freedom to move in our society. I related that story for the sole purpose of indicating, as my two friends on my left have indicated, that we must be aware of the fact that police are concerned with public relations. They do represent the authority of the law when they wear the uniform, and society is becoming more and more dependent on the police.

The minister said earlier that it is not the job of the police to educate the people. Let me tell you, from my experience, people complain and the complaints that I receive -- it is amazing that members of the opposition get complaints when those sitting in the place of authority don’t get those complaints; I’m wondering what that means. Perhaps the people in authority don’t listen; perhaps their ears are closed to these problems.

I find the government is five years behind the times in dealing with the people. The government should lead, but in this case it’s holding the police back.

The people have no one to turn to in society. And Toronto is no exception; as a matter of fact I think Toronto probably stands on feet of its own in this respect. Crime is on the increase.

Why is crime on the increase? It will continue to increase so long as we protect our anonymity, so long as we do not become known and allow ourselves to be known by our neighbours, so long as we don’t take an interest in the people in Toronto, our neighbours.

You’ve probably stepped onto elevators; and riding down from the 15th floor, that elevator will stop at every floor to take people on or discharge them. What does everyone on the elevator do? They stand looking at the numbers light up and go out rather than look at one another in society.

Mr. B. Newman: Right on, absolutely.

Mr. Stong: The police must be and are the only vehicle that the people trust and the people look to. Whether the government is prepared to accept this or not, the police must play that role.

We cannot force members of our society to go to psychiatrists. We cannot force members of our society into the schoolrooms again to learn these things. Members of our society are not going to pay to go to lawyers or professionals for this type of advice. They look to the police who represent the core and the power of this province. In that area, they are the only ones the ordinary person in society will turn to.

That’s the police officer, the man who wears the uniform. And that man must be adequately equipped to meet every single incident he confronts; whether it be a robber, whether it be a small child shoplifting, whether it be a woman shoplifting, whether it be a break-and-enter, whether it be a youthful offender, an older offender, a person charged with fraud. No matter what the incident -- whether it be a domestic dispute, whether he’s called in to settle a situation, whether he’s driving along the street and sees young people congregating -- that police officer should be trained to stop his vehicle and go over to speak to those young people, whether there’s an incident to be investigated or not. Those people need the police officer. His role has changed. The complexion of society has changed, and we have not kept up to it. We will not allow our police to keep up to it so long as we continue along the line we have in the training.

I would like to know the qualifications of those who apply for the jobs. What qualifications are demanded of them? What screening process do they go through in their training to determine whether they have developed the skills of which the minister spoke in his last answer. What do you do in screening these people to determine whether they have developed the skills to deal with people?

Are they the aggressive type? Do you look for the passive type? By what criteria do you judge whether a person has developed these skills that are so important and of which you speak?

What is the average academic achievement of an applicant for the police force? What are your requirements? What do you demand? What do you hope to attain?

What are you offering to people in society to attract professionals to the police department to serve us? For instance, fraud is a very specific area of crime. What tools and vehicles are at your disposal to attract professionals, such as accountants, such as lawyers -- not all lawyers are dummies, you know, some of them are pretty smart.

Mr. Cureatz: Name one.

Mr. Warner: That’s right, Sam, he was talking about you.

Mr. Cureatz: I knew he was

Mr. Stong: We have to attract that type of individual, that type of professional to keep on top of the sophisticated types of crime.

Also, what strategy, what policy decisions have you made in the training of young or new applicants to become police officers? I think there are several policies that conflict here in our present-day training. For instance, the young police officer who is trying to get hooks, trying to get a promotion, trying to get into the detective branch, measures his success by the number of charges he lays, the number of apprehensions he makes and the number of convictions he may attain or achieve in the courtroom. That’s the criterion by which he judges himself. A policeman is overlooked, in my respectful submission to you and the ministry, if he can get along with the people in his community.

I know a police officer who served for over 40 years on the police force north of my town. It is now the York regional police force. I remember when I was in high school working for Hydro in the summer time. We stopped in at a restaurant. Officer Douglas Murray was a police officer for the Whitchurch township police at that time. I remember being at one of our coffee breaks at 10:30 one morning in a restaurant when the officer brought two young fellows into that restaurant and sat them each down on a stool.

He said, “You sit here; and you sit there.” He sat in the middle. He was obviously investigating something. Whether it was something that these two young lads had done or whether they could give him information, I don’t know. At any rate, his approach to them was to sit them down in a restaurant, in that atmosphere -- and they all had a Coke. They sat there and they talked.

We never see that today. Maybe the issue is that police officers don’t have time. The fact of the matter is, in my respectful submission, the police officer is going to have to make time in order to keep up with the demands and the needs of this complex society in which we live.

That is one conflict in my mind, in the training of an officer. He sees his promotion being dependent upon the charges, the apprehensions and the convictions. In so far as he does that we no longer see any record made of the number of warnings a police officer may issue. Why don’t we use that as a criterion to judge the number of contacts he has made with people in society? Why doesn’t he keep a record of the number of warnings, simple warnings that he has issued to people or contacts he has made in that respect, and make them public rather than judge his procedure only by the number of charges he has laid?

He is also confused by the fact that, rather than lay one charge in a given set of circumstances, he may do better to lay seven. You get travelling too close, careless driving, failing to stop; the whole line to cover the same set of circumstances -- dangerous driving, careless driving; the whole gamut is before a person who goes to court. It clogs up our system, it clogs up the court, it clogs up dockets, maybe it will lend itself to plea bargaining, but that is not necessarily right either, in my respectful submission.

I agree with my colleagues from Dovercourt and Lakeshore when they ask for more psychology or sociology courses being offered to the police officers. I think that’s very important, I think it’s mandatory in today’s society that the police officer be a person who is not necessarily aggressive but can be aggressive when the occurrence dictates.

There’s one other thing that did occur to me when I looked through your material and when I looked at the type of course that’s offered. We have supervisory courses offered, we have criminal investigation; and I’ll have more to say about that in a few minutes. We have identification, we have police administration, we have traffic surveillance, we have traffic control; and we have youthful offender, down below these are seminars offered about the youthful offender. It would seem to me that should be a mandatory course rather than an option. If I read this material correctly, the seminars appear to me to be an option rather than something that’s mandatory or compulsory for every single police officer who is trained and going through courses.

We have drug training. That should not be an optional course either. In my respectful submission, that should be mandatory for every police officer, because every police officer who has dealings with youth at all on the street, ordinarily and in most cases, gets involved with the drug scene somehow. He must understand it and he must understand the drug user. But, more important, he must understand the aspects of society that lead to the use of drugs.

I think he must understand that the young drug offender, of whom we demand jail, can see the hypocrisy in society. He knows he experimented with marijuana, he knows he experimented with something more heavy. He goes to court and he hears the prosecutor and he hears the police demand jail. He goes to his own home and looks in the medicine cabinet and sees what his parents have in there -- uppers, downers, mood changers and mood levellers. Our society is based on drugs.

Young people see the hypocrisy of this whole system; but the police don’t and it’s time they did. In my respectful submission, this is an important aspect of training that is being overlooked. That’s the type of psychology of which I speak. I’m sure it’s the same thing for my friends.

We’re also looking at crowd control. I wonder what makes up that course. Are the philosophy and the strategy of the training of a police officer first to place him in position of aggression? Must he be the mover? Must he put the person at the other end on the defensive so that he maintains control? Is that the strategy and the policy of investigating?

Let me turn to criminal investigation. In my respectful submission to you, the question of police investigation of criminal offences is based on the almighty dollar sign, on trying to save it. In so far as we’re trying to save the dollar, we must cut down on our methods of investigation. We leave the sophisticated methods and we turn to the obtaining of statements from the accused. If the police officer can base his case on the so-called voluntary statement of an accused, then his time of investigation is cut down. Time after time, people before the courts will be fighting their charges, based on the obtaining of a statement which they say was either beaten out of them or that promises were made to them to get this statement. They complain about being rough-housed in our police stations. It seems to me that if we changed the law -- and I know this is out of the Solicitor General’s jurisdiction, but it is something perhaps the law can direct its mind to -- if it was made compulsory for accused persons to take the stand at their trial, then we would not need statements; if we did not need statements, then I think that there would be more guilty pleas entered in our courtrooms to offences for which people are charged than there are now.

[8:45]

I have represented people in the criminal courts, particularly young men, who have gone through what they call the “good-guy, bad-guy” routine in the police station: you have one person who comes on heavy and the other person who is a “nice guy.” This is the type of situation they are confronted with.

What happens? They go to court to plead not guilty because they are angry that a statement was extracted from them, albeit maybe the statement is true -- we are not even questioning that -- and they want to have the last shot, the last fling at a police officer in the courtroom. It wastes the court’s time. It is a complete bog-down of the court system.

We blame it on Legal Aid. I don’t think the fault lies so much with Legal Aid as it lies in the basic misunderstanding of people in the community who feel that they have been mistreated and go to the court system to get some kind of justice. They do it not so much to get off the charge as to get around a statement they feel was extracted from them in circumstances to which they object.

There is no degree of sophistication in our investigation in many cases, particularly when you go to court and time after time the case is based on a statement extracted from an accused person.

In so far as police investigation is based on the notion of aggression, which is the policy and the philosophy of the ministry -- and I am not laying all the blame on the police department, because the police department is only carrying out a basic philosophy that filters down to it from the top -- in so far as that is the basic philosophy and strategy, we are letting society down.

It seems to me that the judges are aware, and perhaps the police are too, that society will tolerate a certain amount of roughhousing of individuals for chargeable offences: “I will tolerate it in so far as it does not apply to me.” There is a basic hypocrisy that people feel there as well. The judges are aware of that.

If we are going to make the police role a real role in our society, and if we are going to fulfil the needs that are demanded in places, particularly like Toronto, where we do not talk to one another and the only trusted individual is the police officer, who must fill a role, then we are going to have to change our policy and employ methods of investigation that are more sophisticated, that are perceived to be fairer and are, in fact, fairer. I believe, then, that we will be cutting down the number of court hours, the wasted court time by people who resort to a plea of “not guilty” just to justify the fact that they made a statement in certain circumstances with which they do not agree.

In his statement I think the Solicitor General indicated that 45 minutes was the amount of time he gave for the study of community affairs. I believe we have to extend that. I am not against other items to which he alluded; for instance, the physical education. I think that is necessary. And being a swimmer, myself, I was glad to see that that is included in the program. I also realise that the drill, the military aspect, the shooting practice -- that is all necessary. We demand that of the police. There is no doubt about that. I do not have difficulty with that at all.

But I do have difficulty with the fact that members of our society are complaining about the bad public relations that emanate from their relationships with the police. The cases I quoted this afternoon, were cases where people were not charged with offences, because if they were, we could easily say: “They were charged and they are upset and angry because they were charged.” I avoided those cases. There are all sorts of that type of case.

The cases to which I refer you dealt with an investigation, a witness observing an incident and complaining and the treatment he got. Another person, although it had racial overtones -- separate the racial overtone aspect and we still have a dissatisfied person. Another man is driving home and is investigated. He made it quite clear to sue that he was not complaining about the police powers to stop him and investigate him. He was upset because he did not get a proper explanation of why his wife was not allowed to drive and why he could not be reimbursed for his vehicle.

I agree with the minister when he suggests we cannot get into paying for vehicles that are impounded. I agree that’s a good principle and I wouldn’t like to see it changed. But I think the main complaint is the lack of appreciation for the people with whom they’re dealing and the lack of an explanation when the time and the occasion warrants it. That’s what this part of the training of our police officers is all about in fact: the criminal investigation aspect, whether it’s aggressive or too aggressive; and the other aspect of public relations with the ordinary people on the street, when they look toward police officers as the mainstay and the thrust of the law of the province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to correct one impression that I may have left. I said in the field of public relations they have 24 periods of 45 minutes each, not just 45 minutes.

Mr. Stong: That was my error, I’m sorry.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: You asked about the skills you look for when we are hiring police or police candidates. As you know, they’re probationary for a period so that the final decision is not made, necessarily, at the time they are taken on the probationary strength.

Each of the municipal forces sets its own standards. There is some guidance from the OPC, but for the most part they decide what their standards will be. My information is that about 46 per cent have grade 12 education, 40 per cent have grade 13 or better, and the other five per cent are university graduates. That only adds up to 86 per cent. Even my mathematics would not allow me to get through on that; oh, the remaining 14 per cent have less than grade 12.

Mr. B. Newman: Is that new appointments or is that staff?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No, I understand those are new appointments. So we’re still getting some people on who do not have grade 12.

Mr. Reid: Very few.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Does that include the native people’s band constables, or just municipal forces? My information is that it includes the band constables as well, all police; some of them may be in that field.

Mr. Stong: Does the starting salary vary?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Yes, the starting salary varies with the municipality involved, so that the only place you will have uniformity is in the OPP. I do have a set of criteria here for the OPP, which in view of your question you would be interested in.

“Our recruitment selection process consists of a five-phase program. Each must be successfully completed for an applicant to be eligible for appointment to the force. The five phases are as follows:

“1. Application screening: Each new application is reviewed to ensure that basic requirements are met and appropriate documents have been submitted; that is education documents, vision acuity reports where applicable.

“2. Entrance examinations: Administered at each of our 17 district headquarters at approximately one month intervals by our in-service training personnel. The examination consists of: (a) Otis self-administered tests of mental ability. It consists of 75 questions with a 30-minute time limit. This test measures logical reasoning ability.”

Mr. B. Newman: Are those multiple-choice questions?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I can’t tell you that. The nod from the sidelines is yes.

Mr. B. Newman: Surely you can devise something better than that.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Well maybe they can. I take it they are listening. I am certainly not an authority on these mental ability tests, never passed one myself.

Mr. Reid: That’s why you are in the cabinet.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: That’s why I am in government anyway.

Mr. Reid: If you passed, you wouldn’t be where you are.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I might be out being successful.

Mr. B. Newman: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: This is still in the second phase: “(b) Essays. The applicant is required to write a paragraph or two on five designated job-related topics which are marked on the basis of organization, presentation, spelling and grammar.” Now the last two would rule me out I know.

“(c) Two psychological, personality inventory tests; one the Minnesota multi-phasic personality inventory” --

Mr. B. Newman: We have no Canadian tests on that? We have to go to the United States?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: “It consists of 400 true or false questions designed to reveal deviant behaviour, that is, depression, psychopathic, deviate, schizophrenia and paranoia.”

Mr. Reid: We should give that to the cabinet.

Hon. Mr. Snow: No we should give it to the opposition.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Some of us might pass it; I am not so sure.

Mr. Reid: Not one of you would pass the paranoia one.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I must admit it is much tougher to get into the OPP than it is to get in the cabinet.

Mr. Reid: That’s for sure.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: “We receive a written personality assessment on the remainder -- ”

Mr. Reid: For obvious reasons.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: “ -- in which the psychologist highlights his area of concern and identifies specific traits both negative and positive for our attention. Occasionally he will recommend rejection of a candidate usually due to some deviant trait identified through his assessment.

“5. Final review: When all areas of investigation and assessment are completed and received at the uniform recruitment section, the director of career management branch of the senior recruitment office will review the completed files on candidates, weighing their individual achievements in all phases against the total achievements of others being considered in the process.

“A decision is then made whether to accept or decline the applicant’s offer of service having in mind the best interests of both the applicant and the force and in view of the relatively few positions we have to offer.

“Note: It can readily be seen that a candidate would seldom be rejected on the basis of psychological evaluation. Rather this information is used as a means of support in the assessment of other data compiled throughout the various phases of the selection process.”

So members can see that the OPP have a rather sophisticated system, and I am sure most of the large municipal forces have a similar sort of assessment process. Some of the smaller forces, of course, are not quite so sophisticated; and exceptions, as I have said, are certainly made for the band constables in the OPP.

Now as to detective work, let me deal first with the number of convictions made. We had some discussion, as you know, the other night on the matter of convictions. I suppose there is some suspicion about a policeman who very rarely makes a charge. In other words that he is too soft or he is not doing his job. I can see a senior officer being suspicious when some policeman goes day after day without making any charges and other officers are making a good number of charges.

I am assured, however and I hope it is so -- I trust it to be so -- that that is not the basis upon which policemen in any of the forces are judged; that is, their ability to make charges and get convictions. The last time we were discussing this, the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Maeck) who has some police experience with the OPP, made reference to the fact that one of his senior officers advised him along the line that it wasn’t how many convictions he made in a particular area, but the relative peace and security of the community that was important. Peace and security is often reflected in the attitude that the public do have towards the police, so am not going to find fault with what you are saying.

[9:00]

I agree with you and your hope that perhaps more warnings could be given. I mentioned again the other day how difficult it is, in a large municipality like Toronto, to go on giving warning after warning, because you don’t know whether it is the same fellow who is setting you up on every occasion, unless there is some follow-up system to the warning. Maybe that is what we should try to target on, some sort of follow-up: “Operator so-and-so was warned about this offence on a number of occasions.” However, that gets into a great deal of bookkeeping and bureaucracy, which we don’t want to encourage either.

So discussing all of those problems, I hope we are striking a good balance, because I believe, as you are saying, on many occasions a warning is the proper answer.

You raised an interesting point when you talked about the way a Constable Murray, in your youthful experience in York North, used to handle some of his young people. I wish we could do more of that. I myself mentioned that the other day, but when you try to do that today you run into problems with a lot of the well-meaning citizens, and maybe some of the human rights people who take the attitude you have no right to examine a young person in that way. You lay a charge; you don’t sit him down on a stool and say, “You sit there and you sit there.”

I regret that, because I think that’s the way it would be best to handle a lot of these young people instead of getting them mixed up with the family relations court with the problems and stigma attached to that. I wish the policeman could take a youngster into the station, give him a lecture of sorts, probably a little more tender than the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) has given me tonight but along the same lines, and send him home.

But having done that, you as a lawyer know all of the problems you get into. What right did you have to do this to my child? Did you arrest him, was he charged with any offence? So sometimes society creates its own problems in dealing with that type of case as expeditiously and perhaps as effectively as we would like to see it done.

I agree that statements are no substitute for a good detective ferreting out facts. I haven’t had that much experience in the criminal courts. I am ready to accept what you say, that frequently if they can get a nice clean-cut statement it is easier to deal with it than going out on your own gathering the evidence, either by statements from other people or actually finding facts to piece the case together; so they will resort to the statement.

I hope our police are doing otherwise. I agree that if they do have an open and shut case on the basis of facts, it would be much quicker than trying to convince the judge of the proper warnings and all the rest of it, which as you know must be given when you rely on statements alone. I don’t know what percentage of our criminal cases are handled with statements as opposed to evidence of another nature. I’m ready to take what you are suggesting, that too many of them are on statements.

I know the police are listening, not only the OPP but many of the others, and we will follow that suggestion up with them.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Chairman, I have two particular questions. I am assuming that the college deals in crowd control and I am wondering if some portion of that also deals with the use of horses in crowd control, if that method is still taught?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: That question was so brief, Mr. Chairman, that it hasn’t given me time to get the answer. I do know that there are very few forces across the province that have mounted units, although some forces do.

The answer is a negative nod, although I know that as far as Metropolitan Toronto is concerned, they have a good number of mounted policemen, and their course is extensive. I think that police college time is better spent on psychological training than in the use of horses, because so few units have mounts available.

Mr. Warner: I wonder then, in light of the minister’s remarks, if he is prepared to make some statement to those police forces which have horses and are using them. I’ve had several experiences; one, in particular, is most vivid in my mind and the minister might recall it. That was during the Becker’s strike in Scarborough where the use of horses, to begin with, was not in the least necessary; secondly, it was potentially dangerous to men who were on a legal strike; and in fact it became dangerous to the police.

One of the police officers sustained an injury due to the horse being there. What was so ludicrous about the situation was that the strikers were facing transport trucks. I just don’t understand why it seemed to be necessary to have a phalanx of horses on the one side and transport trucks on the other, leaving the men who were on a legal strike in between.

Fortunately, though the issue having been raised in the House, the police the next day removed those horses; but to save face, of course, they simply put them on the other side of the road.

Again tonight, as we came in the building, the police were assembling horses out in the members’ parking lot. I assume not to keep us in order -- at least, I hope not -- but apparently to be used over on Yonge Street later on if it’s seen fit because of what has become the traditional party that’s held over there among the gay community in Toronto. In anticipation of some potential difficulties they bring the horses out; ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous.

If the minister says that while it’s not the kind of thing the college engages in, that there are more productive things to be doing in terms of training our police officers, perhaps that message should be made pretty clear to all of the jurisdictions within the province of Ontario, so that this practice of using the horses, if not eliminated completely can be brought under some pretty severe restrictions. Obviously, among other things, we can’t be at all places at all times to watch what’s happening, and unless people are monitoring these things the police use them indiscriminately. It’s beginning to irritate. It obviously more than irritates those people who are unlucky enough to be on the scene when the police decide to use the horses. There must be a better way of crowd control than using those horses.

Could the minister make some sort of statement along those lines?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Chairman, all I can give is my own understanding, which I must admit I have received from various police authorities. Reading about the matter of crowd control -- and I guess it’s not just from police authorities; I think it’s generally recognized that the best way you can control crowds is by mounted units.

I see them in operation at parades in Toronto when they’re trying to keep people back on the sidewalk. Most people are intimidated by a horse, particularly when it stands much higher than the average person; you move back on the sidewalk when a big horse comes along beside you. You see police officers trying to do the same work, and it takes three or four officers locking hands to hold the crowd back and do the same work that one mounted officer can do.

So I would disagree with what the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere says, that it’s ludicrous to use horses in crowd control. My understanding is that it’s the best way to control crowds.

You were mentioning that there were some assembling here tonight. I didn’t realize that. I’m certain that it’s not to look after the decorum in this House; it’s probably for use on Yonge Street.

One of the members asked me earlier if the Metro police were taking sufficient steps to guard the safety of the citizens; those on both sides of that Yonge Street traditional party. I said I thought they were, did she want me to make some investigations? In any event, here the forces are being assembled and the suggestion from another member of the House is that perhaps that is not the best way to do it.

The police have a difficult role in trying to keep order. One of the safest ways to do it is with mounted units and I am glad to know that those mounted units are out there. I hope they won’t be needed, but I think they will be far more effective than crowds of policemen or motorcycles trying to run up and down in front of that crowd. I think they are the best way to handle the kinds of crowds that they may have to deal with tonight.

Mr. Warner: Obviously we are going to disagree on the last point. A more effective way, it seems to me, where the majority of the circumstances now seem to call for the use of horses, is to simply outlaw strikebreakers because there is the source of the problem. That’s why those horses were on the scene at Becker’s and certainly at Sandra Coffee, as is going on now.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: I would point out to the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere that we are discussing Ontario Police College methods and I don’t think outlawing strikebreakers is a policy under discussion. Crowd control would be, but not strikebreakers.

Mr. Warner: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I take it for the most part, between the comments that came from the member for Lakeshore and the comments from the member for York Centre, as well as some of the comments of the minister, that perhaps we are making some headway in trying to get a different direction, a different kind of philosophy about policing in Ontario. I am wondering if the minister imparts all of this to the police chiefs across Ontario, and in what way.

I’ll back that up by saying that the other day I was a little dismayed -- now mind you it was a radio report; it was a voice clip and it may not have been the entire thing, perhaps I’m taking it out of context -- but I heard the police chief of Metro Toronto listing all of the items that they are going to have to cut back on, the things that they wanted to add but won’t be able to through the Treasurer’s (Mr. McKeough) efforts in this regard. Out of the list of about 10 or 12 things -- morality squad and fraud squad and so on -- was missing what I would have thought to have been somewhere near the top of the list, and that is community relations officers.

As I say, it was a voice clip on the radio. Perhaps they didn’t include all of his speech, but from the 10 things that I heard listed none of them was the item of community relations officers. Yet from the remarks that have been made tonight, both from this side of the House and from the minister, it would indicate that community relations officers particularly in Metro Toronto are a pretty desperate need.

How does the message that we have heard from the minister tonight and the comments that have been made -- I take them to be constructive comments -- by both opposition parties, how does all of that get imparted to those police chiefs around Ontario, so that we can in fact bring about some change in direction and perhaps a little shifting of priorities?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Regretfully, sometimes when the police are confronted with the hard facts of trimming their budget the community programs appear to be the ones they look to first. I suppose it’s a simple answer. If you are a police chief and have people complaining that the urgent calls that are made to the police are not answered, or it takes too long to answer them; or that there are traffic snarls on the highways or accidents involved; they are concerned with the matter of hard policing and they say those are the services that I have to continue. The community relations programs are something where it is a little more difficult to see the day-to-day advantages. Their tendency might be to say, “Cut the community relations programs.”

[9:15]

I didn’t hear the tape you referred to. I don’t know whether it was taken out of context or not. Not with reference to Toronto but certainly to some other municipal forces around, I know that when curtailment of expenditures are asked for, very often that’s where they look. I don’t want to call them fringe services because I don’t regard them as such, nor does the police college regard them as such, but I’m afraid when the choice has to be made, sometimes that’s where the chiefs look for their curtailment and their savings.

There was another part of your question. How do we communicate this to the various forces? Our communication is through the Ontario Police Commission. We have no power to direct the various municipal forces and to tell them they shall not cut community relations officers We can, through the Ontario Police Commission, tell them our concerns about it, but only by way of suggestion and not by way of command. If that’s where they want to cut, that’s up to the local politicians. We’ll have to give them guidance otherwise, as well as the other suggestions we may make to them.

Mr. Warner: I might say to the minister that when he talks about the police force having to make a choice in terms of where they are going to cut when the money gets a little scarce, the automatic first place to cut may be the community relations officers. It seems to me there are a couple of reasons for that and I think it’s something to which the minister can direct himself.

An hon. member: Who is that person in the Pierre Trudeau mask?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: He is in the right place.

Mr. Stong: Who is that masked man?

Mr. Warner: Did the minister do that as a distraction?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: It’s part of a horse.

Mr. Warner: Maybe that’s what the horses are out there for.

An hon. member: Which end of the horse?

Mr. Warner: He might as well be here. He’s not doing much good in Ottawa.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I don’t think he is one of my friends.

Mr. Walker: I don’t think he is a member.

Mr. Chairman: Will the member please continue?

Mr. Warner: It seems to me there are two particular things and it requires some direction from the minister and the minister’s office. One is in terms of the philosophy which has to come out to those police chiefs and the second is in terms of the content of the courses at the police college. I have spent some time working with community relations officers both in my riding and outside and I have spent some time working with local police officers as well. There is a feeling -- I don’t know how widespread it is but I think it would be fairly common -- that somehow the community relations officer isn’t a real policeman. Somehow because he’s not in a uniform, because he’s working with youngsters and because he’s trying to keep kids out of jail and keep kids away from being arrested, he’s not a police officer.

In fact, I recall one extremely good community meeting where we had the community relations officer, plus a detective there. The community relations officer described himself as “I’m the guy to keep you out of jail, and this is the guy who is going to put you in jail.” It’s from that very strain that’s there, that very tension that those men -- and I assume there are some women doing community relations work -- get the feeling that they are not really a part of the police force, that they’re not really as good a police officer as the ones in uniform.

Now it seems to me that there are two ways in which you can help to overcome that and in so doing say to the police captains that this should rank a little higher on their list of priorities. One is by taking a different look at it in the curriculum at the college, putting it a little higher on the list, putting some more importance behind it, maybe offer it as a specialty. That is sometimes the way they do it in other lines of work. You single it out as a specialty and you ask someone to take it up and give them some extra remuneration.

Perhaps another way is to try to convince the Treasurer that some extra dollars should be provided for police forces which hire community relations officers. In other words, exempt them in some way from the normal budgetary restraints based upon population. If you have a certain size population, you warrant so many community relations officers and those will be paid for directly by the province.

I think there are different avenues for you to explore. Those police forces have to start changing their attitudes, and they have to start moving in a more positive direction so they don’t always list community relations officers at the bottom of the list. Those people do some pretty important work. As I mentioned before, having worked with community relations officers I do know the kinds of valuable work that they are able to achieve.

You cannot count up the number of youngsters who don’t end up in jail because they encountered a good community relations officer, and realized that. It is difficult to measure the worth of those officers. It is extremely important.

As my very last question of the minister before I finish, I would like to know how many of applicants to the college, how many of the students who come in are female and how many are male? And of the instructors, how many are female and how many are male? Have those percentages -- not the numbers so much, but the percentages -- changed very much over the last five years? In other words, how does the government’s affirmative action -- or it could be viewed as affirmative inaction -- that is rampant in most ministries apply to your ministry?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Insofar as community relations goes, I don’t believe it necessarily requires a reply. I agree in a great deal with what the hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere is saying. I think community relations work is important. We should be trying to prevent crime in the schools and in any place we can find it. They are not only dealing with the prevention of crime, they are dealing with matters of safety on the highways and all the rest. So we will do what we can in that respect.

You have suggested that we should gauge our grants accordingly. As you know, the municipalities are asking for fewer strings, fewer conditions attached to our grants, and that is the policy we have been following. I am not so sure we want to get into conditional grants in the field of policing, but we will have to do what you are asking by way of persuasion and request rather than by way of direction from the Solicitor General.

But those are important subjects in the police college and they will continue to be identified.

You asked for definite figures in regard to the number of male and female applicants. I find that those figures are not available to us tonight. We will get them for you. The same applies to the matter of instructors. I might ask if we have any female instructors on the staff at the present time? None?

Mr. Warner: Not even a token?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: We have two Waterloo students who are teaching in the physical education area. There are many women on the staff in the office, but that is not what you are asking about. You’re asking about instructors. Whether two is an improvement or not I can’t even give you that answer tonight. But we’ll send that information over to you or have it by next session.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I don’t intend to be lengthy but I did want to ask the minister if he is giving any consideration to increasing the number of individuals from various ethnic groups applying for positions with various police forces. We do live in a period where our society is multi-lingual, multi-national and, also, multi-discriminatory. Is the minister considering giving some type of recognition so that we could increase the number of individuals who speak more than simply English and/or French in police forces?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: The answer is yes. We have suggested to the various police authorities across the province that their forces should, as closely as possible, represent a cross-section of their community. That creates some problems in trying to meet the standards that we discussed earlier; not all applicants can meet the standards. Some forces have made exceptions to their standards in order to accommodate the new Canadian population. But we feel that they’re got to hit a balance between maintaining reasonable sound standards and the cross-section that we talked about.

Mr. B. Newman: Would the minister consider advertising in the various ethnic groups’ papers to encourage the new Canadians to apply to some of these forces? I would assume that the selection of them is “all things being equal.”

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I think we could do something along that line. It’s difficult for us to advertise for the municipal forces because of their wide standards, but we might publish a few general advertisements along that line in the ethnic press to consider policing as a career, or something along that nature.

Mr. Roy: I just wanted to make a brief comment following some of the comments from my colleague from York Centre and the reply by the minister.

I can recall, and I guess the minister will too, going back three, four or five years, when we talked about specialized training and the type of training that the police should be getting and the type of courses that would be in the best interests of a well-rounded police officer. I’m glad to see that some of the suggestions that we made in the past are a part of their training.

My colleague was talking about encouraging police to give warnings rather than lay charges, and I think he made a good point. I appreciate that it’s very difficult, especially when there are fewer and fewer small towns, with more regionalization of people in large urban centres and things of that nature. That becomes much more difficult to do because there’s less proximity, people don’t know each other as well. As the minister has pointed out, very often there’s a feeling in the community that if the police come around, people who are on a civil rights or human rights kick say to the police: “If you’re going to lay a charge, lay a charge and, if not, leave me alone,” or “leave my kid alone.”

I frankly think that there has to be a change of attitude. I feel as one who represents a community that the pendulum has swung just about as far as it can go when you get to the protection of the individuals, the different guidelines that we’ve set up, the different laws for the protection of the individual, and things of that nature.

[9:30]

I would think that with proper leadership on the part of government, and on the part of the police officers, that the general public and the parents will appreciate more and more somebody taking their kid aside and saying: “What are you doing here?” or maybe even discuss with the parents what is happening. Undoubtedly there is a feeling and I think there is a trend, even among large police forces, to try to establish a presence within areas so that their will be some relationship between the community and the police officers who are patrolling it. I appreciate that’s more difficult.

Very often in some of the large urban centres the only time anybody sees police officers is in a police cruiser because the policeman on the beat is no longer around. I am talking about suburbia, where people have to get around in cars and the relationship between the police and the people who are supposed to co-operate to ensure the safety of the community is more difficult. I think it’s important that we take leadership, that the ministry take leadership and that police officers are encouraged to take leadership to convince parents that very often the police officer having this type of talk with the young lad or young lady, or with the parents, is in their best interests in the long term. The police officer shouldn’t always be forced into a situation where he has to write a ticket, lay a charge or things of this nature.

As a parent of some young people myself, I would really appreciate it if the police officer came over to my place and told me about my son or daughter who was out breaking windows or doing things of this nature. Similar things happened to me when I was a young lad back in Saskatchewan. My colleague was relating an experience that he had when he was working for Hydro in the summer. I can relate experiences back in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan, where the RCMP detachment was right next door to my place. We used to raise hell, and the police sergeant would come over every morning to my mother and say, “What problem did he cause last night?” and he would take me aside and say, “What the hell are you doing wasting your time around here?” and that sort of thing.

It seems to me that we have to look at a sort of a different approach. I appreciate what the minister says about there being a danger. There’s not only the danger of the parents saying, “Lay a charge or leave my son alone.” The other danger is that giving a warning or laying a charge is sort of a value judgement which can be questioned by certain people. They say, “You give a warning to the son of Such-and-such because he happens to be your friend or a big shot and you just lay a charge against the son of Such-and-such.” I think that’s one of the pressures that are on police officers, that you don’t take chances and you lay charges against everybody.

I think we have got to go back to some of these old values. The pendulum has swung about as far as it can go in terms of us saying we have to regiment every action of police officers individually within a code of civil conduct and everything else. The time has come when we should look at some of the old values and take leadership here and say: “The police don’t have all the answers. The police can only be effective if they get the cooperation of the community.”

I appreciate that it’s going to require the leadership of a lot of organizations, institutions and individuals to get that, but I think it can start with the police. I think we should emphasize that sort of approach more and more today because, as the minister himself knows, funds are not unlimited even for his own Ontario Provincial Police force and it’s going to be awfully difficult to put more and more bodies out there. We are going to have to make best use of the resources we have, and one of the ways of doing it is to encourage that type of co-operation. With this type of leadership, maybe we will educate a few parents as well, because some of them need educating.

I would like to say that I found the comments of my colleague interesting. As the minister has stated, there are a few problems in doing that, but I think the increased emphasis in the future will be that more and more people will realize that governments don’t have the answers, just as they realize that police officers don’t have all the answers. He is just one poor individual out there in the community, and be can’t do it all by himself. He needs the co-operation of the parents, just as he is going to need the co-operation of the judges, the courts and everyone else working within the system. But I think leadership is essential, basically because the police officer is one of the more important and visible individuals within the community, and it’s important that we start there.

The other thing I wanted to ask the minister deals with the Ontario Police College. The minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t see anything in the Ontario Police College dealing with the training you have established. The Ontario Police College is to establish sort of a standard for police forces and police officers across the province, increasingly, more and more women are becoming a part of the police forces -- is there any place in the Ontario Police College where women get training? I don’t see it any place in your hook. Maybe the minister can point it out to me. Do we have the sort of facility where we can give the same training to women police officers as we do to the male police officers?

If you will permit me, Mr. Chairman, having asked the question, I would go a step further. It’s important when we have established an institution like the Ontario Police College, which sets minimum requirements of excellence or training across the province, that we take leadership from this level as well through the Ontario Police Commission with regard to standards for individuals within the forces. I am not talking only about standards of excellence in intelligence or training, or grades in school, but also physical standards. I thought standards of height and physical requirements were the same for all police forces across the province; I am told they are not.

It would appear the Ontario Provincial Police, and I think Metro police and many of the other police forces, are ahead of the Ottawa police forces which apparently still have the five feet eight inches requirement which establishes a more rigorous standard for women than most other police forces. I am talking about a standard across the province, and this is something that should be looked into.

As much as I value the Ottawa police force, and I have many friends there, I think they have a position which is indefensible. Why would they have a higher standard? I guess there may be more male chauvinists on that force than some of the other forces across the province.

But I would like you to advise whether you are going to take steps to establish uniform standards and whether you have any facilities or institutions to give the same type of training to both male and female police officers.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: The hon. member for Ottawa East raised two subjects. The first, this matter of warning and a return to some of the tried and true methods of policing practised in our younger days, certainly in my younger days. I can’t say much about it but, amen; I agree with what he is saying. I will ask the forces to consider these methods. I think it has to do with the community approach we were talking about earlier -- getting the police into the community, the schools, the home and school associations, service clubs, and organizations of this nature.

It will take public understanding of what they are trying to do. Certainly, it is an approach that has my endorsement. I only wish we could do more of it without being met by a lot of people who say, “I am going to stand on my rights,” and not look at some of their responsibilities as parents and individuals.

You asked about the standard of training for the various forces. I understand the standards at the Ontario Police College are the same for everyone after they enter. In other words, they all must pass the same examinations and I gather even the women must pass the same type of physical test the men go through. The Ontario Police College at Aylmer does handle women recruits and they are taking the same training the men take both in the classroom and in the physical exercise.

The last time I was down to a graduating class the women were in that precision squad marching. It was a treat to see them step out with the men. As far as smartness is concerned, they’re every bit as capable as the men when they’re in that precision squad. It consists of about 30 people. I think the last time I was down there about five of them were women. They were every bit as smart and sharp and as able as the men in that squad. They go through the same tests and all candidates must pass the same examinations.

Dealing with Ottawa, I think the hon. member for Ottawa East may exercise greater influence around this House than he does with the Ottawa police force. They are still free to set their own standards and they do. Ottawa seems somewhat more reluctant to vary its standards to try to accommodate the women than most other forces across the province. We have suggested to them from time to time that they should do so. I have had some correspondence with them in regard to the matter and some people have written to me in connection with complaints about the standards of the Ottawa police. As long as they are free to set their own standards as they presently are, they don’t have to listen to us. At the present time, they are not listening to us in the matter of the recruitment of women.

Mr. Roy: Just to pursue this point, I think in Ottawa it’s five feet 10 inches, isn’t it? I said five feet eight inches but I think they require five feet 10 inches, whereas the Ontario Provincial Police and other forces have adopted a five feet four inches minimum height for women. I would think maybe we should push them. I hadn’t realized that there was such a discrepancy. Secondly, don’t you think you should consider that the standard should be uniform across the province?

I understand the necessity of having some flexibility that responds to the requirements of that particular community. But do you think that should be one of them? Would that be trampling on something when you’re talking about something as basic as that? I think there’s very little doubt that a police force which continues to have the requirement of five feet 10 inches is eliminating -- what would you think? -- 80 per cent of the women in this province?

I’m looking at my colleague from St. George, a very capable gal. She would be eliminated from being a member of the Ottawa police force.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you. I haven’t volunteered.

Mr. Roy: She’d make an excellent police officer, I’m sure, had she not decided to pursue her career with such excellence in other spheres. The point I’m trying to make is that it would appear that when you have that sort of standard it is discriminatory. It seems to me that if the Ontario Provincial Police and all other major police forces accept five feet four inches, nobody is going to convince me that their standards of excellence or their efficiency as a police force are diminished by the fact that they’ve lowered the standard to accept the reality of today that women are accepting their place at all phases and at all levels of society.

Maybe we should put more pressure on them. I hadn’t realized they had been in touch with you and that you had corresponded with them. In your answer, you said you suggested they look into that. For all intents and purposes they have disregarded your suggestion. If that is the case, it would appear that maybe we’ll have to raise a bit of hell in Ottawa. Maybe we haven’t done enough.

[9:45]

I didn’t want to do anything about it in Ottawa until I had, in fact, talked to you to see whether you had any views on it, whether you had any correspondence. If that is the case, I would say frankly, Mr. Minister, that you should get in touch with Ottawa and say if they don’t feel on their own that they want to change their standards -- because we consider that standard to be discriminatory towards women -- if they don’t want to do it, we’ll change it for them. I think that is the type of thing the community could see was not a bad approach to take with them.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Of course, if there are any kinds of standards at all they become discriminatory, whether they are intelligence standards, whether they are academic achievements or whatever they may be. I have been in touch with the Ottawa police through the chairman of the Ontario Police Commission. His memorandum to me -- that is, the memorandum from Elmer Bell back on September 8 in regard to a particular case and since that time I have been in touch with Chief Seguin of Ottawa -- advises me that the regulations of the Ottawa board have always been quite firm in connection with height.

Until World War II the height qualification was six feet. To accommodate some returned men who were excellent prospects, the height qualification at that time was reduced to five feet 10 inches. So if they could reduce it to accommodate some veterans maybe they can reduce them again to accommodate some women.

In the meantime, I think that one person who has written to me has probably appealed to the Human Rights Commission and they may be looking at it at the present time. But, we will be glad to urge Ottawa. I think a few women on that force would be an attribute to them and I would like to see, as you are suggesting, that they make it possible for women -- or more women, I guess there are some women who are six feet, I know there are some women who are six feet but I guess there are not that many six-foot women who are applying for the Ottawa police force. I would like to see them lessen their height standards for women so that more could apply.

Mr. Roy: I might just make this comment, Mr. Chairman, to the minister. I am told in Ottawa there are only six of the force of 586, in fact, who are women and they have been there for quite some time. Chief Seguin is a nice fellow, a good fellow. I get along well with him. But he is a former football player and I think he dates from the days when the only fellows who were on the fire department and the Ottawa police force were either the hockey players or the football players.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: That kind of discrimination.

Mr. Roy: It was a tough go for him. I’m surprised he didn’t put a weight requirement in there and say that the guy had to weigh 225 pounds. In any event, I think that you and I, Mr. Minister, can work together on this. Obviously that has got to be changed because it is certainly discriminatory.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I would apologize in advance if I am being repetitive. I’ve been pursuing other duties and missed some of the debate this evening in the House. I, too, wanted to speak to the matter of the community cop in Metropolitan Toronto, and I have to express the opinion that in my view it is one of the most backward steps which has been taken by the commission.

Is the minister aware of the fact that this particular group is the group which has in the past and was proposing now to carry on seminars with the Human Rights Commission as a result of what is deemed to be an increasing violence in the racial tension in our community?

If he is not aware, I would hope that he would discuss the matter with the Human Rights Commission, because if there is anything we need in our community today, it’s people who have the expertise in human relationships, working with the community who can at least dissipate some of these problems for our cities. To think that this group would be the very group that is under the gun at the moment is totally incomprehensible to me if one is concerned with the broader issues in such a community as we have here.

I suppose the next people we will lose will be our cops who patrol beats, because we do have them in Toronto and I believe that the experiment has been singularly successful. We have them in certain areas of downtown Toronto and I would hate to see them go too, to see them all get back into cars and continue this somewhat difficult chore of trying to keep order from the cars.

I’m pleased that the question of women in the force has been raised. But while I thought Toronto was very much ahead of the rest of the communities in Canada -- and we have a magnificent woman in Fern Alexander in charge of the youth bureau which has been, as I see it, somewhat eroded -- with the community cop perhaps now being removed, the men on the force will renew their battle for extra wages because women in their opinion are not performing all of the functions which they perform. That has been an ongoing battle. Has it been resolved or are we still facing this from time to time?

I don’t know how the police are to look after a city like this, but it does seem to me that if you have a force, and if this government is concerned about racism, about the type of violence that we see, perhaps the minister himself might intervene to see if there is something that can be done to enable us to keep the community cops who really are tremendously useful in various areas. They really bring a very human element into the community. Some day, perhaps I’ll be able to submit to you some examples of the sorts of things that I have been acquainted with, things that they’ve done in the community which perhaps go quite beyond what we see as a police function. Yet it is of tremendous usefulness to the medical profession and others in the community.

It seems to me that we have to try to stop departmentalizing and compartmentalizing our activities. Perhaps we should, in co-operation, take a new look at what we are talking about, so that we can try to prevent some of the things that are happening.

Your colleague has made reference to the increasing incident of violent crimes by women. This, of course, may be that they have been so brutalized by the failure of the various governments to recognize what is happening to them in our society. Yet again, we are compartmentalized into what we could do. As I pointed out to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton), perhaps some of them are becoming violent because they are battered themselves. They are starting to retaliate.

But if you have the kind of service that is represented in the community police officers. I do believe that we can make great gains in the understanding of people as to the whole function of the police.

I would ask the minister if he would be prepared at least to have some discussions with the police commission in this city to that end, expressing to the commission our concerns here in the loss of that particularly important element in the police force.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I don’t know that that decision has definitely been made by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission. I gather it was just one of the alternatives that they may be considering.

Mrs. Campbell: All the more reason to talk to them.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: But I will be quite pleased to speak to some of the commissioners and ask them to give careful consideration to that. I see a bit of an inconsistency here, when this is a decision that the local politicians can make. The suggestion all the time is that we should be giving local politicians more control over their force and that the province should not have quite so much to say in regard to those who run it. At times like this, and with reason, you are suggesting that it should be the Solicitor General who gets in and gives them some guidelines and instructions at to who should qualify to be police officers and also in what fields they should put their emphasis.

It does remain with the local commissions to make these decisions at the present time, but I am not averse to making my views known to them, and certainly discussing the problems, and I will do so with the Metro people.

I think I commented on police women the other night, but the hon. member for St. George was probably not here at the time. There is no question that police women on the force serve a very useful function. But many of the police chiefs just feel that they cannot assign to them all of the same duties that they assign to their male members of their forces. I accept that and I think it is with reason.

The police officers -- and when I say officers, I am referring to the senior officers on the forces -- are quite protective of the women on the force. They feel, I guess, sort of a father’s responsibility to a daughter rather than as one man might feel toward another man. I can understand it and I think it is commendable and I think it is good. So that if it is a situation where violence is at all likely, they certainly do not want to send a woman into that situation alone. In some circumstances they are even loath to send a male officer supported by a woman officer.

So there are those practical realities involved. Certainly I am not critical of the senior police officers who take that attitude because I think it is commendable and one that they have to use great discretion in. So, there is much room for women in police activity in the force but I am not so sure that it is 100 per cent. That is not the right way to put it -- I think there are places where women can better serve than men, but I still believe that there are some places where men can serve better than women. That is one of the realities of police work.

[10:00]

Mrs. Campbell: Following the statement by the minister, I recognize what he has said. Yet, if one looks at the type of police work that women are asked to do in those very areas of mugging, violence, prostitution, all of the aspects of organized crime, I feel very strongly that it isn’t quite accurate to say that they are not sent in, because they are very suited to the type of investigation that you want to carry on in areas of organized crime. Those are not easy assignments and they certainly are fraught with great danger.

I think we ought to be very clear in what we’re talking about when we say that we should be protective of women and all of this. Women are applying to get into the police forces. It seems to me that if they have an explanation on what they may well be up against then that is the degree of responsibility to them.

I would think that with this sort of an attitude one could say that, perhaps, promotions would not be very readily available to them. When the minister is getting the other information, we might take a look at their standings in rank in the forces across this province and what kind of progress they are able to make in the force.

Perhaps that would give us some clues as to what is happening with the police.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: As I said, there are certainly some positions that women can fill better than men. When I say that police officers are protective, I think that when they are in some of these potentially dangerous situations, they are pretty closely guarded, as would a male officer be. They are kept in pretty close contact and, similarly, a male officer would be given the same kind of protection. But when you’re looking at a barroom brawl, I think someone my size might be a little more suitable to go in to help quell that than somebody a little bit smaller.

Mrs. Campbell: I wouldn’t take that for granted.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: However, as far as women are concerned, they have certainly shown that, apart from their stature, they certainly don’t lack any courage and they have every bit as much courage to take on some of these jobs as the men have.

Mr. Bradley: First I would like to make a comment on the line of questioning that the member for St. George has pursued and a brief comment in conjunction with what the minister has had to say.

No doubt, he is aware of a particular difficult situation that arose in the regional municipality of Niagara where one of our female officers was subjected to a rather savage beating after arriving on the scene of a break-and-enter. She attempted to hold onto the individual who had committed the crime and was beaten with -- I don’t know whether it was a lead pipe or some instrument of that kind.

She did receive a recommendation for some kind of medal or some kind of distinction which, it would seem to me, did very little for the damage done to her appearance and to the physical state of her body on this particular occasion.

So I can understand why police forces would be rather reluctant to move very quickly into specific areas with the use of female officers. It’s probably very easy to criticize this lack of application of the female officers except when we face some of the realities which you have already mentioned.

My question, though, deals with the police colleges and I’m looking for information here. My first question would be, is there any kind of compulsion for municipal police forces to send potential officers to police colleges? Is there a requirement for that?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: The answer is no.

Mr. Bradley: Do you have any plans for that kind of a requirement in the future?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: In the future, yes. I would think we would come to that. At the present time we still have in this province some very small police forces. Some of them are three- and four-man forces so you can understand if we forced one person from that size force to go to police college it would make quite a dent in their strength.

At the present time it is all by persuasion, but I can see, as forces get larger and some of the smaller forces disappear, that training will be compulsory. I would think, however, that it would not need to be that because most of the large forces want to take part in it and readily comply where their size and budgets permit.

Mr. Bradley: Who would pay the cost for the tuition for a police officer of a regional or city police force to attend the college, and how much would that tuition be?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: The province of Ontario pays for tuition and travel but the salary of the man or woman during the time of the training is paid by the local municipality.

Mr. Bradley: In the light of the fact that the municipalities are facing difficult times, financing various areas of their activities through the property tax -- which we recognize as being regressive -- are you giving consideration to paying the salaries of those officers at the particular time?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Certainly not at the present time, and if we listen to the Treasurer, as some of us on this side do, it might be assumed that the municipalities are not having such a tough time with their financing as the province itself is having. They seem still able to afford some of the luxuries which the province is trying to curtail. I am not sure that the municipalities are under any greater stress at the present time than our own provincial treasury.

Mr. Bradley: Well, Mr. Chairman, I will just disagree with the minister on that and not get into a debate.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry?

Item 2 agreed to.

On item 3, Ontario Police Arbitration Commission:

Mr. Blundy: In speaking on this item, police arbitration, I will be very brief, but I do want to put forth to the Solicitor General a view on police arbitrations that is held by many municipal people -- and former municipal people. Over the past few years, we find that many of the police associations are only too ready and willing to go to arbitration. We have seen instances in the past -- and I am sure that the Solicitor General knows of such incidents -- where a police commission may offer an eight or 10 per cent increase. The police association is, perhaps, asking for a 10 per cent or a 12 per cent increase, and after practically a year of talks it goes to arbitration; an arbitrator is appointed and they come back with 14 per cent.

What I would like to see done -- and I know that this is something that many municipal politicians have asked for in the past -- is that the Ontario Police Commission would appoint a panel of trained arbitrators, arbitrators who have some background in salary negotiations, some background in labour laws and so forth.

What happens is that a man is appointed -- it used to be judges or retired judges, although I understand that it is not the case now -- and all he is interested in is having the arbitration hearing, making a settlement and getting his fee without any regard to the municipality that is going to have to pay the bill. Many of us have said all along that public service salaries have led among inflated settlements made in this country during the last few years, and this has been the case, I think, under the present form of arbitration. I believe that we must have arbitrators but I am asking that the Solicitor General consider setting up a panel of arbitrators who are trained to do the job and to do it to the best of their ability, to look after both the police association and the police commission and, consequently, the taxpayers who are paying the bill. There is a great deal of work that can be done in this area because there are more and more arbitrations, more and more police associations going to arbitration all the time.

I would be very pleased to hear what the Solicitor General has to say about that and what is planned in the future.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: There are two possible procedures for the police associations and the police authorities to follow when they come to an impasse. The final step is arbitration and that is compulsory. All in all, I think it is working very well. Naturally, when arbitration is compulsory, it has a tendency to be more generous than if a strike was the alternative. It is probably the associations who benefit from the fact we have arbitration, because generally, some sort of compromise is made.

However, more recently, we have been using with a high degree of success, a pre-arbitration procedure of conciliation. We have been helped in this by the anti-inflation controls, because the police associations know what their limits are as far as the Anti-Inflation Board is concerned. The conciliation officers have had a great deal of success in settling many police impasses in this way. I am pleased with that.

Of course, some of them are still going to arbitration. That is the second procedure which can be followed and, of course, is final.

You suggested setting up a panel to hear these arbitration matters. That is, in effect, what we do have. We don’t have any permanent arbitrator at the present time; we do have a panel of nine people, who have heard various arbitration matters for police during 1976. They are: Professor G. W. Adams, Dr. A. P. Aggarwal, Professor P. G. Barton, Mr. Kevin Burkett, Professor Gail Brent, Professor D. D. Carter, Professor R. H. McLaren, Professor J. W. Samuels, and Professor K. P. Swan. That is exactly what the Police Arbitration Commission does. It seeks out qualified people, and sets up a panel of arbitrators. The arbitration commission meets from time to time to go through this selection procedure. Then they say, “Yes, we will accept certain people,” and I have read off the names of some of those who have been accepted and have been doing that arbitration work.

What we don’t have at the present time is a full-time arbitrator. We are getting along reasonably well without one. A lawyer by the name of George Ferguson used to do that work. George was appointed to the bench, so in the meantime, we are getting by with a panel of part-time arbitrators. I think it is working very well.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Chairman, along the same line as the member for Sarnia, one of the problems in the appointment of arbitrators -- and you mentioned some very competent and experienced individuals -- is that these arbitrators are usually people from the upper income brackets who are used to living at a particular level in terms of their income and benefits. Therefore, they are more inclined to be generous in their awards.

If you were to get a person, for instance, who worked as an industrial worker in a small plant in one of the towns or cities of Ontario, I wonder whether he or she would be as quick to make these kinds of awards.

Secondly, I see a number of professors on that particular list. I am not opposed to professors, but I wonder whether we are top-heavy with academics in this group. It seems to me we need arbitrators who are familiar with the ramifications of the awards they are going to make; the financial ramifications and the operational ramifications. This again seems to be one of the problems.

[10:15]

I heard mentioned as well, somewhere in the conversation, what happens when the AIB is removed. There are a lot of people, some in this Legislature, who are itching to get rid of the AIB. But commissions and municipalities are fearful of the removal of the AIB because they know, even within the awards that have been made, they were at the upper limits of what the AIB permitted. I think we can all envisage what’s going to happen when that’s removed and everybody thinks that somehow he has to catch up.

There are a couple of areas where I’m obviously being repetitive of what’s happened in the past here. One of great concern to police commissions, obviously, is that of the two-man patrols, in instances for instance where they may be on from 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning -- something of that nature -- when really the prime times might be between 9:30 at night and 2:30 in the morning. It seems that arbitrators have made decisions in this particular area and the commissions have been stuck with them, cutting out the flexibility that they have and increasing the cost they might experience.

A second concern would be arbitrators’ awards which call for an equal number of men in each squadron there may be within a regional police force. I don’t know whether arbitrators have anything to do with OMERS or not. Perhaps OMERS is outside the arbitrators. This is a third concern. I know that what those who are financially responsible on commissions would be concerned about is the unknown costs or the increasing costs of financing OMERS. They would be very concerned about that.

I look at those specific areas and see them as being potential dangers. I also see problems in negotiation, before they even get to arbitration. I think this is important as well. I’m diverging a little bit, I recognize, from the arbitration itself, but I point this out because it has to do with pre-arbitration. I am referring to the makeup of the commissions. It seems evident, even to those who in the past thought that having a majority of appointed members was reasonable, that now we do need a majority of elected officials. For instance, where we have a five-man commission, at least three of those members should be elected officials who know the financial ramifications of decisions which are being made and, therefore, in the negotiating process are perhaps more fiscally responsible than those who don’t have to answer to the electorate at any particular time.

Commissioners, I know, are concerned not only because of arbitration, at the fact that they are losing control of the expenditures for policing. The Police Act gives the chief of police wide authority to make decisions which have an increase in expenditure. Without even arbitrators having to make these decisions, the chief of police himself seems to have a lot of ability to make certain decisions under the Police Act which are going to result in increased expenditures. We all know that this comes into arbitration, but we all know that the chief of police in any particular area looks at the finest features of other municipal police forces and wants those for his police forces, just as I’m sure the members of the police association look for the best features in other areas and try to put those features before arbitrators as being absolute necessities instead of something that’s desirable for particular areas.

I won’t beg the Chairman to be as tolerant as to allow me to get in a plug for getting judges off the commission, because I realize that would come in another vote. But I think we recognize the conflict of interest, nevertheless, that a judge would have in serving on police commissions. I won’t mention where, but there are some examples where it is obvious there is a need to have someone other than a judge serving.

The last point I would make in this regard, and I don’t know whether it would come within the parameters of an arbitrator or not, is the fact that the chief of police has a staff under him that deals with financial administration. It has been suggested by some that perhaps this financial administration should come under the jurisdiction of the regional municipality, for instance, using their particular staff.

I make these suggestions and ask for any comments you might have on the points I’ve made.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: My reply will be short. You suggested we have too many professors on there. The problem is to get arbitrators who are satisfactory to both sides. Sometimes you can find a lawyer who is acceptable. Sometimes you go to the academic field. If you went to, say, management, the associations would not be happy. On the other hand, if you went to somebody closely associated with the police associations, the police governing authorities would not be happy.

So it is a case of trying to find people acceptable to both sides, and believe it or not there are not so many of them around who do have those qualifications. But I agree, we should try to enlarge that list and get it more diversified.

It’s interesting that the member for St. Catharines commented on two-men cars. I think many people, both inside and outside police circles -- and police officers themselves -- are now questioning the value of two-men cars for a variety of reasons; some of which you mentioned -- the lack of flexibility, and safety. We’ve heard that sometimes when police are in the company of another police officer they feel they have a sense of security they shouldn’t have, where if they were alone they approach all situations with caution. If they have somebody with them, sometimes they don’t use as much caution. So even on the matter of safety it’s being questioned.

At the present time, you’re looking at Metropolitan Toronto. I shouldn’t say this because I don’t know what their arguments are, but I assume they are saying that since they are stuck with the two-men cars they can’t lower the number of patrols there so they will have to look for community officers. I am glad to see that the member for St. Catharines is raising that point and questioning it.

Just one more point on arbitration: Generally you find that the associations, because they have specialists for their counsel, come into these arbitrations better prepared than do the various municipalities.

The municipalities have a counsel who is generally dealing with many facets of municipal life while the police -- and the same applies to fire as well -- come in with specialists in the field who know all the arguments and who have presented them many times. So with a little more preparation on the part of those representing the municipalities, or if they dealt with more specialists in the field, they might have better success before the arbitrators and enjoy some of the success that the associations, both police and fire, are at present enjoying.

Mr. Stong: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to address myself to two areas on this particular vote.

As I understand it -- I am making an assumption here -- in the event of an arbitration there probably would be three persons in attendance: the chairman, a person representing the municipal police governing body and a person representing the police force. In your support material for these estimates you indicate that besides the chairman, there are two commission members who represent municipal police governing bodies and two members who represent police forces.

I am wondering if, in fact, there isn’t a type of built-in conflict of interest in this particular makeup in so far as all of these persons are paid from the same trough and therefore owe their allegiance to the same branch of government. In that area would it not have been better to have this arbitration commission -- which I assume is the body to determine arbitration -- selected, except for the chairman, from appointees at the time of the arbitration from the respective fields and thereby avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest that may arise?

The second point I would like to raise on this particular vote is: When the arbitration committee sits down to make a determination, what is the policy or what are the guidelines it uses to arrive at that decision?

You mentioned too the strike or conciliation. I am not convinced in my own mind that the day and usefulness of the strike as a vehicle for determining anything have not passed and that the strike movement has not outlived its usefulness. It seems to me that perhaps in this day and age and with the needs of society, we should consider other vehicles for settling disputes.

I’m wondering if some of the guidelines for the arbitrators would be the same guidelines we set down by legislation in this House for the teachers’ strikes in terms of final-offer selection so that each party presents its own package and the arbitrator then determines which complete package meets the needs of that dispute. In fact, we would cast the responsibility on both parties, both from the municipal level and from the police force level, to come up with a reasonable solution to their own problem. They would be secure in the knowledge that an arbitrator was going to select one complete package and they were both going to be stuck with that package.

Is it not better, I ask in my respectful submission, to have this type of guideline for arbitration so that both parties will act in a reasonable and responsible way in the determination of their own dispute?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I appreciate what the member for York Centre is saying in regard to the possibility of opening other avenues for settling disputes.

At present I don’t feel that need is there. As he knows, police cannot strike under our laws; they must go to arbitration. Although I think the fact that there is forced arbitration means the associations may do a little better than they might otherwise do, the kind of settlements that are reached are not unfair, in my opinion.

We’ve had very few complaints. I know the municipalities are always suggesting that it’s the arbitrators who are forcing them into these higher salaries. But I’m not so sure our salaries in this province are out of line with the kind of responsibilities we’re putting on the police and the kind of qualifications we’re asking them to have.

I don’t feel there is enough wrong with the system to start looking for the kind of alternatives we have developed for the school teachers, which as you know is a rather long procedure and eventually leaves open the door of a possible strike.

However, there’s no reason that this arbitration commission can’t continue to examine those things, and I’m sure they’ll read the member’s suggestions in Hansard.

When we refer to the Ontario Police Arbitration Commission, it is a group of people composed of two from the associations and two from the governing authorities, together with Rory F. Egan from the Ministry of Labour. They set the standards for arbitrators, try to issue some guidelines to them and select who will be eligible to do the arbitrating. They themselves do not do any arbitrations. They don’t hear any arbitration hearings.

They are simply the people who report to me as to their proposals for new arbitrators, issuing guidelines for them and handling the mechanics of arbitration. In other words, they look after setting the hearings and things of that nature. There’s only one permanent person employed in there, and she is the woman who sets those hearing dates and handles the paperwork involved, So I think there may be a little mistake as to the duties of the arbitration commission.

The commissions themselves, when they go out, are one-man commissions. Of course, they can hear representation from as many people as they want and as many counsel as want to make presentations, but they are one-man commissions.

Item 3 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 1603 carry?

Mr. Roy: There is one matter of hearings under the Police Act.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: That is a statutory item and it’s not to be voted on.

Mr. Roy: But we can talk about it, though, can’t we? I don’t intend to be very long at all on that particular item.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: May I ask the hon. member if he will be less than two minutes?

[10:30]

Mr. Roy: I think I could probably make it in two minutes and 31 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, this amount seems to be reduced considerably from 1975-76 and from 1976-77. I just want to say briefly that I still feel there are matters under the Police Act which are unfair to police officers. I have said this on many occasions before and I will repeat it again as it is important. If we are going to ask our police officers or people in authority to make sure they follow the rule of law and give an individual all the safeguards and all the advantage of the safeguards we have created in our law, then when they have problems they should be treated equally fairly and justly under the Police Act.

I have said for years -- and I have not seen major changes come into the Police Act -- that there are many proceedings under the Police Act which, in my opinion, are unfair to members of the force. It seems to me that possibly there are fewer complaints, but I have seen many police officers who find themselves in a certain situation. As an example, it used to be that it was the chief of police who would decide to investigate a situation and very often he would decide to have a charge laid under the Police Act. Then he would turn around and be the judge. You can see the problem that that causes.

I suppose I am speaking for nothing here actually because I have said this many times before and I have not seen any changes come along under the Police Act. But I think it is an important point and I will say again, even if I have to say it over a number of years: If we are going to assure that our police officers give an accused every safeguard, they have got to be treated fairly when they have problems.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Our proposed amendments look after internal complaints. I think for the most part that is what the member is talking about. We will be dealing with that in the Police Act revisions which will come up shortly. This is a statutory amount put in at $1,000. It certainly may go well above the $1,000. The matters that my friend was raising will be dealt with under the amendments to the Police Act.

Vote 1603 agreed to.

On motion by Hon. Mr. MacBeth, the committee of supply reported progress.

On motion by Hon. Mr. MacBeth, the House adjourned at 10:32 p.m.