Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

AGENCY REVIEW

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD

CONTENTS

Monday 1 February 1993

Agency review

Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board

Allan G. Andrews, auditor, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto

W.D. Drinkwalter, chair, Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services

Art Lymer, president, Metropolitan Toronto Police Association

Dr Gordon Chong, member, Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations

Mark Wainberg, member, Metro Coalition for Police Reform

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

*Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)

*Bradley, James J. (St Catharines L)

Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)

*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)

Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)

*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)

*Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)

*Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

*Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)

Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)

Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND) for Mr Ferguson

Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Mr Waters

Coppen, Shirley (Niagara South/-Sud ND) for Ms Carter

Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Wiseman

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Manikel, Tannis

Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1407 in committee room 2.

AGENCY REVIEW

Consideration of the operations of certain agencies, boards and commissions.

The Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): Can we come to order, please. Perhaps cut down on the side conversations as quickly as possible so we can get on with our business. We're a little bit behind schedule.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD

The Chair: Our first witness this morning is Allan Andrews, the Metropolitan auditor.

Mr Andrews, would you like to come forward and have a seat, please? Thank you very much for accepting our invitation to appear here today. As you know, the committee has been reviewing the operations of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board. A few months ago we had Ms Susan Eng, the chair of the board, and Mr Dennis Flynn, a member, appear before us and give their views in respect to a number of issues affecting the operations of the board. One of those, of course, given the tenor of the times, was the race relations practices of the board. We heard from Mr Flynn and Ms Eng on those matters, but we wanted to hear from someone else, perhaps a different perspective, and that's why the invitation was extended to you.

Would you like to say something briefly before we get into questioning?

Mr Allan G. Andrews: Yes, Mr Chairman. As I understand it, all the members have probably received or been briefed on the specific report. This was requested in April 1990 as a result of initiatives that were taken by both Metropolitan Toronto council and the police services board. There was really no precedent for such an audit, and in fact I suspect that many of the people who were asking for it had little idea of what it entailed.

The review was a multidisciplined one. We in my department and myself brought what I would call some mainstream evaluative abilities to the task, and we supplemented that with expertise from the policing area, criminology, social services and other related skills. The study was primarily focused on the internal mechanisms and workings of the police force. It was not an attempt to solve all the race relations problems of Metropolitan Toronto and, apart from some minor consultative exercises where we spoke to various community groups, various minority groups, there was very little input from anybody outside the group that was working on the project.

We reported out on this project in September 1992, and I think the time that went by in performing this work gives you some indication of the extent of what we did.

In the process of doing the field work we looked at a number of head office functions -- training, community relations and a number of other areas that function out of the headquarters area -- and we also looked at a number of divisional police units around the city, selected to give a cross-section of communities that had a high number of minority groups and those that did not. We interviewed well over 100 police officers on a formal basis and had a large amount of interaction with a lot more.

I don't think this is the end product in this whole issue of evaluating what the police force is doing. I think it was a very useful exercise. While I got many questions initially asking about the group's ability to do such a study, I think the fact that we had no axe to grind, the fact that we were not taking any particular perspective, turned out in the end to be a strength for what we did.

We reported, as I said, to the police services board in September 1992, and the police services board has since taken some action to put certain processes into motion to address the recommendations of the report. I won't go into what the report said, since you probably all have been briefed on it already. I think I'll leave it there.

The Chair: Thanks very much, Mr Andrews. We all have copies of the report. We're operating under some rigid time constraints and we only have a half an hour allocated for questions and responses. So could each member remember that in terms of the time limitations and the length of your questions, and your responses as well, Mr Andrews. We're going to allocate 10 minutes to each caucus, and I'll look to Mr McLean to begin the questioning.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): You're the auditor for Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr Andrews: That's right.

Mr McLean: You do the audit for the police services board.

Mr Andrews: That's correct.

Mr McLean: The amount of the annual grant from the province is about $43 million to the Toronto police services board?

Mr Andrews: The grant, as I understand it, is to Metropolitan Toronto in respect of policing.

Mr McLean: Right. Just a question: The Metro board is made up of a majority of provincial appointments, and yet Metro makes up 90% of the budget. What comments would you have with regard to that spread?

Mr Andrews: Well, that essentially is a political question, but the fact is that Metropolitan council has already taken a position that it would like the majority of the members appointed from Metropolitan council, since it perceives that it spends most of the money. I think one of the positions one tries to take as an auditor is no position, and I think that's exactly what I have on that particular question.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): I'm still not clear, Mr Andrews -- and how are you? Having spent some time at Metropolitan Toronto, I know you're a superb auditor and accountant and so on, and you did a very good job there when it came to number crunching and so on and so forth. Explain to me how you qualify to do this study, because I'm really lost as to what your qualifications are that you should undertake this study in the first place. And who asked you to do it?

Mr Andrews: Well, the initiative for this study, as I mentioned before, came originally from Metropolitan council. The specific request to do it came from the police services board. I think it recognized the fact that, first of all, we brought to the table a lot of exposure, a lot of experience about the police and the police operation itself. At the same time, we were independent of the police services board. The appointment as auditor is by Metropolitan council, and that effectively appoints me also as auditor to the police services board.

To say I was not qualified is true only in the sense that I did not have any race relations specialty, but in fact we have done many projects that are of a consulting nature. In fact, to this particular study we added a number of expertises, such as a criminologist, an ex-police officer, an ex-Ombudsman of Ontario, who was also at one time the chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. We had staffing from other functions, from the multicultural and race relations area who perform certain work for us from Metropolitan Toronto. We had staff from the Solicitor General's office in their police race relations unit. All of these, I think, together gave us collectively the expertise to do this project.

Mr Stockwell: Okay. If you accept that assumption -- I don't, but if you accept it, then the result of this report should in effect go a long way in resolving some of the issues that you're asked to address. I've read a few of these reports, not just this one, but in the last 10 years I think there's been a few of these kinds of reports, maybe not as elaborate or as in-depth, but certainly studies, reports by groups and so on and so on.

With all due respect, this report doesn't read a whole bunch different from what I've seen in the last eight or nine years. It may even be 10 years. It's no secret that one of the key components of any of these recommendations is for the police department to hire more visible minorities. They've always instituted these programs to hire more visible minorities, yet their success has been pretty bad, to say the least. It's been what I would suggest is maybe even a failure. It hasn't succeeded to the numbers that everyone wanted to see.

Give me an example of some of the things that you've made recommendations about that will reverse this trend or make this report, in my mind, read any differently than the last half a dozen -- maybe not as in-depth but reports or papers -- that I've read on this issue in itself.

Mr Andrews: Mr Chairman, the member is absolutely right that there is not a lot in this report that has never appeared in other reports that have been issued on the subject.

What is different about this report, and I think it is a very fundamental difference, is that all of the other reports have been written from outside the police force. They have largely reflected anecdotal evidence, specific experiences of individuals who have given evidence, and this report is the first one, to my knowledge, that has looked at the issues internally within the police force. While it may not say a lot that is very different than any of the other reports, I think the credibility of it, given the fact that I am not a race relations activist or an advocate for police rights or anything of that nature, is substantially different. That, I think, is the fundamental difference.

Mr Stockwell: One last question. Have I got time?

The Chair: Yes, no problem.

Mr Stockwell: You completed this report. I read it with some interest. You went at this, you suggest, without any axe to grind. You were on neither side. You're an impartial third party who went in just to examine the issue. Tell me what you think about the compiling of crime stats based on race, whether you think that is an issue that needs to be addressed and what your position was going in and if it changed at all after finishing this report.

Mr Andrews: Quite frankly, before this project was handed to us, I hadn't thought a lot about anything to do with race relations other than as much as one has to, being involved in government. As far as crime stats are concerned, I don't think I had a particular position going in. I don't remember it if I did. It certainly wasn't a strong one, one way or the other.

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During the process we probably got, from very reputable people, both conclusions that said you should keep them and conclusions that said you shouldn't keep them. I think our position, when we finished it, was that there are a number of people, including people within the force, who feel the maintenance of crime statistics has one purpose only, and that is to demonstrate something about various minority groups.

In many respects in the policing community there is a certain attitude among some -- not all, but some -- who would say that those crime stats would show to the general population what it instinctively knows already. But I'd have to say at the same time that police officers themselves have strong opinions about a lot of things, even internally within the force, which in fact, on analysis, don't turn out to be true.

Our position was that there is little merit in keeping crime statistics to tell you anything about particular minority groups from a policing perspective. There may be other advantages for other people, such as sociologists or people in other fields, but from a policing perspective, even if such statistics showed certain patterns of behaviour in a certain group, the question would be, what do you do then? Our conclusion was: nothing.

What we did feel, however, is that in terms of measuring what police were doing in their relationships with minorities there was considerable advantage, and in fact a necessity, to maintain some type of statistic that would measure what police did within the same types of conditions when they were dealing with people of different races. It was necessary in terms of managing what was happening, it was necessary in terms of determining if there was something wrong and changing it and it was also necessary to defend the police if they were wrongfully accused of mistreating particular groups.

Mr McLean: I have a short supplementary, Mr Chair.

The Chair: Very quickly.

Mr McLean: If you don't know what the statistics are to tell you who's creating the crimes, how do you know who you should be hiring to police the crimes?

Mr Andrews: I'm not sure that the two issues are entirely relevant. One of the things that came across in discussions with minorities to the degree we did was that while they feel issues like employment equity, in terms of making sure the force is representative of the community, were good things to do, they were not central to the relationship of police with minority groups.

The Chair: I'll have to move on. Mr Grandmaître, are you ready?

Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): Mr Andrews, one of the highlights of your report is better training of police officers, better training at the police college as well. Naturally, when we talk about better training and more sophisticated training, not only in Metro but at the police college, we're talking about cents and dollars. You're an expert on number crunching and also cost-effectiveness.

What are your thoughts on the proposal of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the government whip and you name it -- I'll take this back. He's not the government whip, he's just about everything else. I'm referring to Mr Cooke -- what are your thoughts on disentanglement? How will this affect the police services board and Metro in general?

Mr Andrews: That's like asking what we think of the world state in terms of a specific issue.

Mr Grandmaître: If you have an answer, give it to me.

Mr Andrews: I think it is a very global issue. As it relates to the funding, the fact is that the funding, while it is nominally given for policing, and I think it was referred to earlier, really doesn't actually go to the police services board as a discrete item. A much larger amount is budgeted in the accounts of the Metropolitan corporation and is offset against any grants that are given from the province of Ontario. So in a global sense, provided the dollars all come out the same way at the time disentanglement -- I have trouble with it too -- goes through, there should not be any impact.

In terms of the training, while there certainly are dollars and cents attached to it, I think we intentionally tried not to make this an accounting-sounding kind of report. We were trying to address issues that related to the quality of the training, how it was focused, and recognizing that to do training in isolation from the reality of what happens on the street for the most part, for most police officers, would tend not to do a lot of good.

Mr Grandmaître: It won't do a lot of good. With the changes in the last three or four years to the Police Act and also disentanglement, I can't see how this government will resolve your problems, especially when we refer to police forces across the province of Ontario. When you tie in disentanglement, I have a terrible time understanding where you people will -- I suppose the Metro police force will simply have to tax people in order to provide better training, but when you look at the present force, there are close to 6,000 police officers on the Metro force.

To train these people for today's activities and to respond to the need of the visible minority groups will take 5 to 10 years. So more efficient -- more training will have to be done, and again I'm talking about dollars and cents. I don't know where they're going to get these dollars; if not from the provincial government, they'll have to raise Metro taxes.

Mr Stockwell: Parking tickets.

Mr Grandmaître: And parking tickets too. You're the experts; you're the auditor; you're the CA. You must have an idea of where these people will have access to additional dollars, if not the taxpayers.

Mr Andrews: I don't necessarily accept that we're inevitably headed towards increased taxes to respond in some way to what effectively will be 45% of the community of Metropolitan Toronto.

We have done a number of other studies on the police and continue to do some, and the issues are largely reprioritization of what the police in fact are doing, which they are doing themselves incidentally to a certain extent and managing in a very different way. The fact is that we have suggested, in some of the areas, that some activities which involve funding now could be done in a different way and the funding applied differently, in a more effective way to different activities.

There's no doubt that taking training as an isolated item will require some funding. But if you offset that against hopefully a diminution in the cost of dealing with the results of not training people properly -- and that does cost considerably -- I don't believe we are looking at megadollars in terms of dealing with that issue.

Mr Grandmaître: Can I go back to disentanglement? As you know, the recommendation in the white paper, if I can call it the white paper, will give municipal councils right across the province of Ontario a bigger say in police budgeting. What are your thoughts on giving municipal people more of a say in police budgets?

Mr Andrews: I didn't come prepared to speak about disentanglement, so what I say is based on reading just as much as the member has, I suppose, in the white paper.

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I've always felt, though, that the exercise of policing, from an operational standpoint in terms of the day-to-day work, should be divorced from political interference but that the police force as a whole has to be accountable for where it uses its resources. To the extent that the Metropolitan corporation funds it, I think it should be accountable to the Metropolitan corporation as to how it uses those resources.

Mr Grandmaître: So you do agree that councillors or municipalities should have more of a say in their budget?

Mr Andrews: In the sense that I just said, yes.

Mr Grandmaître: Let's talk about the composition of the existing police services board. We've appointed a number of new faces on the police services board in the last two and a half years. Do you think that the present membership represents or reflects Metro's population?

Mr Andrews: I really have no idea about that. You're asking me for a character assessment of the individuals. I couldn't really respond to that.

Mr Grandmaître: But you're responsible for this review of race relations and you've just finished telling us that you're not an expert. I've asked you a couple of dollars-and-cents questions, and you've told me you're not an expert in that domain. God, oh God, I'll have to ask what my friend asked you previously: Why do you think you were asked to do this review of race relations practices?

Mr Andrews: I don't know that I can add much to my previous response. This study was done long before disentanglement was on the table. We certainly did not consider anything to do with disentanglement when we did it, and I'm not sure that even if we had known about disentanglement it would have altered the realities and the truths as we determine them as to how police officers deal with minorities. That is what this study was all about. While resolving the issues around that may have some funding implications and there may be a perception that the composition of the board should change, it certainly had little to do with the study that we performed in 1991 and 1992.

The Chair: Thank you. I have to move on to Mr Marchese.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Mr Andrews, I'm going to refer to the report that you have written and will ask you for clarification and elaboration on some of those points. The first one is, you state there's "no evidence...of organized, intentional prejudice or bias against racial minorities" on the MTPF, nor is there "evidence that the force attracts individuals who are overtly racist." However, an attitudinal change often occurs among recruits once they join the force. Can you just elaborate on what happens once they join the force in terms of this attitudinal change?

Mr Andrews: This was not particularly something we set out to determine, and in fact our audit program was not even designed to elicit this, but it became very clear as we went through our interview process and talked to people at various levels. I think I can perhaps best explain it by saying that the force has for a long time -- and maybe society too, for all I know -- taken the position that police officers can go out, be exposed to the types of things that they are exposed to and somehow not be changed by it. The training processes, the way they are managed, all of the things that go to the support of officers on the street, can somehow be characterized under the term, "If you're man enough to be a police officer" -- it usually is a man -- "then you're man enough to take it all." But the fact is that police officers do not have a pleasant job to do. They are, for the most part, exposed to people at the low end of the social stratum, and we send them out to do work that probably none of us in this room would want to do.

As an institution, there has been little by way of remedial process to stop officers developing an attitude which is based on their exposure and projecting that attitude into a wider feeling about the groups of people they meet. What we were saying is that it's not wrong that when they meet criminals they feel bad about criminals; what we were saying is that when they meet criminals who are black or Chinese or anything else they project the feelings they develop into feelings about blacks or Chinese or other groups. It was clear that this was happening to some extent.

The Chair: Mr Marchese has allowed the Chair a brief supplementary, and I won't forget this. In respect to the area that Mr Marchese's quoting, you've talked about officers becoming biased and you've also talked about the objectivity of your report. In that section at the top of page 2 you say, "We did find evidence that, over time, officers develop strong feelings and beliefs as to attributes of individuals based on factors such as appearance and racial background." I've talked to an awful lot of police officers myself and I question the objectivity when you say that they're developing these feelings "based on factors such as appearance and racial background" and you do not talk about their on-the-job experience. I would think that would be one of the biggest factors influencing their views, and you make no reference to it whatsoever.

Mr Andrews: I thought our report had, Mr Chairman.

The Chair: This is your summary, page 2. To me the major ingredient in terms of how members of the force develop their views about particular groups or individuals in society would be their own experiences on the job, and you make no reference to that. It raises some doubts, in my mind anyway, about the objectivity of the approach.

Mr Andrews: I think if you read the whole report, you'll find it does explain that within the body.

The Chair: I would think the summary is a pretty key element of your report. In any event, we'll let Mr Marchese go ahead.

Mr Marchese: I would be interested in pursuing each item, but there are three or four questions I'm going to ask and I want to get to them. Another point that you raise is that the MTPF's existing race relations policies are flawed. The force's community outreach programs tend to be at the institutional level and divorced from day-to-day operations of the force. It would be useful if you could elaborate on that.

Mr Andrews: I don't think we said the policies were flawed. I'm not sure that "flawed" was a word we used either. But nevertheless, what we were referring to, I think, if I can gather from the other context of the question, was that the force in fact has done a lot of work in attempting to resolve race relations issues. The problem has been that they have usually been carried out alongside, but separated to a large degree from, the day-to-day operations of the force. While many of the police officers do get involved in community relations, do get involved in talking to minority groups, do get involved in projects related to trying to cement relationships between themselves and minorities, for the most part it doesn't touch on the day-to-day operations of police officers out on patrol dealing on a one-to-one basis with the people they meet.

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Mr Marchese: So your recommendation in order to deal with that was?

Mr Andrews: Our recommendation -- we have several, but the key one, I think, is that the force should recognize that race relations isn't a discrete set of activities one goes through on the periphery of operations; it is central to how everything is carried out in the police force.

Mr Marchese: Let me go on. You speak about the MTPF's employment equity strategy as perhaps having a difficulty connected to it in that we may be simply looking at numbers as opposed to looking at other aspects of employment equity. The force had not developed a program, for example, specifically geared to providing guidance and advice to the target groups. That speaks to the issue of moving beyond simply saying, "You've got to find people of the different ethnic and racial groups," beyond looking at numbers. You're suggesting you've got to do something else, in terms of outreach.

Mr Andrews: I don't think we had all of the solutions for everybody, and one of the things that was very evident after doing this report was that there were no easy solutions. Even if solutions could be found, there would probably still be problems with the end result.

What we were pointing out was the fact that the numbers game is difficult because, first of all, even at the rate the force was going it was going to take many, many years before it would in fact have a staff mix which would be representative of the community. Given the length of time officers had to be on the force before they would get promoted, it would cause another problem in terms of having what I call minority officers and women equally distributed through all of the various ranks in the force.

We were pointing out that the conventional ways that had been used in the past simply weren't going to accomplish the type of results envisaged in most programs for employment equity, and the force would have to be very innovative as to how it would approach it.

We did not particularly want to get into suggesting specific ways of doing it. One we did think about, though, would have been issues like lateral entry, although we know that has not been particularly successful in some police forces in the UK. As I said, we didn't necessarily have all of the solutions, but at least we tried to identify the problems.

Mr Marchese: Of course. I may have time for only one more question. I wanted to ask you what was the reaction -- or at least, how did the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board react or respond to many of your recommendations?

Mr Andrews: Both the force and the police services board responded very positively. In spite of how it might have appeared, most of the senior management of the force thought it was a well-written report and addressed many issues that should have been addressed some time previously.

One of the things they particularly liked about it was that it dealt with the force operations in an evenhanded way and didn't paint the force as absolutely one colour or another. In fact, what has happened is that a task force has been created under the guidance of the deputy chief of operations and it is presently working on its initial response to this report. I understand from discussions with the chair of the board and also with the deputy concerned that they expect to make some progress on most of the recommendations through there.

The Chair: Thanks very much, Mr Andrews. One of the aspects of this that I found interesting, and I guess makes reference to it being a good report, is the fact that one of the Toronto dailies painted it as a condemnation of the force and another Toronto daily painted it as a vindication of the force. In any event, we appreciate your being here today and giving us your time. We very much appreciate it.

The next witness is the chair of the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services, Douglas Drinkwalter. Welcome to the committee, Mr Drinkwalter.

I've mentioned that we have a very brief period of time to try and get in as many witnesses as we can today. Do you have any brief opening comments you'd like to make before we begin?

Mr Douglas Drinkwalter: I would like, sir, just to outline what this commission is and what it does. It is commonly called the Ontario Police Commission. The proper title is the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services. The background is that the commission was created in 1962 in response to a royal commission of inquiry into alleged corruption in policing. From that time until the proclamation of the present legislation the commission had two functions.

It performed a support role, and in that role operated the Ontario Police College, provided advice to police forces with respect to communications equipment, automobiles, firearms, ammunition, and that sort of thing. It provided day-to-day advice to police chiefs and so on. It also had a judicial role and public oversight role, and over the years the commission came to focus upon its support role and ignore to some extent the other role.

The Police Services Act, which changed the name of the commission, was proclaimed on December 31, 1990, and I believe, Mr Grandmaître, that occurred on a weekend when the name was changed. The present role of the commission is to hear discipline appeals brought to us by police officers who have been disciplined, to settle budget disputes that arise between a police board and a municipal council and to conduct public inquiries into either the operation of a police force, which we can do on our own initiative, or in response to a cabinet order to conduct public inquiries into policing generally. That, sir, is a brief outline of who we are.

The Chair: I'm sure you understand that our review is of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board.

Mr Drinkwalter: Yes, I do.

The Chair: You were asked specifically because of the inquiry into the administration of internal investigations -- Constable Gordon Junger; am I pronouncing that correctly? -- and how that matter was handled internally and of course the recommendations coming out of your inquiry.

Mr Drinkwalter: It's pronounced with a Y although spelled with a J.

The Chair: I'm going to rotate the start. Is the official opposition ready to begin?

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I guess I have more of a general question that arises from this and your role and your experience, and that relates to whether you believe after your observations that police services boards and the public they serve would be better off if they had a majority appointed from the local municipalities rather than a majority of the members appointed by the provincial government.

Mr Drinkwalter: That, sir, is a political question and because of that I'm not qualified to answer. I believe it would have no effect on the operation or the functioning of the commission which I chair. The fact that the provincial appointments constitute a majority I believe flows from the philosophy of the present legislation. The legislation gave the Solicitor General very substantial powers over policing in the province, and among those is the authority or responsibility of this commission that I chair to enforce costs upon the taxpayer.

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Mr Bradley: The municipalities in many areas of the province have made the case that almost inevitably, when there is a dispute that arises between the police services board and the municipalities over the amount of money that is going to be allocated in that specific year, their experience seems to be -- and you may correct me if this is not the case -- that the police services board almost always wins the case and that the local municipality ends up picking up the tab as a result. In your experience and your observation, has it generally been the case that the police services board position has been sustained at the expense of the local municipalities?

Mr Drinkwalter: It's not my belief, sir, although I agree it is the perception. There's no question about that. People do believe that. I was appointed to this position in late July 1988. Since that time we have not come down on the side of a police board without pointing out to council how money could be saved.

We did a hearing with respect to the town of Wallaceburg. The municipal council wanted to reduce the budget by $80,000 and proposed to us three steps that could be taken which would achieve that aim. We refused to permit those steps to be taken because we felt they would endanger the community. One of them was to reduce policing in the harbour. Wallaceburg has a very busy tourist harbour or boating industry. On the other hand, we pointed out how the $80,000 could be changed by changing the structure of the organization. We felt they had many high-priced people doing low-priced jobs. I believe the perception is false, although I can see the perception certainly is there.

Mr Bradley: Would you believe that a police services board is better able to reflect local points of view, as opposed to provincial points of view, if it has a majority of members who are appointed locally by local municipalities, as opposed to by the provincial government, where it is alleged from time to time that there are people who are appointed based on their political affiliation as opposed to necessarily the best interests of a local municipality, and I say that generically as opposed to simply with this government.

Mr Drinkwalter: I think it's important to realize that the people appointed by the province are local people. There are many people in the province who were not aware of that, particularly with the change in legislation which required all municipal forces to have boards. Before that, there were some 30 or 40 that did not have boards and there was a great fear that the people appointed by the province would be people who were not part of the community. The fact is that those appointed by the province are part of the community. So I can't comment on your question beyond that, Mr Bradley. I really have no idea.

Mr Bradley: There is a concern that is expressed that municipalities throughout the province, outside of the province of Toronto --

Mr Drinkwalter: The province of Toronto; yes, I understand.

Mr Bradley: -- the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto are heavily influenced by what is good for Toronto. Would you assure us that the Ontario Police Commission, as I still call it, and forgive me for still using the old terminology --

Mr Drinkwalter: Fair enough.

Mr Bradley: -- now reflects viewpoints from across the province as opposed to only the viewpoints of Metropolitan Toronto. This is a concern that we have in the hinterlands of Ontario.

Mr Drinkwalter: The members of the commission all reside outside Metropolitan Toronto. I live in the town of Simcoe. We have a member from Windsor. We have some from Ottawa. I'm sorry; we do have one member from Toronto, Karl Fuller.

Mr Stockwell: Get that guy off.

Mr Drinkwalter: Yes, get rid of him. There is a very substantial difference between policing conditions in Toronto and policing conditions in other parts of the province. There's a very substantial difference between the situation in Ottawa and the situation in Windsor. There's a substantial difference between Windsor and London, and London and Niagara Falls. This province of ours is such a beautifully varied jurisdiction that one couldn't import the culture of one part of the province and impose it on the culture of another.

Mr Bradley: It must simply be perception rather than reality, then, that I'm encountering from time to time in those areas outside the GTA.

Mr Drinkwalter: I worked as a crown attorney outside Toronto for many years. Our theory was that Toronto's problems were solved by exporting them to Ontario.

The Chair: Mr Cleary.

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Mr Drinkwalter, I just have one question. In many parts of Ontario, there are many interested citizens who would like to become auxiliary police officers and work more closely with the police, and they seem to have run into some problems. Would you like to comment on that?

Mr Drinkwalter: I'm not aware of the problems, Mr Cleary. Perhaps you could be a little more specific.

Mr Cleary: Well, they seem to have a problem getting on to the department.

Mr Drinkwalter: Oh, I see. First of all, let me say that this commission supports unreservedly the concept of community policing, and that includes volunteerism. The system for auxiliary police officers has been in place for many years and we have just in the past year changed a system which was in place to recognize volunteerism. We had a long-service medal for auxiliary police officers which was created many years ago, and in the past year we have expanded the eligibility for that medal and have reduced the length of service so the first award is made at 20 years rather than 25, and a bar added every five years.

I want to assure you that this commission stands very strongly in support of volunteerism, and particularly the auxiliaries. Without them, many police forces could not operate.

With respect to bringing them on to the force, I am not aware of any difficulty in qualifying or eligibility or acceptance. I am aware that there is a concern among the police associations right across the province, which are concerned that auxiliaries might be used to replace full-time police officers. That is expressly prohibited by the legislation, although allegedly it has occurred.

Mr Cleary: Thank you.

The Chair: All right, thanks. We'll move on to the government party..

Mr Marchese: Mr Drinkwalter, I've got two or possibly three questions and some other questions coming from my other colleague.

Mr Bradley: I saw David Cooke go by the door there.

Mr Marchese: I beg your pardon?

Mr Bradley: David Cooke just walked past.

Mr Marchese: Thanks, Jim.

Under section 23 of the Police Services Act, "If the commission is of the opinion, after holding a hearing, that a board or a municipal police force has flagrantly or repeatedly failed to comply with prescribed standards of police services," the commission is empowered to suspend or remove from office the police chief or members of the board or to disband the entire police force. Under what circumstances would the commission ever exercise that power?

Mr Drinkwalter: Well, sir, that is of course hypothetical. We have never done a hearing under this section. I want to say first that the expression "prescribed standards" refers to regulations. Those are standards of policing proposed by the Solicitor General and accepted by cabinet and written in the form of a regulation.

Secondly, the section says "flagrantly or repeatedly failed to comply." So we would have to find a situation which complied with that "repeated," which to me would mean more than twice, or "flagrant," and we would have to find that the authorities in question, which is to say the chief of police or the members of the board, had no legitimate or acceptable explanation for not complying.

We would then look at the standard in question and ask ourselves how important this is, or whether it is important at all, in this community. For instance, if there were a standard governing the police lockup and the standard is breached in that the police lockup is considered not to be safe, if we are in a small community where they have only one prisoner once a year overnight, and when that occurs they put an extra police officer on duty for safety purposes, then we wouldn't be much concerned.

I don't think I can be any more specific than that, sir.

Mr Marchese: Would you say that the words "flagrantly" or "repeatedly" are perhaps too liberal in terms of the kind of flexibility that you're given, in the sense that you may have, first of all, the discretion to interpret something as flagrant or not, and in the opinion of some, it could be flagrant, but in the opinion of the commission, obviously it couldn't, so it's a very elastic term in terms of how you deal with that? Is it possible that some critics are saying, "Yes, some of these incidents over the past have been flagrant in our view, but as far as the commission is concerned, it isn't"? Is it possible that the term "flagrant" is just a bit too elastic?

Mr Drinkwalter: I really can't comment on that. I really have no opinion. If we were to write a report, I have no doubt that some people would disagree with it, that some people would be of a different opinion. If we were to say, "This has been flagrant," I'm sure there would be some who would say, "No, it is not," and vice versa. If we were to do such an inquiry, one of the possible results would be to find the conduct has not been flagrant, but that improvements are needed and to make some recommendations.

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Mr Marchese: The Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services commissioned the Junger inquiry and there were, I think, 24 recommendations that came out of that.

Mr Drinkwalter: Yes.

Mr Marchese: Can you highlight some of the most important ones, in your view, that you think we should know about.

Mr Drinkwalter: There is one most important one, and that's the thrust of the entire report, and that is that police boards must take more responsibility for the conduct of policing and the delivery of service in the community. The conduct that was examined in this inquiry occurred before the present legislation was in place, and at that time police boards took a relatively minor role in the operation of a police force. Now their role is much expanded and their duties and responsibilities are much expanded.

The thrust of this report is in effect for the province, or I suppose specifically this commission, to hold the local people accountable for local policing and to try to send a message to police services boards saying: "You are there to represent the public. You're not members of a private club called policing, and it's your obligation to deliver service to the public and to account to the public when things go wrong."

Mr Marchese: Any other recommendations, or is that the most important?

Mr Drinkwalter: There are 24, but you're asking me for the important part of it, and in my view that is the important part.

Mr Marchese: Okay; thanks very much.

The Chair: Mr Cooper, go ahead.

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): Following up on Mr Marchese's first line of questioning on the elasticity of "flagrantly" and "repeatedly," on the employment equity it stated, "Where reasonable efforts have not been made to meet employment equity requirements, the chief of police or members of the board can be suspended or removed." Do you feel that "reasonable efforts" is too loose, or do you think that should be tightened up?

Mr Drinkwalter: I don't know how you could tighten it up. Achieving the goals of employment equity is, first of all, difficult; secondly, a long-term proposition. I suppose the question becomes a political question: How much can you ask people to do?

The problem I have with that is that the members of this commission that I chair are going to have to decide what is reasonable. Have these efforts that these people have made been reasonable, or are they falling short of the requirement? Is more required of them?

Mr Cooper: Okay. Looking at the mandate of this committee which is studying the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board, looking at the policing standards and the employment equity, would you say that the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board is functioning properly or appropriately?

Mr Drinkwalter: That the board is functioning appropriately?

Mr Cooper: Or effectively?

Mr Drinkwalter: I can't answer the question. We haven't looked at that. The inquiry we did was only into their internal affairs unit and their discipline system. The commission has not looked at the overall operation of the force.

Mr Cooper: All right. That's the mandate of this committee. That's what we're studying right now and that's why I was asking the question, to see whether you had a personal opinion on whether they were being effective or not, or whether certain changes could be made to the board.

Mr Drinkwalter: I can't answer that, as I say, because we have only looked at this one small aspect of the force. But I ought to add that we have been very pleased with the response of the board to the recommendations.

Mr Cooper: Thank you very much.

The Chair: This is a supplementary, since you have an extra minute available. The changes that came into force in respect to the act and the operation of police services boards: Do you think they could have eliminated the possibility of something like the Junger matter occurring?

Mr Drinkwalter: No, they would not eliminate the possibility of Junger, but they add the possibility of our removing the members of the board for failing in their duty to monitor what's going on in the police force.

The Chair: I see.

Mr Drinkwalter: This inquiry found conduct which we criticized, conduct of which the board was not aware and in our view ought to have been aware. Under the present legislation, they have a duty to monitor which did not exist under the former legislation.

The Chair: Is that presenting any difficulties for Metro police specifically or any other force that you're aware of?

Mr Drinkwalter: I can't speak of any particular police force, but I can tell you, there is now a tension, and it will probably last for five or six years, between police officers on the one hand and boards on the other, because boards are struggling to accept their new responsibility and this is something entirely new to the police community, to have civilians telling them what to do, to have civilians setting the goals and objectives for the force and to have civilians monitoring the police chief. So there is a tension right across the province, not just in Metropolitan Toronto.

The Chair: Okay, fine. Mr Stockwell, then Mr McLean.

Mr Stockwell: First off, I'm not sure exactly -- that recommendation you made would surely not have resolved this particular problem that we're discussing, the Junger affair.

Mr Drinkwalter: What recommendation?

Mr Stockwell: The recommendation that the board be more accountable, is it? I mean, they just didn't know. The bottom line is, nobody told them, and the chief in here says himself: "When he did see it, he was not overly concerned because he believed the prosecution of the officer in criminal court or disciplinary hearing was not a viable option. He insisted the agreement was not a deal because neither party got anything out of it." Well, that sounds like some kind of idiot speaking, but ignore that. "But he was sufficiently worried about public criticism when he saw the agreement that he thought it best to keep the agreement confidential."

So you can make all the recommendations you want. If the police aren't telling the board, there's little, if anything, they can do about it. Wouldn't you agree?

Mr Drinkwalter: No. The board hires the chief, the board is responsible for the chief and the board can fire the chief.

Mr Stockwell: Did you recommend that he be fired?

Mr Drinkwalter: No.

Mr Stockwell: Why?

Mr Drinkwalter: Because we were looking at the administration of the force and we chose to hold the local authority responsible and we chose to say to the board, "This is what you should be doing."

Mr Stockwell: That's hilarious. That is really hilarious. They don't even know this is happening, the board.

Mr Drinkwalter: But they have a duty to know, and that's where they failed.

Mr Stockwell: Of course they have a duty, and the chief didn't tell them, but it's important that in fact the chief tell the board and it's important for the board to act. Now where did the breakdown in communication take place? It took place between the chief and the board, and your recommendation is that the board has to be more active. It would have seemed to me that if I were doing this inquiry and I was trying to find out where this whole thing broke down, I would have recommended that the chief in fact be terminated, because he didn't carry out his role either properly or fairly for the board.

Mr Drinkwalter: His answer to that was, "I didn't tell them; they didn't ask me."

Mr Stockwell: That sounds like Mr Pilkey.

Mr Drinkwalter: They read the story in the newspaper to the effect that an agreement had been made with the officer, and the chief was not asked to produce the agreement and explain it.

Mr Stockwell: And you bought that? Do you think that's a reasonable response from a high-ranking --

Mr Drinkwalter: I didn't say "reasonable." That was the evidence --

Mr Stockwell: Do you think that's an acceptable response?

Mr Drinkwalter: No.

Mr Stockwell: Then why didn't you recommend that they get rid of him?

Mr Drinkwalter: Responsibility to ask the question rested on the board, not the chief.

Mr Stockwell: The board didn't even know what was going on. Are they supposed to come in every day: "Okay, chief, tell us everything's that happening today that's going to get us into trouble"?

Mr Drinkwalter: No.

Mr Stockwell: Well, that's the kind of question you have to ask.

Mr Drinkwalter: No. What's happening today that's going to get us into trouble is on the front page of the newspaper, and they ought to have asked the chief: "What's behind this story? Let us have a look at the agreement."

Mr Stockwell: Okay, next. Clearly, in my opinion, just offering my opinion, which coming from the third party is worth this much, someone screwed up big time here, big time, and I think somebody's head should have rolled someplace along the way. As far as I can tell, nobody's head rolled over this affair, and I think that's probably one of the reasons why you have this perception out there about the police that they can basically do as they wish, because something like this deal was cut, negotiated and agreed to, which everyone finds unacceptable yet nobody pays any price for.

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I thought with your investigation your recommendation would have gotten to the heart of the issue and you would have made a real recommendation that, "Look, somebody's responsible for this, and it's up to them to accept the ultimate responsibility, which is their resignation." Moving on, unless you want to comment on that.

Mr Drinkwalter: No, thank you.

Mr Stockwell: Moving on to the other issues, beyond that, after that comment I made, this loses its interest to me because I think it was handled badly from all sides.

About local boards having accountability, how can you tell me that local boards have accountability to the local people and their local councils and the local constituents yet the local boards don't even have a majority of people appointed? It seems to me you're arguing both ends against the middle.

Mr Drinkwalter: No, they're all local people, all five of them or three of them or seven.

Mr Stockwell: Then why aren't they appointed by the local councils that pay 90% of the financing?

Mr Drinkwalter: I can't answer that. That's a political question.

Mr Stockwell: So you have no opinion as to who should be appointing them?

Mr Drinkwalter: Who should? No.

Mr Stockwell: None whatsoever.

Mr Drinkwalter: None.

Mr Stockwell: How about paying for it? Do you have an opinion on that one?

Mr Drinkwalter: Paying for policing?

Mr Stockwell: Yes.

Mr Drinkwalter: Again, that's a political question. It may be that the province ought to pay the full cost of policing right across the province. In a situation such as we have today, there is criticism because people in municipalities pay probably 85% of the cost. There's a small provincial grant. People who live in rural areas pay nothing directly because they're covered by the OPP, and we all contribute to that.

Mr Stockwell: But I'm speaking about the Metropolitan Toronto board, where I think Metropolitan Toronto taxpayers pay, like, 90% of the cost of running the police.

Mr Drinkwalter: It's certainly 85%; it may be higher than that, yes.

Mr Stockwell: Have you ruled on expenditures by them?

Mr Drinkwalter: Metro? No, I don't think so. We haven't since I was appointed, certainly not.

Mr Stockwell: Because that's another particular issue that sticks in my --

Mr McLean: Craw.

Mr Stockwell: -- craw. Yes, thank you. I don't know why you have to go in and tell anybody how they should be spending their money, and it really makes me wonder. You tell them how they can save it and how they can spend it as far as policing is concerned with these other communities in Ontario.

It seems to me that if the province is prepared to tell municipalities how to spend their money, it's also prepared to tell them who they should be appointing to their police services boards and it's also going to tell municipalities how much money they have to kick in. It seems to me they should also be prepared to give up the decision-making. I think that's the last thing that they've offered to the municipalities, particularly at Metropolitan Toronto.

I'm not really sure why Metropolitan Toronto council has to pay all the bills, take all the flak and receive all the heat when these reports come down, yet the province appoints the majority of representatives. Although it's a political question, it's just a thought that I have on the issue.

Mr McLean: "Recommendation 17: The Attorney General of Ontario should appoint a task force to develop practical mechanisms and measures to support victims so as to encourage their cooperation in testifying against perpetrators of sexual crimes. The findings of the task force should help police to prosecute more sexual assaults successfully. The task force should not be limited to cases where the accused is a member of a police force, but it should give special consideration to that aspect of the issue."

That recommendation is fairly strong, in my opinion. Can you elaborate on it?

Mr Drinkwalter: That recommendation came from the evidence which was heard which related primarily to the discipline system, and it was our feeling that female victims were, frankly, being dealt with as second-class citizens. We didn't have any evidence about female victims of sexual misconduct, generally; our evidence was focused upon the discipline system of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, but it was our feeling that if women are dealt with in such a shoddy manner in discipline cases, it's probably equally true in criminal allegations and criminal investigations.

Mr McLean: Can I read you recommendation 19, and I'd like you to fill me in on that one as part of your answer to this one.

"The Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board should adopt policies on the support for and involvement of complainants against police. Victims should be assured that they will be advised of the progress of disciplinary proceedings and will be able to participate. Victims should also be assured they will have the right to request anonymity and a closed hearing, at the discretion of the hearing officer, in cases involving sexual crimes."

That is also a very strong recommendation. Could you elaborate on it?

Mr Drinkwalter: It comes from the fact that a female complainant was dealt with in what we concluded was a very shoddy manner. She had asked for anonymity. Anonymity was assured and then her name was made public. There was a discipline hearing as a result of her complaint, but she was not advised of the date of the hearing. There was an agreement made between the officer prosecuting the case and the officer accused, which is not unusual and in and of itself is not improper, but the statement of facts given to the officer hearing the case, the officer who would impose penalty, is certainly not something the victim would have agreed with had she been given an opportunity. She was quite simply ignored. The answer we were given in the hearing was, "Well, she was so disinterested she didn't even attend the hearing." "But she wasn't told when the hearing was. How could she be there?" "Well, if she had any interest, she would have found out on her own."

Mr McLean: Recommendation 21 is also taking a slice off the Metropolitan Toronto Police, not only them but the board and the chief. "The board should review the evidence presented during the inquiry and take whatever action is considered to be necessary and appropriate." This overall report is pretty damning on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, in my opinion. Do you agree with that?

Mr Drinkwalter: Yes, I do agree with that.

Mr Stockwell: Is there any more time?

The Chair: No, there's no time left. Thank you, Mr Drinkwalter, for taking time out of your busy schedule to appear here today. It was very good of you.

Is Frank D'Andrea here today?

Mr Drinkwalter: No, sir.

The Chair: Okay, fine. Thank you.

Our next witness is from the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association, Mr Art Lymer, who's the president of the association. Mr Lymer, welcome to the committee, sir. Do you have anything you'd like to say briefly before we get into the questions and responses?

Mr Art Lymer: No. I'll just have some off-the-cuff comments. I'm not prepared to come here and challenge the rights or the wrongs of the inquiry that was done on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, although I will be willing to answer any questions if it's within my ambit to be able to do so with the knowledge I have of it. It was my understanding that I was asked to attend here to get my overall views of police services boards, possibly the way that the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board has been operating and how police services boards in general should be operated throughout the province.

The Chair: I think that's a fair understanding of the reason behind the invitation. I hope members will respect Mr Lymer's understanding of that as well. We'll begin with Mr Frankford.

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Can I ask you succinctly your thoughts about community policing?

Mr Lymer: Community-based policing?

Mr Frankford: Yes.

Mr Lymer: Obviously, community-based policing has to take place and it has to be a success. I do not think we can continue to go on with the type of policing and service that we were providing to the public. It was found to be very costly. We were attending all calls for service. Police officers were backed up with radio calls, and on the radio calls they were attending they were not able to get the proper service to the public because --

Interjections.

The Chair: I'm going to have to interrupt, Mr Lymer. I apologize, but I want to encourage members, if they have conversations, to take them out in the hall, because I think it's very distracting for the rest of us. We have a continual conversation going on here. I'd encourage you to take those conversations elsewhere. I'm sorry, Mr Lymer; please continue.

Mr Lymer: Probably, community-based policing, if it is a success, and there's no reason why it should not be, will provide a much more efficient police service and we will be able to give a better service to the public. I think you can cut down the costs of policing as well as a result of that, but it will take a long time to really achieve success in a large city such as Metropolitan Toronto.

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Mr Frankford: Can I ask you about your views on the relationship between the local communities and police in the context of community policing? Do you see more opportunity for input from local areas as opposed to just the board as it exists right now?

Mr Lymer: Certainly, that is happening in Metropolitan Toronto now. I am on many committees. I'm on the Council on Race Relations and Policing. They are taking place all over the city. There are different parts of Metropolitan Toronto that have their own race relations councils that have meetings trying to get interaction between the police, and that is the foot patrol officer, the scout car patrol officer, meeting with the communities, seeing what those communities' concerns are and how they can best serve them.

There has to be that interaction rather than just attending radio calls. You've got to get out there and meet with the community and help it with its problems and help it solve its problems itself.

Mr Frankford: You may have heard some comments during the afternoon about the composition of the board and provincial versus local appointees.

Mr Lymer: Yes.

Mr Frankford: I don't know if there's any ideal answer on that. Would you comment? It seems to me that we have seven appointees --

Mr Lymer: In Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr Frankford: -- or seven members for a city of --

Mr Lymer: Three million.

Mr Frankford: -- three million. In this committee we also hear about small police commissions where you have three commissioners for a town of 10,000. Do you think there's some inconsistency there or is there some ideal size?

Mr Lymer: It is not only the composition of the boards. I know you want civilian accountability, and I've heard the arguments that if the council is paying the bulk of the police salaries, it should have the input on how that policing is to be done. But if you go that route, you may end up having a hodgepodge of policing all across the province where various boards have determined by themselves exactly how that will be done.

I know there are differences. You need to police some parts of Ontario differently than you do others. But when you get into the political question, I think that in order to keep politics out of policing as much as possible, probably I would favour the present system as it is now where the majority of people appointed to those boards are done provincially, even though the people who serve on those boards work and live in that municipality.

But then you have to look at the composition of the board members themselves and how long they serve. They can only serve for two three-year terms. If civilians are going to control the force the way they expect to do, is it reasonable to expect them to have a full knowledge of the police force and to really have their fingers on the pulse, from top to bottom, on what is happening within the police force? Is it really fair to expect those people to come in?

It would take them at least two or three years before they get that knowledge. Then they'll have a three-year worklife where they can be useful, and then they're gone and you have another board coming on. So you've got that turnover. I think some consideration should be given to the way we had it in Metropolitan Toronto and other police services boards before.

We had a judge who was on the police services board as a matter of right. There were some problems with that. Some judges were sitting as arbitration chairpersons when it was deciding what the salaries and benefits about the police forces would be. I think there is some merit to having a judge on a police services board.

Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): Mr Lymer, do you think there is a tendency in some sectors of the Metropolitan Toronto Police to play politics?

Mr Lymer: There may well be. I know that in Metropolitan Toronto, my views are that some members have been appointed to the police services board who already had an agenda of their own. They had a conception of their own that things were radically wrong with the police force and that they were going to them.

Really, when you have a force as large as Metropolitan Toronto's, and you have the avenues in place of senior officers running the force and consulting with government on how to do it, I think that if the members of these boards were to take their direction mainly from the senior officers on the force on how they've handled it, if you accept that you've got a good police force and that police force has the respect of the citizens it serves, then I do not see the reason why people should come on with their own preconceived agenda to make sure that they're going to change the way that police force has been run, even before they were appointed or shortly after they are appointed.

You do have people who may be appointed who already have a hidden agenda and preconceived notions on what they intend to do with that police force as soon as they're appointed.

Mr Rizzo: But who has any authority to judge if anybody who has been nominated has a hidden political agenda?

Mr Lymer: That's hard to say.

Mr Rizzo: Do you think the alternative may also be true, that there are some police officers who may have a hidden agenda?

Mr Lymer: You've got the checks and balances for any police officers who are acting inappropriately. We come under so many commissions and different people who oversee policing: the front-line supervisor, the next supervisor, the unit commander. You've got the Ontario Police Commission services. You've got citizen complaint. You've got the SIU. There's a whole range of different agencies that can look into police wrongdoing, and they do and there's nothing wrong with that.

Mr Rizzo: But at the bottom line, do you believe that when there's a decision to be taken or an order is given, it's the duty to any police force, police officer to obey whoever is the boss? In this particular case, I think it's the civilians who occupy a certain position who have been nominated by the political authority.

Mr Lymer: Are you referring possibly to the job action that we just went through?

Mr Rizzo: Not only that, but in any particular circumstances. Yes, it's also possible.

Mr Stockwell: Don't beat around the bush.

Mr Rizzo: There are many other cases.

Mr Lymer: Certainly, we believe that we should obey the lawful orders of the chief, and sometimes the chief is made the meat between the sandwich. That is what happened with the recent job action that we did. It's unfortunate. We made a decision. Our membership by itself made a decision because things had deteriorated so much that we had to do something, and we did something.

There was a court challenge. There was an injunction against that job action and that's the route these things normally go. There was discipline meted out as a result of that. It was only to the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force that there was any discipline, because there were many other police forces; nearly every police force across the province eventually became involved in the job action.

Mr Rizzo: Do you think the situation has improved since then and that therefore citizens can really believe that there is some kind of willingness to work together between the politicians and the police force?

Mr Lymer: Yes, I think they do. If you are aware of any studies that have been done, the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto give the highest regard of any other police force in Canada to their police force: 89% of the public out there fully supports the police; only 5% do not and the other 5% are undecided.

The Chair: I have to jump in there and move along to Mr McLean.

Mr McLean: On August 17, the task force released an interim report that recommended the government create a Race Relations and Policing Monitoring Audit Board to serve as a community watchdog. Has that been set up? Are you aware?

Mr Lymer: It has been set up within our force, even prior to the employment equity program being put into place. Our force had done everything it could to hire as many people from the prescribed groups as it possibly could. I know the legislation there refers to sanctions that will be imposed against police forces that do not make honest attempts to meet those goals. The legislation also says there will be rewards. I'm still waiting for the reward to be given to Metropolitan Toronto for the good work that it has done in its employment equity achievements.

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Mr McLean: How have they done with regard to the review of the race relations practices?

Mr Lymer: I'm not too sure on the latest study that has taken place, other than the Andrews report that has been done. The Andrews report was not critical of the force itself, and the members of the force and the rank and file. It was critical on the programs to be put in place, the length of time that it will eventually take to get full employment equity, and the race relations training within itself on how they would get police officers trained. It's a very expensive proposition because you're going to have to take police officers off the streets and put them in the classroom. Presently, we do not have the manpower to be able to do that.

Mr McLean: Have there been any reports at any time which would indicate the amount of crimes, who's committing the crimes and the amount of different groups that are creating the crimes? Has there been any report that would indicate that?

Mr Lymer: No. Our police services board many times turned down the suggestion that we should be collecting race crime statistics. There are other people who have other views, who feel it would be useful. I personally believe, myself, it would be useful, as every other police force on the North American continent, with the exception of Canada -- in Britain and Europe they do and they find it useful, so long as they're not used to try to stereotype certain people and certain classes of people.

Mr McLean: If you had those statistics, wouldn't it indicate to you where your priorities should be with regard to hiring practices?

Mr Lymer: I'm not too sure that it would be with the hiring practices, although in some avenues it might be. Certainly, we need far more Chinese police officers than we have on the force, because of the types of crimes that are now becoming prevalent in Metropolitan Toronto. That might be one indication there, yes. But broadly speaking, among all the other prescribed groups, I'm not so sure that that would be the solution.

Mr McLean: Is the police services board not looking at that very aspect in its hiring practices, where you indicate there's one group where you feel you need more policing?

Mr Lymer: Yes.

Mr McLean: Why wouldn't they be making recommendations?

Mr Lymer: I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them that question, sir.

Mr Stockwell: This is about the police services board. What are your feelings about how the police services board works right now in Metropolitan Toronto?

Mr Lymer: Well, it hasn't been a very rosy relationship over the last two years, but I think things are beginning to settle down now. There was a lot of criticism of the force itself. I believe some of the members who were elected there had the preconceived notion that the force was racist. We think the Andrews report suggested that we do not have a racist police force. There were checks and balances in there to identify police officers who may be discriminating against people, and if they're found to do that, then obviously they're going to be sanctioned and ultimately fired from the police force if not corrected.

Mr Stockwell: Let me ask you this, then: Do you think there's any problem with the police services board, or is it the players who are on the board, or is it both?

Mr Lymer: It's a question of a lot of things. It's a question of the police services board members. There are seven and they are only part-time members. I think they need to get more involved in the policing issues themselves, spend a lot more time than they do. We've just had a conference in Metropolitan Toronto that was well attended. There was nobody from our police services board who attended that conference. I think they've got to be compelled to attend a lot of these seminars and conferences that are done on policing, where you get all the groups together -- not only the police services board, but the police associations, the chiefs of police, the municipal authorities, members of government -- so that they would get a better picture of what is happening out there in policing.

Mr Stockwell: I spent some time on the local council and had to deal with the police themselves. There is some truth to the fact that the police are often on an island on their own a lot of time. They spend money the way they want to spend money and do what they pretty much want to do because they have always had this policing argument they've brought forward that if you didn't do this, crime would go up. So to a degree there is some degree of autonomy they have that most other bureaucracies and departments don't have.

Being at arm's length, too, from the decision-makers, the elected people, either here at Queen's Park or your council, you then have another layer away from accountability. What about this local appointments versus provincial appointments, and political appointments versus citizen appointments? Any thoughts on whether they should be political, whether they should be private citizens, and who should be appointing, provincial or municipal?

Mr Lymer: It's a tough question to answer. I certainly do not want to see us go the way of United States police forces where decisions that are made are very political in nature, and as a result the associations and the unions in the States have had to get themselves involved very deeply in the political process.

I've just written an article that was requested by the police unions in the United States on comparisons between the way they do things in the United States and the way police associations do them here in Canada. I've got copies of that if you want. It will be going to press with the police labour unions next month in the States, throughout the whole of the US.

The Chair: I appreciate that.

Mr McLean: One short question, Mr Chair?

Mr Stockwell: Are we out of time?

The Chair: No, you've got about two and a half minutes left.

Mr Stockwell: I've got one question and then I'll pass it.

Let's talk specifically about some of the people on the police services board. I know Norm Gardner just left. He was obviously a person the police felt represented them, a little more so than your average -- I say that from across the board.

Mr Lymer: Yes, because he is a typical example of somebody going on the police services board who wanted to get involved in the process as much as he possibly could. What you have with the part-time police services board members is that they are only there every second week, and that's about all they concentrate their efforts on.

Mr Stockwell: We had Susan Eng in here a little while ago. I think it's two or three years she's been on the board. She has not found time to get in a police car and go out and see what police are up against every day. When you say they don't have time or they're part-time, is this what you mean?

Mr Lymer: Yes. I mean they've got to get more involved and they've got to get in touch with the front-line officers out there. Even in the injunction that was handed down against us, the learned judge said that with the police officers out there on the street, their concerns have got to be looked at and their concerns and views have got to carry weight. I think what police services boards have to do is go around to the local police stations and have informal talks and discussions with the members in that unit so they can hear at first hand -- rather than get it from the senior officers -- from the front-line officers what the problems are out there on the street.

The Chair: Quick question, Mr McLean?

Mr McLean: My questions are always short, Mr Chairman. I wanted to briefly ask you with regard to the commission's report that we just heard before you, the report which indicated that the force is not doing what it feels is appropriate and that there is a lot of misgivings with regard to how the Metropolitan force operates. What would your comments be to the chairman of that report?

Mr Lymer: What would my comments be, having read the report?

Mr McLean: Right.

Mr Lymer: There are some good recommendations in the report. I think the Metropolitan Toronto Police was unfairly criticized in a lot of the aspects of that report. I think the chief was unfairly criticized. I know they had a problem with a police officer who, had they gone the normal route, would probably still be on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force today. As the president, I would be duty-bound to give him legal counsel to defend him if attempts were made to fire him off the force. I'm not in agreement with the way it was done, but it was an end that in my opinion at the time, justified the means.

Mr Bradley: At one time, sir, the members of your association and other similar associations across the province had a feeling that governments were behind them and were supportive of them. As we're in February 1993, what is the viewpoint of members of your association now as it relates to whether they feel governments support them or make it more difficult for them?

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Mr Lymer: I think that as a result of the job action and the public support we received, the government has realized that it's got to start looking more attentively towards the police forces themselves, the rank-and-file police officers, and understanding the problems.

The Premier has made the commitment to us that he wants meaningful dialogue. He will go back to the consultative committees that had been put in place by previous governments when they're making any decisions as to how policing will change in the future, their equipment and their responsibilities and everything that is entailed in policing.

Mr Bradley: There is a good deal of feeling out there that people are now concerned about the issue of crime, much more concerned than probably is reflected in the activities of governments at all levels. One need only attend a forum of impartial people, the general public, to determine that those concerns are out there. Is there a feeling among your membership that all the restrictions that are being contemplated or placed on your membership are having a detrimental effect on your ability to combat the crime about which so many people are concerned?

Mr Lymer: Yes, it is. Because of the criticisms that had been handed down against us continuously, there was, I guess, a feeling among police officers that if you really get involved in a high-speed chase, a gun call or whatever, you're going to end up being the accused yourself and face heavy legal bills and there may have been a reluctance to get involved.

It is not actually happening, but people are beginning to talk that way or were beginning to talk that way, were beginning to say, "Why should I put myself at risk getting involved when all these different agencies that are going to investigate me and second-guess me are going to end up charging me as the culprit rather than the accused, the criminal they were dealing with in the first place?"

Mr Bradley: That leads me to the use-of-force proposals from the government, those which are being implemented in 1993. There were some meetings and some subsequent meetings with the Solicitor General and I think eventually the Premier.

Mr Lymer: Yes.

Mr Bradley: What is the view of your association today about the latest regulations and proposals of the Ontario government as they relate to the use of force in our province?

Mr Lymer: We would have preferred that the unholstering regulation be rescinded, but the government said it was not going to rescind that. But it was willing to meet with us and the Solicitor General did meet with us. He realized our concerns and has now built a kind of wall around that legislation so that when police officers file their reports on unholstering, it will not come back to haunt them later on. The government said all it needed them for was training purposes, to get the total picture of what was happening all across the province, where weapons were being used against police officers, where they needed to use weapons themselves. That's all they wanted them for -- study purposes.

We believe the vast majority of those concerns have now been met. We have seen the form. There are some minor changes that may be needed to that form and there is some ongoing dialogue between ourselves and members of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force on the use-of-force forms and how they will be implemented.

Because of the legislation date, we have not been able to get it under way by February 1. The forms are still not being used. There was a target date of February 8. That might be put over until maybe the end of February before these forms are actually in use by members of our force.

Mr Bradley: Another area of controversy is one involving the special investigations unit of the province of Ontario, involved particularly in police shootings that have taken place. Some officers in the province have suggested that their rights under the Charter of Rights, which so many people defend on so many occasions in this province, are adversely affected by the special investigations unit's investigations.

What is the opinion of your association as it relates to the invoking of the Charter of Rights by individual police officers to avoid answering questions and cooperating with investigation by the special investigations unit?

Mr Lymer: Given the mandate of the special investigations unit, that it is responsible for investigating police officers to determine whether or not a criminal offence has been made when any citizen has been injured seriously or dies as a result of a police incident, it is our view that if he is the subject officer, he should be entitled to counsel. We make sure that he has counsel, and his counsel will make the determination as to whether he will or will not give a statement.

We believe in the public's right to know what actually happened and we believe in the chief's right to know what actually happened so he can report it to the police services board, but not to the extent that a police officer will be forced to incriminate himself, if indeed that is what is going to take place.

Once we have, I guess, some credibility with the SIU and we have confidence in the unit, then we will be more open in giving statements. But what has happened with the SIU is that we have had police officers giving full, total disclosure because they acted on a split-second decision. They acted exactly the way they were trained to do, trained by this force to react, and having given that full disclosure, have even subjected themselves to further cross-examination two weeks later, three weeks later, and have still been the subject of a charge, charges which in our view should never have been laid and which have been laid for political expediency. The courts have verified that by dismissing those charges. It's been costly to the force, costly to the community for the trial and very traumatic for the officers and their families.

Now if they can look at the total picture of what a police officer has to do, at his duties and responsibilities, at the training he does and at the fact that he had no criminal intent of committing a criminal offence and was acting in that split-second decision, and if they can come to rational, logical conclusions, like they do in the United States, and timely conclusions, then maybe the SIU will have gained its credibility.

They are under-strength. They do not have experienced investigators. The only solution at the present time, which I believe the government has admitted, is that they are going to have to hire in some way or second way police officers who have had 10 or 15 years' experience in these investigations and have them have one of the SIU civilian-type people under their wing for about five years before those civilians will be able to make a proper assessment, from a police perspective, whether or not a police officer has actually committed a criminal offence and whether or not he should be charged in a court of law.

Mr Bradley: You made mention of your concern about the amount of political activity that police associations in the United States are forced to engage in because of the setup in the United States and the amount of political interference.

Mr Lymer: Yes.

Mr Bradley: Does your association have a view on the proposals of the provincial government for the allowance of police activity, the ones that Mr Rae has put forward -- I believe they're still in the proposal stage -- that would allow police to participate politically? Do you see any dangers in this or do you see some real potential in that proposal?

Mr Lymer: No, the legislation as proposed by the government would be to allow a police officer, if he wanted to, to run as a politician himself, and we have no problems with those guidelines that are there. He would have to seek a secondment from the force. The chief would have to give his permission. If he runs and is successful, and he's successful for two terms, provincially or municipally, it is at that particular point in time he has to make up his mind whether or not he wants to continue as a police officer.

He has to be seconded from the force to run politically, and once elected, he can no longer be on that force. Then after six years he has to make up his mind whether he wants to continue to run as a politician or whether he wants to come back to the police force.

Mr Bradley: In the past, members of the police force have been either reluctant to or not able to participate, publicly at least, in partisan political activity.

Mr Lymer: Yes.

Mr Bradley: It appears from these proposals that it will be permitted at this time. Again, do you see a problem arising from members of the force openly backing one political party or another, or one individual candidate or another, which they would be doing obviously off duty, but in terms of their ability to carry out their responsibilities impartially as a result of that?

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Mr Lymer: No. I do not see it as a problem that enabling a police officer to be involved politically would affect his duties as a police officer. We do not want to get involved in the political process but we might have to because of necessity. If government --

The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Lymer. I think that's a good point to end it in any event, but we have gone over our time limit here.

Mr Lymer: Okay. I have --

The Chair: Sorry to interrupt you. Sorry to cut you off. If you'd like, the clerk can get that information from you, the report you were referring to, the article, for circulation to the members. We thank you again for taking the time. We may be in contact with you in the future with respect to this matter.

Mr Lymer: Thank you.

The Chair: We'll give Mr Lymer a few moments to collect his materials.

Our next witness is Gordon Chong. Dr Chong, welcome to the committee.

Just for the information of the members, with respect to Dr Chong's appearance before the committee, when we were looking at witnesses to appear with respect to this matter, the subcommittee had requested the appearance of Mr Ben Eng. Mr Eng was looked to in terms of his appearance to talk about the question of compilation of crime stats based on race and really to give an opinion that might be somewhat different from that expressed by the chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board, Ms Eng. So we wanted to hear from the other side of the story as well.

Our clerk and researcher were unable to contact Mr Eng. I gather he's here today, but we were aware that Dr Chong had also made a number of appearances with respect to expressing his views related to this issue, and that's essentially why he was asked to appear here today to talk about the question of compilation of crime statistics based on race. He also has views on other matters related to policing, I gather, perhaps tying into his time with the city of Toronto council.

Do you have any brief comments you'd like to make, Dr Chong?

Dr Gordon Chong: Yes, I do. I'll quickly go over this handout I've given. I'd first like to tell the Chair and members of committee that my views are personal. They do not represent any committee or organization that I belong to, which should allay the fears of some people down at the city of Toronto.

I've listened to some of the comments of the previous speakers. When I was originally asked to speak before the committee I was not given any guidelines. I looked at the mandate and the mandate clearly deals with the structure and the organization of the Metro services board, so I'd like to quickly go through this.

My feeling is that the services board, as it's currently constituted, does not adequately reflect the concerns of the Metropolitan citizen because --

The Chair: Dr Chong, may I briefly interrupt you and say, as you've been witnessing this, we only have half an hour, if you can be very brief so we'll have some time for questions and answers.

Dr Chong: Sure. That's right.

As you can see from the handout, I've basically reviewed the previous literature, the previous commission reports that have been written, and clearly the consensus has been that the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board would be better served and the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto would be better served if in fact Metropolitan Toronto council either appointed the majority of members or perhaps could be the members of the services board itself. I think there's ample justification, as related in the handout, because currently the province is rationalizing its service both in terms of general welfare assistance funding and the disentanglement process.

One of the illustrations of the current services board, I believe -- lack of accountability and lack in reflecting the true wishes of the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto -- relates precisely to its position on the compilation of statistics based on race, ethnic origin etc as part of a comprehensive compilation.

I would respectfully suggest that the composition of the board would be better served and the citizens would be better served if the majority of appointments were either from Metro council or were Metro councillors themselves.

With those brief remarks -- and you can read the handout -- I'd be happy to answer questions from here on.

The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Grandmaître.

Mr Grandmaître: Let's talk about the composition of not only Metro but any police services board. Do you think that the police association should have a membership on the board?

Dr Chong: The police association?

Mr Grandmaître: Yes, a representative.

Dr Chong: No.

Mr Grandmaître: Why?

Dr Chong: I believe there has to be civilian control of the police services -- policing -- in Toronto, or in Ontario for that matter. I think the police officers themselves, through their association, can make representation to the board, but the board itself represents the people. In my respectful opinion, that should be people who are accountable and who are elected or are appointed by elected people.

Mr Grandmaître: The police chief, who is part of the administration, sits on the police services board, and we've just heard --

Dr Chong: I'm sorry. I don't believe that is the case.

Mr Grandmaître: Yes, he does. The chief --

Interjection.

Mr Grandmaître: Isn't he ex officio?

Dr Chong: I believe there are seven members of the board. Three are Metro councillors and four are appointed by the province.

Mr Grandmaître: But he's not ex officio? I thought he was ex officio, because on some police services boards --

Mr Stockwell: Maybe some, but not in Metro.

Mr Grandmaître: Not in Metro.

We're talking about consultation and better communications between the police association and the board and the government of Ontario. I think we should improve the composition of the board in order to improve those communications, because the only time we hear from or about the police association is because there's a confrontation between the board and the police association. I don't think it's fair. You have listened to the president of the police association saying that some people on the board didn't seem to have any interest in policing; they have some kind of a hidden agenda. Don't you think that if we had a better composition, including a member of the association on the police services board, we could or you could resolve most of your problems?

Dr Chong: I don't personally believe -- and I quite frankly have not thought about having a member of the force or a member of the association on the board. It just never crossed my mind. Off the top of my head, I don't think it's a good idea.

I think that if one is looking to accountability, the most accountable people are elected. The second most accountable people are those who are appointed by elected officials. It's my respectful opinion that the Metropolitan Toronto police and Metropolitan Toronto would be better served by having either all or the majority of the members of the services board appointed by Metro. After all, he who pays the piper should call the tune and, in this case, Metropolitan Toronto council clearly pays the majority of the policing costs in Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr Grandmaître: Don't you think that the recommendations of Mr Cooke will bring about or resolve most of your problems now?

Dr Chong: I haven't had an opportunity to study all the recommendations put forward by Mr Cooke. I do have a life other than this. But I firmly believe -- they did it with the Toronto Transit Commission a number of years ago, and what they felt was that direct accountability was best served through elected people. Perhaps that's the route to go. Maybe the police services board, as has been the history in Ontario and Canada -- they were all elected people. They were either a committee of council or they were in fact a board composed of members appointed through local or regional councils.

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Mr Grandmaître: So you think by adding more councillors, more elected people, directly elected people --

Dr Chong: I think there are several ways you can handle it. If you want direct accountability, they should be elected people. If you're going to have indirect accountability, then perhaps the elected people should appoint them. Irrespective of the route you go, I think that Metropolitan Toronto should have the majority of either elected people or appointees on the services board.

Mr Grandmaître: Let's agree on that one --

Dr Chong: Sure, okay.

Mr Grandmaître: -- for a second.

Mr Stockwell: Why didn't you agree with him when you were in government?

Mr Grandmaître: I said for a second.

Coming back to the police association, we hear more and more that this government is trying to consult with people and to better communicate their intentions and to alleviate most of the problems between the police association, police services boards and --

Mr Bradley: Are you saying this is happening or it's alleged that this is happening?

Mr Grandmaître: Well, I use the word "allege," and the Solicitor General is trying to improve that relationship or lack of. I realize that municipalities are paying the shot, 85%, sometimes 90% of the police budget, but don't you think -- maybe I'm repeating myself -- but you're saying that no, the police association shouldn't have any representation.

Dr Chong: That's like -- no, I don't agree that -- maybe on reflection I'll change my mind.

Mr Grandmaître: How can you create a partnership when you leave out maybe the most important player, and that's the police officer?

Dr Chong: Well, I think there are two partnerships. There's the relationship between the police services board and its force and there's the relationship between --

Mr Grandmaître: Yes, but right now it's not happening.

Dr Chong: No, but there's also a relationship between the police and the community it serves, and I don't believe that the police association -- I don't think it would make any difference in terms of how it serves the community by having them on the police services board. I think that is a civilian function, and I happen to believe that should be a civilian function, and I think we, the community, are best served by having either directly elected politicians or civilians, not a member of the force on the board.

The Vice-Chair (Mr Allan McLean): Thank you. We'll move on to Mr Stockwell.

Mr Stockwell: I read your brief; I agree fundamentally with what you just outlined. I think I've been saying that for the last eight or nine years through all parties in government. It seems crazy to me that you ask the municipality to pay 90% of the policing costs and tell it that it only gets 40% of the representation, but that's the way the province does business.

One quick point. I wouldn't make the argument that Metro councillors should all be appointed because the TTC works that way, considering the way the TTC's been going the last three or four years --

Dr Chong: Yes, but that was after I was off it.

Mr Stockwell: Of course, but it's since they've been appointing all the councillors. What about this report from Andrews, the auditor? We talk about the hiring of visible minorities in the police force. God, that recommendation, they've been using that recommendation for 10 years: Hire more visible minorities. It seems to me that it hasn't worked. Either they don't want the jobs or they're just not doing a good job of hiring. What are your thoughts?

Dr Chong: I don't think it's for lack of trying. Ten years ago when I was on Metro council and the city of Toronto council, we suggested it then and I think there was genuine feeling on the part of the board and the senior officers that they would like to have more minorities on the force. The problem is -- and I can only address this from the Chinese community's point of view -- what do you do, drag them off the street? If they choose not to be police officers, with a few exceptions, and former Sergeant Ben Eng is here and perhaps he could answer this better -- but employment equity does not necessarily work if you want to move towards a demographic mirror of society. In other words, if you want the police force to demographically mirror society, I don't think it's right but I also don't think you're going to succeed because it doesn't take into consideration the desires and ability of individuals with respect to the police force.

What happens if only 10% of the community is Chinese and you think there should be 10% on the police force, but it turns out that 30% of the people would love to be police? Does that mean you can't have them any more? I have some problems with the current implementation and philosophy of employment equity.

Mr Stockwell: What about collecting the crime statistics by race?

Dr Chong: I think it's been almost beaten to death. To me, the rationale for collecting information is self-evident. What you're going to do is gather more information, and by gathering more information you're going to understand a problem better. I think that the hypersensitivity and the opposition to it is based on the fact that people may be stereotyped. Let me assure you, people are being stereotyped now, because in the absence of information, that's how prejudice thrives. If you gather information as part of a comprehensive analysis, then you can put to rest a lot of the prejudice and stereotyping that goes on. I think it's unfortunate that people have adopted the stance they have.

And one further thing: There's overwhelming support for gathering statistics. We have academic support; criminologists like Dr Anthony Doob and Dr John Hagan support it. In Canada, we've been gathering statistics on natives for 30 or 40 years. Why should we gather statistics on natives and nobody else? The previous Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Lincoln Alexander, supports it. Dr Wilson Head, most recently at a conference with me, has finally reflected on it, and he feels that this should be done. The Toronto Star ran a poll last fall of 1,300-odd telephone calls, and 96% of the public support it.

So we have academic support, public support and there is now political support: Toronto city council passed a motion by a vote of 15 to 2 suggesting and urging other municipalities, the province and the police services board as well to reconsider their policy. Toronto city council is considered one of the most progressive municipal governments in Ontario. All the factors are in place.

And besides that, with regard to hate literature, the police services board is now going to gather statistics based on race in order to fight hate crime. Allan Andrews's report suggests we should gather statistics based on race, although he says we shouldn't divulge them. I have a problem with that. If public money is spent to do something, I don't think we should be keeping it hidden.

There's all kinds of support out there for it. The intransigence of the four provincial appointees at the Metro services board, who are saying, "No, we can't do that for fear of stereotyping" -- I don't think they really have a leg to stand on. It's pure stubbornness.

Mr Stockwell: Last, and then I'll pass to Mr McLean, what about the board itself? Do you think we have a problem with the board or the people on the board?

Dr Chong: Even if there were different people there, I would still think that the majority should be appointed by Metro.

Mr Stockwell: But come on, Metro could appoint the same people the province is appointing.

Dr Chong: That's true, but what I'm saying is that then Metro would be responsible. I think the majority of responsibility should be that of Metro Toronto. Having said that about the structure, there's no question that the current chair, when appointed initially, clearly alienated some of the people who could have been her greatest allies. I think that has made for a period of time in the relationship between the services board and the police force itself that's been not only interesting but has had perhaps a little more friction than there needed to be. Clearly, it's the structure and the individuals that one chooses to appoint.

Mr McLean: So, bottom line: Who is holding up the release of what statistics there are, or who is not allowing the procedure to take place to gather those statistics?

Dr Chong: It's the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board that is still stubbornly clinging to the notion that by collecting them you're going to stereotype people. I belong to a visible minority. In my community, although there is divided opinion on it, I would say the majority support the gathering of statistics, as was evidenced by the support that Sergeant Ben Eng had when he, as an expression of the frustration in the Chinese community, released statistics. He may have been in contravention of their standing order at the time. I say "may" because, in my mind, there's a little doubt.

Mr McLean: So is it the --

Dr Chong: It's the police services board that's holding it up.

Mr McLean: But it's led by a chair. Is that her opinion, and her opinion reflects on the rest of the board?

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Dr Chong: That, I can't tell. I'm not privy to her thoughts or conversation with the other members of the board. But it's clearly the feeling, at least as expressed in their voting pattern, of the four provincial appointees, which I find ironic, because now they want to collect statistics based on race for hate crime. Allan Andrews's report suggests it may be useful in deployment of police officers: If you have all of a sudden an increase in crime in the Chinese community, maybe you'd like to have more than a handful of Chinese-speaking police officers. So clearly, there's a relationship between deployment and collecting the stats.

Mr Frankford: To follow up on the statistics, I think Mr Andrews said he felt that correlation of race was not particularly helpful in policing, but he said that sociologically it might be. It seems to me that in sociology, which relates to causes of crime but also the planning and deployment of resources, I can certainly see the merit. I ask, however, why just race? It would seem to me there are many variables that can be examined. One can look at sex, level of education, class, income, housing, place of residence, whatever. Why is this discussion purely about something called race --

Dr Chong: I don't know.

Mr Frankford: -- which seems to be not really race in any real academic sense, but possibly even physical appearance, because how do we define Europeans by race, or is that a race?

Dr Chong: The discussion about race is not of my choosing. The discussion is simply because the police services board has refused to accept that race, although biologically arbitrary -- and anthropologists will tell you that -- is nevertheless of value, because criminologists and sociologists clearly think it is of value, and that's clearly documented. But we did not single out race. It was a comprehensive gathering of statistics: family arrangements, country of origin, ethnic origin, the length of domicile in the country, sex, gender. Because it's been documented that there is a correlation; there's not a cause and effect, but there is a correlation.

Mr Frankford: And a correlation with income, no doubt.

Dr Chong: That's right. I said socioeconomic status.

Mr Frankford: I would say that's much easier to determine; you can objectively find someone's income level. Race --

Dr Chong: Nobody is saying there is a cause and effect between race and crime. What they have said and what many people, including Dr Anthony Doob and Dr John Hagan, clearly have said is that race is a securely established correlate of crime.

Mr Frankford: But I think that Dr Doob, as an academic criminologist, would be wanting as many statistics as possible to add --

Dr Chong: That's what he said. That's what we're saying.

Mr Frankford: I doubt if race is the overwhelming correlate he's looking at.

Dr Chong: But nobody's saying that.

Mr Frankford: Okay. I think one should be looking at what statistics are available. We've got a research document here from legislative research, which puts down crime trends. It certainly shows something, but I'm sure if we had Dr Doob here, he would be analysing what this means. Some of it is real; some of it is around reporting practices, arrest policies, a great many things.

I guess I'm asking, do we really have enough information? I would agree with you about some information, but a need for very much broader range of information so that the board, society in general, politicians can really start to do some intelligent analysis.

Dr Chong: That's the whole point. There was another handout. It is a comprehensive analysis we're looking for. It just so happens they got stuck on race because of, in my opinion, the stubbornness of the current board in not recognizing that they were making a bigger issue of it than needed to be, and it's just gotten out of hand.

Mr Frankford: Maybe you should concentrate on something less inflammatory, like socioeconomic status.

Dr Chong: Well, the point is that we did not and I did not concentrate on race. Race happens to be a short form for describing all the statistics that are necessary. Any scientist would want to gather information, as any logical, intelligent person would.

Mr Marchese: Mr Chong, several questions, the first one on the issue of membership. It has been pointed out by a few people that the current structure is nothing new. It has been thus for a long time, although Mr Grandmaître speaks to it as if it's a new thing done by this government. Clearly, it hasn't been --

Mr Bradley: It used to be non-partisan.

Mr Marchese: Mr Bradley says it used to be non-partisan. In your view, if you were to give it to Metro council as the body to appoint people, do you believe that somehow those people would become neutral all of a sudden, that they would have no political agenda or any agenda somehow, that they would come tabula rasa and simply look at matters objectively and everything would go away and be good again? Do you somehow think that?

Dr Chong: No, and I never thought that. To say that you can depoliticize a police services board I think is naïve, and I don't think anybody really believes that, because politics is going to be exercised directly or indirectly one way or another.

My point is that because Metro council pays the shot and because we believe local government best addresses local issues, that is the rationale that I come from for suggesting that Metro council should have the greatest majority of representatives there. I don't think you can say that policing will never be politicized, because it clearly is. Life is politicized.

Mr Marchese: Of course. There are several points connected to the same question. These people who are appointed by elected people at the provincial level come from the community, but what you're saying, if I can interpret you correctly, is that those appointments clearly reflect a different politics.

Dr Chong: That's right. They reflect the provincial point of view.

Mr Marchese: And that's really the problem.

Dr Chong: Ever since Confederation, there has been a struggle between local and provincial authorities with respect to municipal policing. The province has always dominated. I'm suggesting that I don't believe a province, of any political stripe, should be dominant in local policing matters.

Mr Marchese: I'd like to pursue it, but I have several other questions. One of your other suggestions was that perhaps they would be all Metro politicians. Do you think the public would support that?

Dr Chong: I think the public can support anything, if you present it to them in the proper way. As a politician, you're aware of that. I think what it would do to have Metro politicians on there is that they are directly accountable, and if they're not doing what the public wants, they'll be gone.

Mr Marchese: Yes, but that way, they are clearly directly accountable to the Metro board, not necessarily to the public, and it may not represent the public, necessarily. So you have that problem.

Dr Chong: But that happens anyway. If you're striving to get the best possible accountability, I think the best possible accountability is to have the majority of Metro or Metro politicians.

Mr Marchese: I don't agree with that, Gordon, but let me pursue another point on the whole issue of statistics.

Mr Bradley: You will when you're in opposition again.

Mr Marchese: Let me pursue something, and correct me if I interpreted wrongly what you said. I think you said that if we collected statistics, somehow, in your view, it would help to erode stereotypical attitudes. Can you tell me how?

Dr Chong: Right now, for instance, every time you turn on the TV or open a newspaper, there's either a black or Asian face, so what happens is that people build up a stereotype and a prejudice, because in the absence of information, they think, "Oh, gee, all these criminals are black or Asian." But if you have statistics that clearly show -- and I'm not just talking about racial statistics, but country of origin, ethnic origin, length of domicile, socioeconomic status -- what they will do is say, for instance, that in the Asian community, they're not all criminals; only 2% are. It allows you to figure out how to deploy not only policing services but social services, because some of these people who are coming in from mainland China or Vietnam have the same socioeconomic background as some of the poor blacks in the community as well. It puts a number to it, puts the speculation aside. So in the absence of information --

Mr Marchese: Gordon, let me ask you, if we discover that we have a high percentage of aboriginal people in jails -- we know that; we don't have statistical evidence, we don't have the numbers, but we know -- and we have lots of blacks committing certain crimes, let's say, once we've collected all that and people have access to those figures, how do we guard against how those figures are used against those communities?

Dr Chong: You can't.

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Mr Marchese: So what do we do about that?

Dr Chong: You debate it. You have it. Well, let's face it. You have information and if somebody is mistaken about it, you say, "You're wrong about it and here is the evidence." That's like saying to me: "I have a scalpel in my hand at the office. I can carve your face up or I can do some surgery." It's a tool. It's a vehicle.

Mr Marchese: But Gordon, it's a real problem because some of these things are very visceral; they're not rational, and so for you to suggest that we can discuss these things as if somehow through discussion we'll simply rid ourselves of problems of racism or stereotypical attitudes, it won't happen and I think you know that.

The Chair: I'm afraid you're not going to have time to respond to that, Dr Chong. For clarification, one point was raised about statistics related to aboriginals and the researcher indicates that those statistics are compiled by the federal government. Dr Chong, thank you very much for appearing here. I want to make note of the fact that the individual our clerk was searching desperately for, Ben Eng, former sergeant with the Metro forces, is here. Somehow, mysteriously, he showed up without our staff being able to contact him, but you can leave your phone number with our researcher in case we'd like to contact you in the future. Thanks very much.

Our final witness today is from the Metropolitan Toronto Coalition for Police Reform, Mark Wainberg. Mr Wainberg, welcome to the committee.

Mr Mark Wainberg: Thank you. I have a bundle of material that I'll be referring to. Shall I pass them out or hand them to somebody?

The Chair: The clerk is not here. We'll ask the researcher to grab them. They can be circulated. Would you like to say something briefly before we get into questions and answers?

Mr Wainberg: Yes, please. I was told to speak for 15 minutes, and 15 minutes of questions. I've tried to cut it down as much as I can.

The Chair: All right, if that's what you were told. We'd prefer it to be somewhat briefer, but if that's what you were told, I'm not going to go --

Mr Wainberg: I'll talk fast. I'm a lawyer from Toronto and I'm a member of the Metropolitan Toronto Coalition for Police Reform. This organization was formed in May 1991. It includes a broad segment of community groups and individuals, including the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto, the Chinese Canadian National Council, Quaker Committee on Jails and Justice, Black Action Defence Committee, Vietnamese Association and the Law Union of Ontario, of which I'm also a member.

The objective of our organization is to achieve policing which is less militaristic and more responsive to community needs. I appreciate the opportunity of being able to address this committee.

We had our inaugural meeting in May 1991, just around the time that Susan Eng became chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board. At that time, I was what I would consider a friend of Susan Eng. I met with her and I was a part-time adviser. She didn't usually take my advice, but I did meet with her on a regular basis. So my criticisms of her today are not out of any animosity for her.

At that time, there was a tremendous feeling of optimism among the members of our organization. We thought that the community would finally control the police services board and that our concerns would be listened to and acted upon.

After Susan Eng took over as chair in May 1991, there was a brief honeymoon period when the new board made some positive changes. They hired a couple of independent researchers, made a concerted effort to set their own agendas for their meetings -- the police had previously set the agendas for board meetings, pretty well -- and the new board actually invited and encouraged the deputations from members of the public.

I personally made five deputations to the Susan Eng board, and there have been hundreds of deputations from members of the public since May 1991 when Susan Eng took over. Deputants have come from all over the political spectrum, from Dudley Laws to myself, Gordon Chong and people from the other end of the spectrum as well. The only thing that all of the deputants have in common is that none of their deputations have resulted in any changes in board policy or procedure. I echo Gordon Chong's comments in that respect. He said the board has not been responsive to the community. They have definitely not been responsive to the community.

Mr Marchese: They've been attacked from both sides.

Mr Wainberg: You bet. The batting average of the community at police services board meetings is zero. This board was supposed to be the community's board and we're wondering what happened. What happened is that Susan Eng lost her nerve. The only thing that matters to her at this point is avoiding bad publicity. She wants to be liked by the police and she especially wants to be liked by Chief McCormack. You may recall her comments to you, to this committee, on December 2. I obtained a copy of the Hansard. She wants to make nice with the chief and unfortunately it's undermining her ability to be an independent voice for the community.

The police services board, once a hotbed of conflicting opinions, has become almost monolithic. Since the day she took over as chair, Susan Eng has never lost a vote. Except for the occasional dissent by Norm Gardner and the occasional abstention by Laura Rowe, almost all the board's votes have been unanimous, and Susan Eng mentioned to you that she was quite proud of that. I consider it to be the hallmark of mediocrity.

Mr McLean: Mr Chair, he can take all the time he wants so we can get this on the record. I think it's good information for us.

Mr Wainberg: Susan Eng will not bring forward a proposal unless she is certain it will win. She won't do anything without the support of Alan Tonks, Metro chairman, and Alan Tonks won't do anything without the support of the chief, so essentially the chief is running the board, which is pretty well what's been happening for the previous 15 years.

The Police Services Act says the board is supposed to establish policies for the effective management of the police force and the chief is required to carry out those policies. In reality, the chief sets the policies and the board, certainly recently, has been rubber-stamping those policies. I doubt there's anyone in this room who could name a single significant policing policy that has been initiated by the Susan Eng police services board.

Mr Stockwell: Rice pudding in the cafeteria.

Mr Wainberg: The policies of the Susan Eng board have not resulted in any improvement in police discipline in the city; if anything, there has been a deterioration in police discipline. In 1991 the number of public complaints against Metropolitan Toronto police officers soared to record levels: over 1,000 complaints. In 1992 we saw the illegal job action by Art Lymer and the police association, and neither the chief nor the board had the intestinal fortitude to take the strong disciplinary action that would have been required to stop that job action without the intervention of the court.

The police services board is now fulfilling the same role it has performed for the past 15 years, and that is public relations. The Metro police have an excellent public relations operation and the board is not needed to perform that function.

I've provided you with a bundle of materials. It's a series of newspaper articles and excerpts from Hansard regarding Susan Eng's presentation to you on December 2. There's a very consistent pattern in what Susan has been doing and what she's been saying over the past five or six months. Whatever the police want, they get. There's no longer even any pretence of independence by Susan Eng or the rest of the board. I shouldn't just single out Susan Eng. The other board appointees have been going along with her and I think they all share the blame for what has been happening.

Just to review the bundle briefly, from Susan's presentation to the committee, the first item in the bundle is the response to a question from Tony Rizzo at the December 2 meeting. Mr Rizzo said, "It seems to me that when anyone talks about any police force there is a tendency to emphasize everything that's positive and gloss over the undeniable problems that still exist. Once in a while it makes the front pages in our printed press. My question to you is, what are the real problems with our police force and what can be done about them?" You can read her response. She danced around and she put a gloss on the problems and never really answered the question. I think we deserve better.

The second excerpt in the bundle is also from Susan Eng's presentation to you, and it's regarding the use-of-force reports. She indicated that her use-of-force review committee was recommending that the use-of-force reports be kept for six months, and at that time she was advocating that position.

The government, when it passed the use-of-force regulations, gave the local boards the option to keep the reports for one month or for anywhere up to two years. The police association wanted the reports destroyed after one month, and that's what it got. Susan Eng and the rest of the board disregarded the advice of their own use-of-force review committee and decided to give the police association what it wanted. It was clearly contrary to the public interest and it's contrary to everything that Susan has always advocated with respect to use-of-force reports.

I could take you through the whole bundle. The Toronto Star articles are fairly self-explanatory. There's a pattern here. Susan is giving in to the police and she's not exercising the independence we had all hoped for.

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Mr Marchese: Mark, you should leave some time for questions. It would probably be better.

Mr Wainberg: Sure. This is my own proposal as a result of conversations I've had with members of our organization. The police services board in Metro is not fulfilling any function now at all. It's my personal recommendation that it be abolished and that there be a single policing bureaucracy. The functions of the special investigations unit, the police complaints commissioner, the internal affairs department and the police services board should be combined into one.

There's so much duplication and so much confusion and overlapping jurisdiction and so on. It's costing a tremendous amount of money. Nobody understands where to go for what type of complaint. Considering that the police services board is not fulfilling any function, I think it would be a cost saving and a great improvement in efficiency for this whole set of bureaucracies to be combined. Those are my submissions.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr Wainberg. We've got about six minutes for each caucus, and we'll look to Mr Marchese to begin.

Mr Marchese: Mark, you answered one of my questions, I believe, and that was on the issue of the composition of the board. You've heard a number of deputants speak clearly against the way we're doing it now, saying that the four provincial representatives are not representing the interests of some and that we should either go to Metro council to appoint them or to Metro councillors on the board. Do you have a response to that, or is your response simply to abolish the board because it's of no use?

Mr Wainberg: It makes no difference at all. Susan Eng and Alan Tonks, who are the leaders of their respective factions, vote the same way on everything. It makes no difference.

Mr Marchese: I think what we're hearing is that the people who are appointed by the province vote differently than the rest, and that that's what's caused some of the problems on the police board.

Mr Wainberg: But they don't. Susan Eng said they don't. Dennis Flynn said they don't. I've been there; they don't. They vote as a unit. They're unanimous on almost everything, and the problem is that everything gets so watered down that it's acceptable to both the left and the right.

Mr Marchese: All right. On the issue of statistics, you heard a number of people talk about the need to keep statistics on who commits the crimes. What is your opinion on that? Do you have any concerns about that?

Mr Wainberg: Our organization believes that the present policy should be continued. I don't necessarily agree with my organization on that.

Mr Marchese: What's your belief, separate from the organization?

Mr Wainberg: I would like to know which ethnic and racial groups are most detrimentally affected by policing. In order to do that, you need to know the race and so on of the people who are being arrested. I haven't seen the new use-of-force reports, but the old ones have race on there. The police do collect the data. Ben Eng was compiling it, without authorization from the chief, but the data are there already. I think it would be useful, in combination with the use-of-force report, to see whether the police draw their guns more often with blacks than with whites. I think that kind of data would be really useful.

Mr Marchese: You've probably read this report, obviously, by Mr Andrews, have you?

Mr Wainberg: I haven't read the report, but I attended a seminar which was led my Mr Andrews, and he touched on that briefly.

Mr Marchese: Any response in terms of what you think this report will accomplish? In the right direction? Like many other reports? Not in the right direction?

Mr Wainberg: With this police services board? I'm extremely pessimistic that they'll do anything that'll change the status quo.

Mr Marchese: So what do you think the Metro PSB should do to improve the accountability of its police officers?

Mr Wainberg: Susan Eng doesn't want to get her hands dirty when it comes to disciplinary matters. She's developed this philosophy of institutional responsibility. She hasn't articulated this quite this way, but she doesn't believe that individual officers should be punished. She has repeatedly praised the chief and told him he's doing a great job, notwithstanding the findings of the Junger inquiry. It's obvious that she has no intention whatsoever of disciplining him for actions which I would consider illegal, that he either authorized or conducted and which came out in the Junger inquiry.

There are a lot of things that are done in other jurisdictions regarding discipline. In Kansas City there's special retraining. I have an article about this from Now magazine. They have a special program to retrain officers who have a lot of complaints against them. Apparently, the program is quite successful.

It's important to identify who the officers are who are screwing up on a regular basis, and by the policy that the Susan Eng board has adopted with respect to use-of-force reports, she's basically shut herself off from the very information she needs in order to find out who the problem officers are. She herself admits that, actually, in one of these articles. This was the December 18 article:

"Board chairperson Susan Eng conceded the policy could make it difficult to identity an officer repeatedly misusing a weapon, baton or physical force.

"`We had that ability before; we won't now,' she said. `And to that extent, yes, I think we are further behind.'"

Sure, we're further behind, but it doesn't bother her. She still adopted that one-month destruction policy.

The Chair: Mr Stockwell, six minutes.

Mr Stockwell: You're not related at all to the group Citizens' Independent Review of Police Activities?

Mr Wainberg: I was a member of CIRPA.

Mr Stockwell: Is it still around?

Mr Wainberg: No.

Mr Stockwell: Did they disband and then start this one?

Mr Wainberg: It's not the same people. I happened to be in CIRPA and I happen to be in this group, but there were about four years when neither CIRPA was active nor was our organization.

Mr Stockwell: In the beginning you said "representing the community." I guess there's a difference between what you consider the community and what I consider the community. Do you ever think that may be the case, that maybe you're speaking for a minority?

Mr Wainberg: That's very possible, but I think the rights of minorities are very important, and I think the police force should be very solicitous of the rights of minorities.

Mr Stockwell: I'm not suggesting they're not, but to adopt policies that the majority don't really want to see, policies that people don't accept -- I'm not even certain which initiatives and so on you're speaking about; you didn't mention them. But you're very disenchanted. Maybe, the thought is, you're disenchanted because most people probably don't agree with you.

Mr Wainberg: Most people don't give a damn about policing. The only contact most people have with police is the odd parking ticket or speeding ticket. As long as the police don't bother them, that's fine with them.

Mr Stockwell: Maybe so, but that's really not the question. The question was, maybe most people don't agree with what you think the police or the police services board should be doing. Most people disagree with you. Has that ever crossed your mind?

Mr Wainberg: Yes, it has. That doesn't bother me.

Mr Stockwell: I'm not suggesting it should, but the police services board is in fact carrying out and doing its job, at least to a degree -- I'm not certain I agree with everything you say about Susan Eng -- because it's performing a duty which it thinks needs to be done. They think that basically they have the support of the majority of the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr Wainberg: But the board isn't doing anything.

Mr Stockwell: That's your opinion. Maybe there are a tremendous number of people who think they're doing a wonderful job or they're doing an average job.

Mr Wainberg: What are they doing? Name a single important policy they've initiated.

Mr Bradley: No. We ask the questions.

Mr Stockwell: I'm not disagreeing with you on a whole bunch of things you say, particularly what you were saying with respect to the Junger affair. I think that was unbelievable, quite frankly. Whether you're a right-winger or a left-winger or a liberal, it matters not in anyone's mind. It just was unbelievable that nobody took the fall for that, nobody anywhere.

Having said that, I'm not a big fan of Susan Eng either, but I would imagine it's for a whole bunch of different reasons than you. I guess the question is, do you think it's the services board that needs to be fixed, or is it the people on the services board? I've asked every single person who has come before us today that question, and they give, generally, a pretty mealy-mouthed answer.

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Mr Wainberg: I'll give you a real specific answer.

Mr Stockwell: You're pretty clear. You think Susan Eng's doing a lousy job.

Mr Wainberg: She's doing a lousy job.

Mr Stockwell: What about the board itself?

Mr Wainberg: We've had a Tory board; we've had a Liberal board; we've had an NDP board. The track record of each of those boards was virtually identical. None of the three parties has succeeded in putting in people who have done a decent job, and I think it's time to look at whether we need a board at all.

Mr Stockwell: Who would make the appointments to this new structure you have?

Mr Wainberg: The province.

Mr Stockwell: Just the province. But they've been appointing them for 50 years, and you've got the crappy, lousy board you were just complaining about. How's that going to solve anything? So we have one superboard appointed by the province that, instead of making little mistakes, makes big mistakes.

Mr Wainberg: The personalities are really important. There are some people in the policing hierarchy who have credibility with the community. Clare Lewis is one; Howard Morton is another. There is a handful of people who are really good. If they could be on this body, if you could really handpick -- they happen to be lawyers. There were some comments about lawyers. I happen to think you need lawyers for this job.

Mr Stockwell: Next question. Surely to goodness --

Mr Marchese: I think we need lawyers, maybe a few teachers.

Mr Stockwell: Lawyers and teachers.

The Chair: You have one minute.

Mr Stockwell: One minute. I'm trying to get it in, if this bantering would stop between the government and the official opposition.

You've got now a board of six or seven people handpicked by the provincial government. Do you think maybe the problem lies --

Mr Wainberg: Only four are handpicked. Just a four-person board. Now four are picked by the province.

Mr Marchese: Yes, I know. A four-person board that you're structuring now. I'm asking about --

Mr Wainberg: No. It's responsible for all kinds of things: It would have to be a fairly large board, with different divisions. I haven't thought out all the details of it.

Mr Stockwell: I'd like to know, because I don't think this board's working too well either, and I'm not certain whether it's the board or whether it's the players. It seems to me we didn't have this much trouble 10 years ago, but I don't think it's the same city it was 10 years ago or maybe 20 years ago.

Mr Wainberg: Phil Givens? Listen, CIRPA was active then. I went in front of that Phil Givens board. They were awful, and the June Rowlands board was awful and the Susan Eng board is awful.

Mr Stockwell: But the truth be known, you're on the outskirts. You're on the fringe when it comes to what the people of Metropolitan Toronto want. Believe it or not, you're on the fringe.

Mr Wainberg: Excuse me. I'm not on the fringe. I've been an NDPer all my life. I'm not a left-wing NDPer; I'm not a right-wing NDPer. I'm just middle of the road.

The Chair: I'm going to have to jump in at that point. Mr Bradley.

Mr Bradley: The organization you represent is entitled the Metropolitan Toronto Coalition for Police Reform --

Mr Wainberg: Metro Coalition for Police Reform. It's wrong on your agenda.

Mr Bradley: Who do you represent?

Mr Wainberg: I mentioned some of the groups: the Metro labour council, Chinese Canadian National Council, Quaker Committee on Jails and Justice, the Black Action Defence Committee, the Vietnamese Association, the Law Union of Ontario. There are several other organizations and several individuals.

Mr Bradley: You represent those organizations. Do you represent, necessarily, the people those organizations purport to represent? In other words, you say the Vietnamese Association: Which Vietnamese do you supposedly speak for through your organization? It sounds as though somehow all the Vietnamese are on your side and all these people are here. That's the impression that was given out.

Mr Wainberg: I'm sorry if I misled you. Representatives of those organizations belong to our organization and attend our meetings. They introduce themselves as "representatives of."

Mr Bradley: You have expressed, to say the least, considerable opposition to Susan Eng and the present board and to previous boards because they do not represent what you think should be on a police services board. How do we square that, however, with the fact that they probably represent what a significant majority of the people of this province and the people of Metropolitan Toronto would like to see on a police board?

Mr Wainberg: I don't agree with that. I think the community wants to have some voice in policing. I'm not just talking about the left-wingers. Gordon Chong, you know, made the same comments as I did, that the board is not representing the wishes of the community. Gordon Chong and I don't agree on everything, we don't agree on too much, but we both agree that the board is not responsive. So I don't agree that my comments should be discarded because I don't represent the views of the majority. The majority wants to be heard, it wants a voice in policing, and it doesn't have it.

Mr Bradley: Your organization wishes to make the police, as you say, less militaristic than they are at the present time, more community-oriented. In a nutshell -- and this is very difficult, I understand -- how do you propose to achieve that while at the same time combating the obvious crime that's out there in the community at this time, the general community?

Mr Wainberg: It's a broad question. What really concerns us is the shootings. In the last four years there have been a tremendous number of shootings of civilians, and we feel that --

Mr Bradley: You're saying the shootings by police.

Mr Wainberg: Police officers shooting civilians.

Mr Bradley: Not the other shootings that are taking place across Metropolitan Toronto on an almost weekly basis.

Mr Wainberg: Well, that's a problem too, but police officers aren't getting shot. It's the civilians who are getting shot by police officers. That's --

Mr Bradley: And a lot of civilians by civilians.

Mr Wainberg: And a lot of civilians by civilians. There's a fairly strong gun regulation now, which was brought in by the Liberal government; it's been slightly changed by the NDP government, but not significantly, and it's not being enforced. Officers are pulling out their guns far too often. I can give you numbers if you want numbers, but I think that has to be curtailed. The present chief has shown no inclination to do that. The board, a year ago, tried to bring in a mission statement saying that the preservation of human life is the highest priority and that deadly force should be used only for the preservation of human life. Chief McCormack couldn't agree with that. He said it would impose undue operational restrictions on his officers, and that kind of attitude has to be dealt with. Susan Eng shares my views on that, but she's not doing anything about it.

Mr Bradley: In your view, would we see a decrease in the need for the number of occurrences where police use their guns or other offensive weapons, particularly guns -- would that be diminished considerably if we were to implement in this country the kind of gun control legislation and regulations that have been advocated by a number of people, who have not to this point been listened to?

Mr Wainberg: You mean gun control regulations for civilians? Oh, yes, we should have much stronger gun control legislation. There was a resolution before city council a few years ago to have a gun-free zone in the city of Toronto. I think that kind of thing can be done at several levels. Sure, if you get fewer guns out there, the need for policing services will be reduced.

Mr Bradley: May I assume that you are a strong supporter of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Mr Wainberg: Yes, except --

Mr Bradley: Do you believe that police officers should be able to invoke their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when dealing with the special investigations unit?

Mr Wainberg: I'll give you a little legal lecture. The Supreme Court of Canada has dealt with charter issues involving police disciplinary offences in several cases. They've consistently held that the Charter of Rights does not apply to police disciplinary proceedings. One of the cases was Trumbley and Pugh, the sex-in-the-cruiser case from a few years ago, and there were several cases which have followed that regarding section 11 of the charter: the right to an unbiased tribunal, the delay issues and so on. The Supreme Court of Canada says that in police disciplinary proceedings, officers don't have those protections.

With respect to the duty to speak to an investigator who is mandated by statute, the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with that issue in the Thomson Newspapers case in 1990. As it usually does, the Supreme Court of Canada split 2-to-1 on that issue: Does a person have to talk to the combines investigator? There's a tremendous amount of confusion, and there have been several editorials in the paper -- Alan Borovoy, Clay Ruby, Howard Morton, head of the SIU, and they all feel --

Mr Bradley: Is Clay Ruby a partner of yours?

Mr Wainberg: No, no, no. I like Clay --

The Chair: I'm going to have to jump in here, Mr Wainberg.

Mr Wainberg: Anyway, the answer is that the police do have a right to silence as criminal suspects. Their duty as police officers, in my opinion, overrides that right. They have a public duty which is higher than their rights as criminal suspects. They have a right to remain silent, but they don't have a right to remain police officers.

The Chair: Thank you very much. That winds up your appearance before the committee. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

Mr Wainberg: Thank you. I appreciate it.

The Chair: Just before we break, the package of material that's sitting in front of you is for Wednesday's hearing, just so you're aware of what it's all about. It can be left in the committee room over this evening. I am advised that it's also tomorrow's material as well.

We have a subcommittee meeting coming up right away, and we'll adjourn the meeting.

The committee adjourned at 1651.