POLICE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES SERVICES POLICIERS
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
CANADIAN CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION
HALTON REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
CITY OF NORTH YORK COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY, RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL, TORONTO CHAPTER
METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD
YORK REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
TOWN OF HUNTSVILLE; TOWNSHIPS OF GEORGIAN BAY, LAKE OF BAYS AND MUSKOKA LAKES
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF POLICE SERVICES BOARDS
PARKDALE COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES
PEEL REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Monday 17 March 1997
Police Services Amendment Act, 1997, Bill 105, Mr Runciman /
Loi de 1997 modifiant la Loi sur les services policiers, projet de loi 105, M. Runciman
Statement by the minister and responses
Hon Robert W. Runciman, Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services
Mr David Ramsay
Mr Peter Kormos
Mr David Christopherson
Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services
Mr Fred Peters, assistant deputy minister, policing services division
Ms Anne McChesney, legal counsel
Mr David Burnside, legal counsel
Police Association of Ontario
Mr John Moor
Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Mr Alan Borovoy
Halton Regional Police Association
Mr Paul La Course
Mr John Moor
Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Ms Avvy Go
City of North York Committee on Community, Race and Ethnic Relations
Mr Samuel Wilkes
Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto chapter
Mr Keith Wong
Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board
Ms Lois Griffin
Ms Joanne Campbell
York Regional Police Association
Mr Paul Bailey
Town of Huntsville; townships of Georgian Bay, Lake of Bays and Muskoka Lakes
Mr Chris Williams
Ontario Association of Police Services Boards
Ms Hazel Lloyst
Ms Sandi Humphrey
Parkdale Community Legal Services
Ms Patricia Allard
Ms Tanya Lena
Peel Regional Police Association
Mr Stu Campbell
Law Union of Ontario
Mr Paul Copeland
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président: Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford PC)
Mr RobertChiarelli (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Mr DavidChristopherson (Hamilton Centre/ -Centre ND)
Mr BruceCrozier (Essex South / -Sud L)
Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Mr TimHudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr RonJohnson (Brantford PC)
Mr FrankKlees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mr PeterKormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
Mr GerryMartiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mr DavidRamsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr DavidTilson (Dufferin-Peel PC)
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr GaryCarr (Oakville South / -Sud PC)
Clerk / Greffier: Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel: Mr Andrew McNaught, research officer, Legislative Research Service
J-1647
The committee met at 1002 in room 151.
POLICE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES SERVICES POLICIERS
Consideration of Bill 105, An Act to renew the partnership between the province, municipalities and the police and to enhance community safety / Projet de loi 105, Loi visant à renouveler le partenariat entre la province, les municipalités et la police et visant à accroître la sécurité de la collectivité.
The Chair (Mr Gerry Martiniuk): I call the meeting of the standing committee on administration of justice to order. We are considering Bill 105. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
Members of the committee, you have before you two subcommittee reports. The first one is on 105. I suggest we must deal with 105, which deals with the police services bill, before this committee can proceed. The second one is on Bill 84, the fire services bill, which I suggest we deal with tomorrow after you've had a chance to read it over. However, we must deal with 105 and I would request a motion approving the subcommittee report.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I so move.
The Chair: Mr Klees so moves. Is there any discussion regarding the report? It sets out the meeting places over the next four days and further clause-by-clause consideration in May. It also provides for the possibility of this committee reimbursing individuals for travel in the event the subcommittee recommends same. We have some requests, which we'll deal with at a later date, regarding reimbursement for travel.
Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favour? The motion is adopted.
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
The Chair: We are pleased this morning to have the Honourable Bob Runciman, Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services. We have one half-hour allotted for his presentation, or such portion that he may choose to use, and then each caucus will have 15 minutes for either statements or questions.
Hon Robert W. Runciman (Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): I'd like to indicate that accompanying me today is Mr Fred Peters, who is the assistant deputy minister of the policing services division of the ministry.
As Solicitor General, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak about Bill 105, An Act to renew the partnership between the province, municipalities and the police and to enhance community safety. As you know, for many years there has been a pressing need to improve the way policing services are paid for, delivered and kept accountable to municipal taxpayers. The long-awaited amendments to the Police Services Act that we have proposed answer those needs.
Before I get into the substance of the bill, I want to take a few moments to talk about how and why it was written. In December 1995, I initiated a review of policing in Ontario, the most comprehensive review of policing in almost a quarter of a century. The goal of this review was to improve the way policing is provided to the people of this province. This review was conducted in consultation with police and municipal stakeholders, and that consultation has been extensive.
Last June I hosted a two-day police summit to seek input from police, municipal representatives and others on the future of policing in Ontario. The police summit was attended by representatives of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Association of Ontario, the Ontario Senior Officers Association and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The ministry received valuable feedback from these organizations at the summit and during follow-up meetings throughout the summer.
This work was expanded upon by the Who Does What panel, which reported to the government in November. In addition, the Attorney General and I announced an independent review of civilian oversight of police, which was conducted by Mr Rod McLeod. The McLeod review provided the ministry with recommendations on how to create a simpler, more efficient and effective system of civilian oversight and police accountability.
Bill 105 has three main thrusts which deal with fair financing, local flexibility in the delivery and governance of police services, and improved accountability.
First of all, when it comes to paying for police services, we boil it down to a question of fairness. In our view, and in the view of the Who Does What emergency services panel, it is not fair that some municipalities now receive police services without direct cost to their taxpayers, while others pay the full amount. Some 202 municipalities in Ontario, representing 85% of the province's population, pay for police services directly from municipal property taxes. The remaining 576 municipalities do not pay for policing from municipal taxes. In those municipalities, policing is provided by the Ontario Provincial Police at no direct charge. The cost of providing that service is more than $182 million a year.
Generally speaking, it is smaller rural municipalities that receive policing at no charge, but that is not always the case. For example, the village of Wheatley in Kent county has a population of about 1,500 and pays for policing through municipal taxes. The district of Muskoka has a population of 45,000 and receives policing services without charge. This is extremely unfair to the municipalities that are paying their share of policing costs. The Provincial Auditor pointed this out in his reports in 1990 and again in 1994. The NDP government assured the Provincial Auditor that it was "committed to the principle that everyone should pay their fair share of policing costs." Despite that assurance, nothing was done before June 1995.
We have listened and we are taking action. Beginning on January 1, 1998, every municipality in Ontario will be responsible for providing adequate and effective policing and for paying their fair share through municipal taxes.
With respect to policing costs, I want to remind the members of the committee that this is being done in conjunction with the removal of education tax from the property tax rolls, which in many municipalities represents a reduction of some 60% of the current property tax bill. In addition, my colleague the Attorney General recently announced amendments to the Provincial Offences Act which will allow municipalities to access an estimated $40 million in fine revenues.
Finally, the government's reinvestment strategy will also ensure that no municipality is unfairly burdened by these changes. These measures, taken together, will help make sure that municipalities are able to pay their fair share for policing.
I recently met with delegates at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association, or ROMA, convention. I spoke to them, answered their questions, and met a dozen delegations for an entire afternoon, and I can tell you that these changes are being well received. Certainly there are some questions and concerns surrounding how this will transpire, and we intend to hear those in the coming days and address them as best we can and as quickly as we can. But I want to assure the committee that from the reaction I've read in the papers and heard from individuals across the province, these proposals have received wide acceptance. For instance, an editorial in the London Free Press, "Removing a subsidy most municipalities don't get is the right thing to do." The Windsor Star called these changes "straightforward and equitable." I could also quote the Brockville Recorder and Times, but I'm sure you don't want to hear that one.
1010
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Please, sir.
Hon Mr Runciman: A very glowing commendation.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): They know you down there too.
Hon Mr Runciman: That's right. Even more remarkable.
The second major provision in the bill that I want to speak to is designed to give local governments the flexibility they need to make decisions about local services. The government believes that local needs are best understood by local officials who are accountable for the delivery of services in their communities. That's why under Bill 105 the majority of members on police services boards will be appointed by the municipality and municipalities will be given the authority to set police budgets, which I might add was received with a very strong round of applause at the ROMA convention.
Municipalities will have options for local choice in the delivery of police services to their community. For instance, they can decide to continue with OPP service and be billed on an actual cost basis; they can contract with the OPP directly; they can join with a neighbouring municipality or municipalities to establish a joint OPP contract and a joint police services board; they have the option of entering into an agreement with a neighbouring police service to provide certain specialized police services; or, finally, they can join with another municipality to form a new police service. Regardless of the option chosen, public safety will be the primary consideration.
Consistent with the Who Does What panel's recommendation, the legislation will establish the core functions that must be provided by a police service. Those core functions are crime prevention, law enforcement, assistance to victims, maintenance of public safety and emergency response.
For the first time, in the interest of public safety, the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services will clearly define the term "adequate policing," and we'll do this in a regulation pursuant to the bill. This will establish benchmarks for a level of police service that will ensure effective protection for every community in Ontario.
The third and final area I would like to address is the improved system of police oversight that's been developed as part of Bill 105. It's clear to everyone interested in police oversight that the current system doesn't work. Certainly police and municipal stakeholders told us during our extensive consultations over the last year that the current system is complex, bureaucratic and slow, and I know from the inquiries in my office that very few people understand the current system.
The oversight system in Ontario is confusing to the complainant and costly and time-consuming to all taxpayers. Right now, Ontario has four different agencies overseeing the police at an annual cost of almost $8 million. For example, in 1995, it cost Ontario taxpayers $1,000 for the police complaints commission to process each of the 3,923 complaints it dealt with that year. At the same time, only 29 of those complaints -- less than 1% -- required an investigation by the complaints commission. We believe we can and must do better.
I want to emphasize from the outset that the independence and impartiality of serious investigations will be maintained through the continuation of the special investigations unit, which will remain under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General.
There has been some concern expressed in the media and in the Legislature about civilian oversight of police and the changes we're making. Most of the concern has focused on one area: public complaints procedures. That is an important area, but it's also important for people to know that civilian oversight consists of more than just the complaints system, as some of our critics suggest.
Police services boards are and will remain civilian oversight bodies. The Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services, OCCPS, is and will remain a civilian oversight body. The policing services division of my ministry is and will remain an oversight body. All will remain and all will have their responsibilities enhanced by this legislation.
On the related but quite distinct matter of the police complaints system, Bill 105 will discharge two oversight bodies, the office of the police complaints commissioner and the boards of inquiry, merging the existing complaints and discipline oversight bodies into a modernized, streamlined and transparent system that is more responsive to complaints.
We intend to maintain the chief of police as the initial arbiter of public complaints about the conduct of officers, as he or she is under the current system. Experience has shown that the vast majority of public complaints can be resolved informally and locally and, if necessary, officers can be, and are, disciplined by the chief of police for their actions. Under the current legislation, almost all initial complaint investigations are carried out by the police service in question, and this will not change. The final report of the investigation is presented to the chief of police, who determines what action to take. This will not change.
Under our proposals, if a complainant is not satisfied with the chief's decision or the manner in which a complaint is being handled, he or she will be able to ask OCCPS to review the matter. Upon receiving a request for a review, OCCPS shall review the matter, taking into account any material provided by the complainant or the chief of police, and shall endeavour to complete the review within 30 days. This is the first time such time lines have been built into the legislation, and they are there to make the complaints system more responsive and accountable to the complainant.
Upon completion of the review, OCCPS may confirm the decision or may direct the chief of police to process the complaint as it, OCCPS, specifies, or may assign the investigation of a complaint to another police service. As well, OCCPS may at any stage in the complaints process direct a chief of police to process a complaint as it specifies or assign the investigation of a complaint to another police service. The police complaints commission does not have these powers.
It's correct that the police complaints commission may in some cases conduct its own investigation with its own civilian investigators and possibly refer the matter to a board of inquiry. It cannot, however, review and inquire into every step of the process the way the new OCCPS will be able to. The new OCCPS will also have the authority to conduct formal inquiries, complete with witnesses testifying under oath, into any policing matter that it wishes to examine.
Let me stress that the bill which has been introduced will both strengthen the system of police oversight while using taxpayers' dollars more effectively.
One point that has not gotten much notice is the fact that the legislation seeks to widen the complaints process to include the ability for the public to take issue with the policies of or services offered by a police service. As it is now, the only thing that you can complain about is the conduct of an individual officer.
This lack of notice has puzzled me because it is a very important point, and I want to stress it so that everyone is clear about it: If a person believes his or her community is not being well served by local police, they will now have an avenue of redress other than an irate phone call or a letter to the editor. They can now file a formal complaint that will have to be dealt with by the chief with an appeal mechanism to the police services board. The board will now be able to hold the police service to account for the job it's doing. As I say, that strikes me as being a big advance for civilian oversight.
In addition to improving the system, we will also save taxpayers $3 million every year. These savings will be realized by ending administrative overlap and duplication in the oversight system, not by compromising service and accountability.
1020
We're encouraged by the positive feedback we've received concerning these proposed changes to police oversight and governance. In fact, I received a letter from the London Urban Alliance on Race Relations, which I understand is scheduled to appear before the committee, saying: "We are most impressed with the changes being made. You are keeping your promises to the people of Ontario."
Where concerns remain, I believe the way to approach them is through a positive and constructive meeting such as the one I had on February 4 with the Community Coalition Concerned about Civilian Oversight of Police. I met with this group, they laid out their concerns, I responded to their concerns in writing and indicated an opportunity for another meeting following my initial response. I see a number of individuals who were at that meeting are also scheduled to appear at the committee.
In closing, I want to say that I strongly believe that the changes we are introducing will lead to fairness for taxpayers, empower local governments to make local decisions about policing and improve the system of police oversight and accountability. I believe these changes will lead to much-improved policing across Ontario and a safer province for us, our children and our grandchildren.
When all is said and done, my goal is to have the best legislation possible to enable the police to protect the public and meet the needs of Ontario communities in a cost-effective manner. I trust that the process the committee is now embarking upon will aid all of us in achieving the goals we all share. With that in mind, I look forward to hearing constructive suggestions from the witnesses appearing before this committee in the coming days.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Solicitor General. We have 15 minutes per caucus and we'll start off with the opposition.
Mr Ramsay: I'd like to thank the minister for being here today at the start of our deliberations on Bill 105. Minister, as you probably realize, I'm going to present a different point of view this morning; and I think, looking at our witness list over the next four days, we're going to hear another point of view too, and a little later I'd like to touch upon that.
I think this is a watershed in Ontario's judicial history in that you're turning back the clock on the reality and the perception of civilian oversight of our police services in Ontario. With this bill, the government is really destroying decades of work that many people have put into developing a system of increased police accountability to the public. This has worked on behalf of the police also by having that system out there.
By weakening and almost abolishing our system of civilian oversight of police activity that handles our allegations of police misconduct in an open, fair and above-board manner, I think your government is sending us back to years and years ago when there wasn't the public confidence in civilian oversight activity in this province. By undermining civilian and external review of police actions, Bill 105 is going to undermine public confidence in the police.
I think you know that this lack of confidence that people have in a system is very similar to how politics works: The perception that the public has of the system is as important as the reality. My sense is that the introduction of this legislation changes that perception, not that the system was perfect to begin with, and we certainly could be streamlining and improving, but I think now, with the introduction of Bill 105, we are eroding the public perception and the confidence they have of a good, stringent civilian oversight of our police. I would think at this time you would want to build that public confidence and not destroy it. We find by the list of people who are coming to see us, and the various groups, that this eroding of public confidence in our civilian oversight comes from many of our minority communities in this province.
We know that this legislation is based on the McLeod report on police oversight. We knew that at first McLeod recommended rolling all the existing oversight bodies, including the SIU, into one. He also thought that chiefs of police should handle complaints against the police. I'm certainly pleased that you have backed away from rolling in the SIU with the other agency to be looking at police complaints. This was a faulty judgement to begin with on Mr McLeod's part and I'm glad you recognized that, because if we're to have any semblance of confidence in the police oversight system, certainly the serious complaints the SIU investigates, there has to be that perception that there's some independence from the very people who are going to be investigated. It's very important that separation be there. It was unfortunate that he recommended the emasculation of the SIU, but you've made that point and I'm supportive of that.
The rest of the McLeod report, though, is really very questionable, first off in that it came out of a very short, six-week study. It's nice in government to have very short studies -- sometimes a lot of these reviews or studies take far too long -- but six weeks was not very long. The announcement gave very short notice to members of the affected communities, such as minority communities, that were given only six days to prepare and submit their reports. I'm sure we're going to hear complaints about that in the next few days from these groups. That really is not long enough to get a public consultation and this lack of time for consultation reflects in the McLeod report.
This unrealistic deadline and the incomplete consultation of this report make it a very suspect document, yet the government is using it as the excuse to strip the civilian review process of its powers. This legislation essentially ends independent investigations and effective civilian review of police conduct, leaving oversight of police in the hands of police chiefs. Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who is going to be coming before us soon, has stated, "This is the classic case of making the police umpires of their own game."
The highly transparent and accountable public complaints process that currently exists is being replaced by one in which chiefs of police will be almost entirely responsible for oversight of police. This legislation is clearly based more on finding ways to save money than on improving public access to the review process. While it's important that those of us with governmental responsibilities today work on saving money, it's also very important that the public have confidence in the various functions of government, policing being a very important one.
Under Bill 105, public complaints can only be made in writing by the person directly affected. What does this mean for many vulnerable people, including new Canadians who may not be able to prepare a written complaint? Maybe we should simplify and streamline the complaints procedure -- I certainly don't disagree with that -- but this isn't the way to do it. This new process sweeps away any semblance of civilian oversight and public accountability. This legislation creates the very real possibility that serious complaints about police will be swept under the rug.
Isn't it in the interest of police officers that the system deal with any misconduct in an open, fair and publicly accountable manner? Don't we want to build public confidence and trust in the police? This closed system will create mistrust and is not fair to the public or to the vast majority of police officers who conduct themselves responsibly. We're in favour of simplifying the procedure for making public complaints about police misconduct if that would improve public accessibility and confidence in the system. But this new process sweeps away any semblance of civilian oversight and public accountability.
I would like to turn my attention just briefly in the few minutes that I have left to the change in the assessment of police costs to municipalities that Bill 105 also takes into account. As you say, there's quite a bit of support in the province for this aspect, in that this starts to begin, I suppose, some fairness in how policing is paid for in this province and some equity in all the people of Ontario paying for it. One of the big concerns I have is that this adjustment, where the local OPP detachment will at least be figuring a per capita rate for all households in that detachment area, comes at a time with this additional downloading from this government.
1030
One of those downloading changes is particularly onerous on rural townships with a lot of active farms, and I'm worried about the complication. We hear of a police fee of anything from $200 to maybe $300 per household in a rural township at the same time that rural township is going to be losing the 75% farm tax rebate that was paid directly from the government to farmers. Therefore, the municipalities are only allowed to assess farm land at a 25% rate, which is a tremendous download to municipal property tax that all home owners, farmers included, will have to pay, coupled with this and all the other downloading the Harris government is bringing to the property tax system in Ontario.
My concern is that this is happening without a coordinated approach with all the other download impacts, and small rural townships are going to be severely impacted by this, and property taxes in those townships are really going to go up. We're seeing growing concern in the countryside about this, and I would ask that you look at restructuring this, maybe implementing this in a way that would be gradual rather than immediate, so as to not bring an increased burden immediately to property taxpayers right across the province.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Ramsay. Do you wish to comment on it, Minister?
Hon Mr Runciman: If you have no objections, Mr Chairman. Clearly, on a number of the areas Mr Ramsay raised, we've agreed to disagree. I think the case is made quite clearly that we are indeed strengthening the oversight system. We recognize the concerns of various communities in this province with respect to continuing independence of the special investigations unit, and we declined to accept Mr McLeod's recommendation in that respect.
The fact is that we have built in time lines with respect to requiring responses and built in appeal mechanisms at every step of the process. I think the case is quite clear that oversight is being strengthened. You may certainly hear concerns with respect to this, and we haven't closed the door on changes. That's what this process is all about; the committee process as well.
In terms of notice -- you mentioned the six weeks' notice -- this is part of the process as well with respect to input and oversight. Our commitment as a party has not been a secret with respect to the fact that part of our election platform was a clear commitment to review police oversight, because the system has not been working. No one has been satisfied with police oversight in the past and clearly changes were called for.
You mentioned a complaint can only be made in writing by a person directly affected. That creates some confusion. I think we've broadened the accessibility opportunities for complaints. There are something like eight or nine police complaints offices in the province now; I think there are eight. We're going to allow complaints, under this new legislation, to be filed virtually anywhere across the province, through a friendship centre in northern Ontario, as an example. You can go in, and if you have a complaint about a police officer or a police service, you can have assistance in preparing that. You sign it and it can be faxed from a friendship centre office to OCCPS, as an example. I think we've improved opportunities in terms of accessibility to file complaints.
Overall, I recognize the concerns you've expressed related to the costing burden, but that's part of the complete picture with respect to restructuring of municipalities across this province as well, and we have built into this exercise funds that will assist municipalities. We are faced with short-term, if not long-term, challenges with respect to meeting these additional costs, so we are dealing with all of these issues with respect to transfers of responsibilities in a way that is looking at the total picture, not simply dealing with each issue in isolation.
Mr Ramsay: Minister, when you mentioned funds coming to municipalities to adjust the policing cost, is this part of that community adjustment fund of over $1 billion that was announced? Is that what it was?
Hon Mr Runciman: It could be. It could be part of that.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Mr Runciman. Perhaps I should speak to the downloading of Ontario provincial policing costs on to a huge number, 576 municipalities, admittedly some of them of significant size in terms of small-town Ontario, but the vast majority of them very small and, as has been indicated, rural Ontario.
I appreciate that you point out that the prospect of every community paying for its own policing is not an inequitable one. I don't think anybody disagrees with that as a general principle. The fact is that yes, I recall when the last government contemplated developing a means whereby these 576 municipalities would assume responsibility for the cost of the Ontario provincial policing. At the end of the day, under the conditions that Ontario found itself in, one of the considerations of the last government was that this shift of costs in those circumstances would be unduly harsh.
What I find interesting is that your own discussion paper, the one from May 1996, Review of Police Services in Ontario, it stated, "Since property tax is the largest source of revenue to municipalities, it is likely that many of the 576 municipalities" -- these are the ones for whom the downloading of OPP policing costs is going to occur -- "will raise property taxes to finance the costs of police services in their communities." That same report goes on to say, "Regardless of the mechanisms for allocating and/or phasing in the costs of OPP service it is likely that any increase in property taxes could create financial hardship for some of these municipalities."
Those are two observations that I don't think any of us can quarrel with. I don't believe there has been an adequate consideration of the impact of the downloading of costs at the same time that there's been a significant downloading of other costs. I appreciate that the government's argument is, "Ah, but we've saved you from the costs of traditionally municipally financed education." The numbers appear to be becoming stronger and stronger to the effect that this downloading is going to constitute a net loss for virtually every municipality in Ontario, and that's certainly the case for Niagara region where the downloading is going to cost regional property taxpayers some additional $73 million in property taxes.
I would also ask you to consider that there would appear to be downloading of Ontario provincial policing costs anticipated in municipalities other than these 576, and I'm speaking about those sections of provincial roadway that would appear to be designed for relief from OPP policing and transferred on down to regional or municipal policing. Again, the added cost will depend on the amount of roadway, the number of kilometres.
As well, we're talking, with some of these 576 municipalities, about municipalities that are small in population but where the policing handles huge volumes. We're talking about municipalities on the Trans-Canada Highway, we're talking about municipalities that are very much a part of the tourist infrastructure of the province, where there is a huge number of people using the communities and using the roadways who aren't residents in those communities, where you have exceptional populations, let's say, during summertime, traditional vacation periods.
Perhaps you have this data, but I wish you'd tell us, and if you can't today, as soon as possible, what is the cost going to be to these 576 municipalities? What is the cost of the downloading going to be? If you can tell us the cost, I would expect then that the money that the OPP anticipates recouping would be a comparable figure.
1040
We also have to consider how you are going to cost these out to communities, to municipalities. Some which have huge geographic areas and small populations may have a different costing structure than some that are smaller geographically and have higher populations. So, although appreciating your argument about the fairness of that, sometimes this government's been just whacking communities left and right with its sense of fairness -- it has. "Here's another blow for fairness, and once we've got you down, we'll put the boots to you for the sake of fairness." There are a whole lot of municipal taxpayers who simply can't afford your kind of fairness right now.
Another interesting thing about this bill is that it has drawn me into the most peculiar position of finding myself in agreement with a Toronto Sun editorial of March 10. Either I'm in trouble or one of their editorial writers is in trouble, because the Toronto Sun editorial reflects in a very reasoned and cautious way on subsection 113(9), the fact that our committee debate and discussion about this bill, legislation put forward, isn't going to deal with or address the issue of a requirement of police officers to fully cooperate with SIU investigations. The Sun article indicated: "Police officers ought to enjoy the same legal protection against self-incrimination as do all Canadians. On the other hand, we do give our police guns and the authority to use them." The issue that's raised there is one that is going to be raised, I trust, by a number of participants in these hearings and it goes very much to how effective and meaningful the review of police actions is going to be.
I should tell you that we agree strongly that it's imperative that there be civilian oversight of police action, that actual accountability at the end of the day is more important. I appreciate and I don't disagree with some of the other comments this morning, but it's still more important than the mere appearance of accountability. Quite frankly, it was the community coalition, and you are familiar with them, who said the importance of citizen review of police is not merely to restore credibility to the police and maintain a particular image of policing; instead, it is to ensure that police are actually held accountable for abuse or misconduct.
Yes, you have taken us back to what not very many people recall any more as the good old days. You have, with this legislation, placed considerably more power in the hands of the chief of police. I tell you, critics of this bill from various perspectives have noted that with some concern and alarm. It has been pointed out in the course of three deadly shootings in the province. In all three instances chiefs of police, or in one of them the commissioner of the OPP, were quick to come to the defence of the police officer under investigation. I'm not quarrelling with the fact that chiefs of police may find themselves -- and this is exactly the point of the criticism, Solicitor General, of this delegation of exceptional powers to the chief. I'm not concerned so much about the fact that the chief of police might feel inclined to come to the defence of one of his or her officers. I'm acknowledging that as on the one hand perhaps a natural phenomenon, but one which very much supports criticism of your delegation of such extreme powers to chiefs.
As I say, the criticism of that new delegation of power to chiefs or that redelegation of power to chiefs is echoed from across the community, because recently, in February, Metro Police Constable Roy Rawluck, speaking to a meeting of the Metro police services board said, "My concern revolves about legislating considerably more disciplinary power to chiefs of police." The constable then pointed out that, to use his argument -- and we don't dispute this -- it's unfair that under the proposed legislation the chief could find an officer for what was termed "unsatisfactory work performance" without a hearing, and an officer's right to a trial under the present legislation would be gone.
So concern about this redelegation of power to chiefs of police has arisen in a complete cross-section of the community. I hope there will be reconsideration of that by the government during the course of these hearings.
You know there's been criticism of the process around the McLeod report, the McLeod considerations. The Premier, your party leader, responded to a coalition letter, a request from the coalition, stating that the staff of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General would be thoroughly reviewing the McLeod report and that you, Mr Runciman, would welcome comments on the report and recommendations prior to introducing the changes to the Police Services Act. Notwithstanding that promise -- that's what it was from the Premier, a promise that you would receive comments from them -- you only agreed to meet with the coalition after the amendments and the bill were a done deal by virtue of a report.
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Well, the coalition is going to be here. I appreciate your comments on that.
You know what it's like not to be consulted. We've heard you publicly decry the lack of consultation over the proposal to shut down the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, and I was on your side when you raised a hue and cry about that lack of consultation, I was behind you all the way. If you had asked me anything you wanted me to do for you to protest that heavy-fisted lack of consultation, I would have been right there beside you. If we'd had to take video cameras somewhere, we would have gone with video cameras, I tell you.
You know what it's like to be left out of the loop on consultation. The community coalition -- and they're going to be here, and I'd appreciate your response because then we'll hear from them as well -- feels they were very much deprived of an effective and meaningful consultation role during the course of the McLeod report and that they had -- and I think they have -- some valuable comments to make about the need for civilian oversight.
Thank you, Chair. Does Mr Christopherson have --
The Chair: You have one minute if you wish to make a statement.
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): It's about the only way you could limit me to a minute. Thank you for the opportunity. I would just echo the comments my colleague has made about the concerns of the oversight. I'd like to put a little emphasis on the change to the makeup of the police service boards. I think this is an important issue that's not receiving the attention that the end of the hearings will show it deserves.
To be very blunt, Minister, I think it's a sop to AMO to try to buy them off for all the other downloading and dumping that you've done with them, because I think we're going to hear from police officers, their associations, chiefs of police, the Ontario Association of Police Service Boards across the issue that they're opposed to this, that it's not in the best interests of policing in Ontario. I think that's an area you're very vulnerable in, in terms of the changes you're making and the shift of responsibility, and at the end of the day that will give us a weakened police service in Ontario, not a stronger one.
1050
The Chair: The government caucus now has 15 minutes. Perhaps the minister would like to answer some of the questions that arose from the third party.
Hon Mr Runciman: All right, on the understanding that the third party doesn't get an opportunity to respond. Just kidding.
With respect to the inability to consult appropriately, as the member has suggested, with the particular group within the Metro area, the coalition, every effort was made to arrange meetings prior to the tabling of the legislation and for a variety of reasons they weren't able to take place. On one occasion it was my schedule but on two or three other occasions it was the schedules of the various participants in the coalition. The efforts were made to arrange that kind of a consultative opportunity and a meeting has taken place, as you indicated, subsequent to the changes being announced.
I've indicated that these are not etched in stone, that we're quite open to hearing their views and suggestions. They made their proposals to me; I responded to them in writing. I indicated to them at the time of the meeting that once they've received my comments, we can have their feedback, we can get together again and discuss that and pursue that. I have not heard back from a spokesperson or spokespersons with respect to a follow-up meeting, but certainly I've afforded that opportunity to them and that offer stands.
One other area: I know you mentioned the duty to cooperate, although you didn't say it in so many words. That is an issue I'm sure you will hear about during the process of these hearings. We have recognized that concern and we will be continuing to address it.
Extreme powers to the chiefs: I don't share that concern. Clearly there may be some room for movement there but we want to hear the input of all involved, and the fact that there is a cross-section of concern with respect to some of the oversight changes and the powers of chiefs, as you describe them, may indicate that we've found a good middle ground here, if indeed that's the case. Again, we approach this with an open mind, we'll hear the views, and if they have merit, I commit to you that we will indeed make changes if they're clearly called for.
I don't think there's anything else here, Mr Chairman, that I could respond to at this point.
The Chair: We have some government questions.
Mr Klees: I'd like to quickly follow up on Mr Christopherson's point relating to the change in appointment to the police services boards and perhaps you can help us out in terms of giving us some background and rationale for that change. I have to say that I share some concern myself -- as you know, we've had some discussions on this -- about ensuring that the public interest is truly well served on that board, that we avoid political overtones in terms the appointments. Can you help us to understand the reasoning for this change in appointments?
Hon Mr Runciman: I think we've all appreciated the concerns that have existed for some time with respect to the question of political interference in policing. You also have to look at the side of the equation with respect to the fact that the municipalities are paying for policing out of their property tax base, so there is a clear connection with respect to responsibility and accountability. We think we've addressed the accountability and responsibility question by allowing the majority of representatives to PSBs to be appointed by the municipality. These are going to be community representatives. They're not going to be allowed to be councillors and have that direct linkage to the elected body. That addresses one of the concerns.
We're continuing to have provincial representatives in minority numbers appointed because we strongly believe there is a continuing provincial responsibility, and that will be voiced through the provincial appointees to the boards.
The municipalities for some time, in many instances, wanted to do away with police services boards, but we see them performing a critical function in terms of oversight of police services management functions and all of those things that they have continued and are having enhanced with respect to oversight under this legislation.
There may be one other issue here that I should be touching on. I don't know if that adequately answers your question, Mr Klees. Is there any other specific area of concern?
Mr Klees: Are you saying that with regard to that additional appointment there are some restrictions in terms of who can or cannot be appointed by the municipality, that there is some underlying assurance that there will be representation from the community, that it won't be skewed to the political agenda of the municipality?
Hon Mr Runciman: That will be the case. We're still going to have the oversight function performed but we're going to have the policing advisers who will be monitoring the activities of police services across the province if there's a problem. We have the OCCPS complaints process if indeed there's a concern about politics interfering in the process. I think we've built in appropriate safeguards. We are clearly outlining the fact that councillors cannot be appointed with respect to making up these additional representatives on the board, so I feel quite confident that is not going to be a problem, and if it does crop up as a problem in any given community, we have the power to intervene and ensure it's corrected.
If you look across some of the history with respect to the operations of police services boards, many of these so-called controversies that have erupted on occasions have not been perhaps motivated politically from the municipal level but more so perhaps from the provincial level, and some very serious concerns about the motivations and agendas of appointees from the provincial perspective. I don't want to get into specifics but I think for all of us who are familiar with policing issues over the years a few examples will quickly jump to mind.
I think we've built in enough protection. The municipalities have the right with respect to the fact that they are paying the freight and they should have the majority representation on the boards. This is long overdue. I think we have avoided the pitfall that certain municipal associations and some municipalities wanted us to step into, and that's simply either doing away with boards or allowing all of the appointments on the boards to be made by municipalities. We've recognized the continuing provincial interest and that will be represented through minority appointments.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): My question relates to something that I think will be coming up as we go through this process as well and that's the issue of adequacy and what that will mean. Could you maybe give the committee some idea, as we go through this, what we're going to be talking about in terms of adequacy through the regulations that will be put in place and how you see that? Because that, as we go through, maybe is of concern to some people as well.
Hon Mr Runciman: It is going to be an extremely important element of how this resolves itself at the end of the day with respect to how we define effective and adequate policing because it's a key ingredient of the changes we are proposing. We intend to go through a very extensive consultative process. Some initial steps have already been undertaken with respect to that, and at the end of the day it is my intention to have some opportunity for public consultation with respect to these proposed changes as well. We have some time lines to meet with respect to how we proceed but I want to have as wide an opportunity provided for input into the definitions as is possible, given the time lines we're faced with. I don't think I can be any more specific than that, Mr Carr, at this point.
If I have the opportunity of a minute or two, Mr Kormos raised the question of equitable financing. I should put, in fairness to the current government, the position of the former Solicitor General. I'm quoting the then Solicitor General, Mr Christopherson, from the Ottawa Citizen of 1993:
"It is our intention to implement equitable police financing, which means all Ontarians pay their fair share of policing, and right now we don't have that. We'd like to obviously do it as quickly as possible because we'd like to institute fairness, and clearly the province needs the revenue."
We should put that in context with respect to the comments Mr Kormos made related to his current position on equitable financing.
1100
Mr Kormos: I was quite clear about that. It's a shame about the photo-radar, the revenue.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I thank the Solicitor General for attending here today.
MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
The Chair: Next, we are to have a briefing by the Solicitor General's staff. We have set aside up to 90 minutes for a briefing. How does the committee wish to proceed? Do we want questions as we go along or would we prefer to hold our questions until the end of the briefing? We have not decided that. The subcommittee did not deal with that topic.
Mr Ramsay: I always find with these sorts of things, when they're especially highly technical subjects such as this, that maybe as we go along to answer questions, when they're fresh in mind and a discussion could ensue, is probably the way to go.
The Chair: Fine. Is there any objection to proceeding in that manner?
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): We might not finish the briefing in that case. The problem when you do that is you can get stuck on one point, as opposed to allowing the people to finish their presentation. I quite frankly think, Mr Chairman, it would be more appropriate to allow the people to finish their presentation and then allow for questions. Otherwise, we may never finish it.
Mr Kormos: Would the Chair rule?
The Chair: I think this is important as to the method of proceeding and I think we would have to deal with it by resolution, unless we can have a consensus.
Mr Ramsay: Chair, my sense is that any questions obviously to staff are going to be only of the nature of clarification. It's not a debate. It's only if I don't understand something, then I'll want to ask a question as to what the meaning of that is or how that is going to work, but we're not going to get into big debates, because this is what the act is and the staff are here to give us an overview.
The Chair: Perhaps we can try it then. We'll try it for a little while, to see if it's not misused. There's no one here who would misuse that privilege, I'm sure, so we'll give it a try. If you would proceed, and if you could identify yourselves for the purpose of Hansard.
Mr Fred Peters: I'm Fred Peters, the assistant deputy minister, policing services division.
Ms Anne McChesney: I'm Anne McChesney, counsel in the legal branch at the Ministry of the Solicitor General.
Mr David Burnside: I'm David Burnside. I'm counsel at the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services.
Perhaps we could start by looking at Bill 105. Initially, you'll notice there are some amendments that were necessary. Because parts V and VI of the Police Services Act are being repealed by Bill 105 and replaced with a new Part V, it's necessary to redefine "board" and "commissioner" so as to clarify that "board" is referring to a police services board and "commissioner" only to the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police.
A further amendment is to change reference in the act from "a bylaw enforcement officer" to "a municipal law enforcement officer." The reason for this is that it existed as such in the Police Act, which was in force from 1946 to 1990. Also, it reflects the fact that these individuals enforce more than bylaws; in fact, they enforce some provincial statutes.
We have defined "community policing advisory committee." That is a new concept that I'll touch on a bit further when we get into how the policing by the OPP and the new equitable finance of policing actually takes place. There is a role for individuals to give advice to OPP detachment commanders as to the policing in their community.
Section 4 is the first major change that has occurred. You'll notice on page 2 of the bill that there is now a requirement and a definition as to what "adequate and effective policing" is. There are five core principles that are set out: crime prevention, law enforcement, assistance to victims of crime, public order maintenance and emergency response. Those are items that each municipality will have to address. Also, there is a requirement to have the necessary administration and infrastructure to support those five core principles.
There have been amendments to section 4, some of which don't actually appear in the section. If you look at page 42 of the bill, you'll see in section 41 a change to the District Municipality of Muskoka Act where the exemption that previously existed for Muskoka is now being removed, so Muskoka will be responsible, like other municipalities in the province, to provide adequate and effective policing.
There is also an amendment, again on page 42 of the bill, that changes the Regional Municipalities Act and that would require the regional municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk to assume responsibility for policing the entire region.
Section 5 of the act, as amended by the bill, sets out the various methods by which a municipality can provide adequate and effective policing. That is by having their own force; by having a force with another municipality through a joint board; by amalgamating their force with another municipality's force under section 6; by having an OPP contract under section 10; and we've carried forward the current provision that exists in subsection 5(5), which is, with the commission's approval, to have a different method of policing.
Section 5.1, which is introduced to the act by Bill 105, is the provisions relating to OPP policing and the recovery of costs for that policing. It allows for a regulation to be passed setting out the costs of the OPP policing and it allows for a mechanism of collection of those costs if in fact they are not paid.
As I indicated earlier, there will be a community policing advisory committee that is not mandatory but optional, and all of the municipalities that are receiving this OPP type of policing on a default mechanism will be able to appoint a community individual who will serve on this committee and provide input to the OPP detachment commander in order to assist in ensuring that the local community policing needs are met.
We have in section 7 clarified the sharing of services among boards and we now provide that two or more boards may agree to share services, but not all of the services. It's considered that a decision as to how policing is going to be undertaken should be a decision of the council of a municipality and not the board. The board is entrusted to ensure that the policing in that municipality is carried out. The board will be able to agree to share such services as canine or communications but not the entire service.
We have amended some provisions in the section 10 OPP contracting provisions and we've broadened it so that more than one municipality could enter into a contract with the OPP. Right now, it's a one-on-one contract situation. Now it may be possible for two or more municipalities to get together and have one contract for their area. There is currently a requirement in subsection 10(2) of the act that the police services board consent to this agreement. That is being changed to require that there is a board, but no consent is required.
There's a transition provision to take into account that there are some OPP contracts that exist today where the municipality does not have a police services board, and the intent of this amendment is to ensure that at the end of that contract, when it's being renewed, there will have to be a police services board put in place and any new contracts will require a police services board.
The legislation in subsection 10(9) expands somewhat on the duties of a police services board in an OPP contract situation. The various responsibilities set out in subsection 10(9) more closely reflect the responsibilities of a municipal police services board, which is set out in section 31 of the Police Services Act.
I will point out at this time for the members' consideration clause 10(9)(c), which allows for the police services board to establish local policies that may affect their particular community and it is these local policies that will come up again later on when we discuss the oversight provisions. These local policies are the ones that can be complained of by the public under section 61 if they so wish.
There is a further provision in subsection 19(3) of the act, which is found on page 7 of the bill, which is discretionary and allows that the Ontario Provincial Police "may, with the approval of the Solicitor General, charge a municipality" for services that it provides under this act. That provision is provided in conjunction with the mechanism for equitable financing to ensure that municipalities are not able to establish their own force but rely on the OPP to provide all of the specialized services.
1110
Ms McChesney: Under section 21 of the act, the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services is continued under the same name with some additional powers, as we'll see, primarily with respect to oversight of police conduct.
Cabinet may appoint the members of the commission. This is a change from the current act, where the numbers are set out in statute as not fewer than three and not more than nine.
Under subsection 21(3), cabinet may appoint "one or more members of the commission to be vice-chairs." There was no provision in the Police Services Act for appointment of vice-chairs.
Under subsection 21(5), the chair may authorize either a member of the commission or an employee of the commission to exercise the commission's powers and duties, but there are some exceptions with respect to the kinds of things that cannot be delegated.
The chair can "determine the number of members of the commission that constitutes a quorum." The Police Services Amendment Act provides that the chair "may determine that one member constitutes a quorum." At the present time, the act has two members constituting a quorum.
Section 22 of the act is repealed and replaced to set out the new powers of the commission. The commission may conduct inquiries on its own motion, either in respect of a complaint about police services or policies provided by a police force or a complaint about conduct of an individual police officer.
The commission may also conduct reviews of a chief's decision at various key decision points in the complaints process, and we'll be reviewing those in more detail. For example, where a chief decides not to deal with a complaint because it is, in his or her view, frivolous or vexatious, a complainant may ask the commission to review that finding.
There are other key decision points that we'll take you through when we get to part V.
The commission also has power to make recommendations with respect to the policies or services provided "by a police force by sending the recommendations to the Solicitor General, the chief, the association, if any," and the police services board in the case of a municipal force. To some extent that reflects the powers currently assigned to the police complaints commissioner.
The Statutory Powers Procedure Act applies to govern procedure in hearings conducted by the commission. In respect of investigation or inquiries, not hearings, the commission will continue to have the powers under part II of the Public Inquiries Act.
Mr Burnside: The major change that has occurred in section 27 which relates to the municipal police services boards relates to the new provision for an appointment of what is called a community member. Whether a board is of a size of three, five or seven, which are the three different composition numbers, instead of having a majority of those members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, they will now have a minority appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. There will be a continuation of the representatives of members of council, but in addition, there will be one person appointed by resolution of council who is neither a member of the council nor an employee of the municipality, and that individual will effect the operation of the police services board. As I indicated, whether it is a small board or a board of the size of five or seven, with equal representation from the council or the province, the additional member will be the community member.
The provision that currently exists in 27(13) of the act excludes a judge or a justice of the peace from being a member of the police services board. That's now been expanded to include a police officer, as well as a person who practises criminal law as a defence counsel. In addition, there is a provision that a person who is a member of a prescribed class of persons can also, by regulation, be excluded as a member of a municipal police services board.
In section 28, there was a provision that annually the police services board appoints a chair. We have now expanded that to allow for the police services board to also appoint a vice-chair who can act in place of the chair when the chair is not there.
We have, in addition, expanded the provisions relating to joint boards under section 33. Joint boards, as I indicated earlier, are in situations where two or more municipalities get together, either through an amalgamation of existing forces or through the creation of new forces, to have police forces that are shared between those municipalities. They will have a joint board, and it's necessary for the councils that are sharing policing to agree who are going to be the representatives from their own councils. They have to also agree who is going to be the community representative and then the balance, much like in the section 27 municipal police services boards, will be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
There is a provision under 37, which is found on page 13 of the bill, that allows for the board to establish its own rules and procedures. This may in many instances allow the board to adopt procedures which they develop themselves or that reflect the procedures of the local municipal council. However, when we get into the oversight provisions, and particularly in section 64, which deals with the police services board role in relation to complaints of conduct against a chief or a deputy chief, the board will be in a position where it can conduct a hearing, and when it does so, it is required to conduct a hearing pursuant to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which sets out a codification of minimum rules of natural justice.
Section 39 is the budget provision. There is some modification to the budget provision to clarify that the board is responsible for submitting estimates to council. It is then council's decision to establish a budget, and there is a review mechanism that the board can ask the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services to address the issue of the budget if there is disagreement between the board and the council.
1120
Ms McChesney: Part IV of the act deals with the duties of a police chief and a police officer. Section 42 appears at page 14 of your bill. Section 42 is the section that sets out the duties of a police officer. The bill amends that section so as to remove as a duty a police officer's requirement to prosecute offences. Participating in prosecutions remains a duty of a police officer.
Subsection 44(3.1) makes it clear that the complaints part does not apply in the case of the termination of a probationary officer's employment.
Subsection 44(4) has been changed so as to recognize service with other police forces for the purpose of calculating probation in a municipal force. Prior service with the OPP, the RCMP or a prescribed police force outside Ontario will be taken into account for the purpose of calculating continuous service with a municipal force.
Section 49 appears at page 15 of your bill. That's the section of the Police Services Act that sets restrictions on secondary activity for police officers. Those restrictions have been expressly extended to the police chief, and the chief has a requirement to disclose to the board any proposed secondary activity that might interfere with his or her employment or constitute a conflict of interest.
Section 52, dealing with auxiliary constables, has been amended to give the Solicitor General, instead of the commission, the power to approve the appointment of auxiliaries. A similar amendment has been made to section 53, dealing with special constables, so as to give the Solicitor General rather than the commission the power to approve appointments.
Part V is the substantive part dealing with complaints. I'll give to the clerk two charts which may be helpful to the members of the committee. Page 1 deals with the complaint system or civilian oversight model as it applies to police officers, and we'll be focusing on that as we go through part V. Page 2 is the chart that shows how complaints are dealt with with respect to chiefs of police. If we follow along with page 1, that might be helpful, starting at the bottom of the page.
Under section 56 of the act, any member of the public may make a complaint about the policies of or services provided by a police force or about the conduct of a police officer. An internal complaint may also be lodged by a chief against a police officer. The complaint need not be entered on any particular form, as is currently the case. The complainant need only submit his complaint in writing and signed. The complainant may deliver the complaint to any station of the subject police force in person or by an agent if he prefers. He may mail it in or fax it in or give it to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services, which then sends the complaint along to the chief of the force in respect of which the complaint is made.
The chief is then faced with making a number of classification or initial streaming decisions, if you will, as to what type of complaint this is. The complaint may, as I say, be about the conduct of a police officer, in which case we'll hear how it's investigated. You'll see the box dealing with conduct in the procedure that follows as you move up the chart from the bottom to the top. Alternatively, the complaint may be about the policies of or services provided by a police service, and we'll take you through the procedure at the right-hand side of your chart.
Initially, the chief may conclude that the complaint is either frivolous or vexatious or that the complainant isn't directly affected, in which case the chief may decide to take no action. The complainant has the right to request the commission to review any of these decisions, and the commission, as we'll hear, has the power to order the chief to process the complaint as it specifies.
Just before we begin to follow along on the investigation of the complaints, we should point out the line of boxes at the very left-hand side. Those deal with the work of the special investigations unit, which, as you know, has not been amended by this bill. The special investigations unit will continue to investigate serious injuries or deaths and will continue to remain under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Attorney General.
Mr Burnside: One of the initial decisions that a chief has to make upon receiving a complaint is to determine whether it relates to the conduct of a police officer. As we'll see when we review section 63, conduct includes misconduct as well as unsatisfactory work performance. It's also possible that the chief may decide that the complaint really is about the policies or services of the police department, and again, it's possible that the complaint may touch on both, in which case the complaint will possibly go up two streams at the same time.
If the complaint is about the service or policy of a police service, it can be reviewed by the chief, as you'll see on pages 20 and 21 of the bill, and the chief will look into the matter and see what action or no action needs to be taken and will advise the complainant what has happened. There is a requirement that this has to be done within a certain time frame. If the complainant is not satisfied with the way the chief has dealt with a service or policy complaint, there is a mechanism that the complaint can be reviewed by the police services board. The police services board, in reviewing that complaint, could hold a public meeting in order to air the complaint in public.
If the complaint relates to an OPP contract situation, as I alluded to earlier, it's possible under clause 10(9)(c) for a police services board to establish local policies relating to the OPP policing. If the complaint is about one of those local policies, then the detachment commander will review the matter and decide what action or no action needs to be taken. Again, there is a review mechanism which will then allow that complaint to go before the local police services board for a determination.
If the complaint about policy or service relates to OPP policing policies in general, that's policing policies of the Ontario Provincial Police, those complaints will be funnelled to the commissioner and the commissioner will make a determination as to what kind of action will be taken.
As we indicated, when a complaint is determined to be about the conduct of a police officer, then that complaint will be investigated, and there are a number of things that can occur as a result of that investigation. It could be that it's determined that an offence has been committed, in which case the matter will be referred to a crown attorney and perhaps a charge may be laid against the officer, or the investigation could result in a determination that the complaint is serious, not serious or unsubstantiated.
If the complaint is considered to be unsubstantiated, the complainant will be advised of that, and there is a review mechanism whereby that complainant can ask the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services to review that. The commission could decide to sustain the decision that it's unsubstantiated or the commission could order that the chief process the complaint either as a serious or non-serious complaint.
1130
Mr Christopherson: Chair, are you entertaining questions along the way?
The Acting Chair (Mr Ed Doyle): I believe that was the ruling earlier, yes.
Mr Christopherson: Then if I could just ask a question to clarify, when the commission reviews the decision, is there any change in the tools available to them in terms of how they can review that? Can they still do all the things they otherwise would have done in terms of a hearing, an investigation, review of the record, or is there now some limit as to what they can do when they review it?
Mr Burnside: The review that's contemplated at this stage of the complaint process is without a hearing and it's based on materials that have been received from the police chief and the complainant. The commission has reasonably brought powers to direct that the complaint be dealt with either as the chief has decided or dealt with differently. That's to be distinguished from appeal provisions, which can happen at the end of the day. If it's a serious matter and it goes to a hearing, then there are appeal rights which will be similar to a hearing that exists now with OCCPS, and that would be a hearing on the record with fresh evidence.
Mr Christopherson: At this stage of the review, though, is that a change from the existing procedure or not?
Mr Burnside: As far as the review mechanism is concerned, it represents part of a check or balance. It's a new concept introduced into the oversight model to ensure that key decisions that are made by the chief can be reviewed by a provincial body and determined whether they should stand or be changed.
Mr Christopherson: I'm sorry, I'm not getting it entirely clear. Is there any change at all in terms of tools available to the commission at this stage of a review of a chief's decision, or are all the tools available to them that they had under the current law still available?
Mr Burnside: You mean as far as the powers they have --
Mr Christopherson: To investigate and to hold a hearing at this stage. I was just trying to be clear as to whether or not they have that power now, and if they do, if it's continued, or if it's not there under the new legislation, if that's because it wasn't there in the first place.
Mr Peters: I think there may need to be a distinction. Currently the Ontario civilian commission is not involved in the complaints process, so the review mechanism now is essentially giving to the commission a new set of review powers. The commission does have powers in law now dealing with institutional oversight; those remain unchanged. But I think it's fair to say that the review mechanism contemplated under the complaints process gives the commission new powers of review. As David mentioned, the review is a file review; it's not intended to be a formal hearings process. That possibility exists should the matter proceed and go through the serious and more formalized hearings process.
Mr Christopherson: How does that differ from what's there right now?
Mr Peters: Should the matter proceed to a formal hearing, in terms of charges under the Police Services Act, the power that's contemplated under this regime and the power that the commission has now are fundamentally the same in terms of the process. The thing that is new is giving the commission a review authority of decisions made by the chief of police around the treatment of a complaint.
Mr Christopherson: Then perhaps to make it easier, when there's a shift either adding to or taking away from the powers of the commission to either hold investigations or hold hearings, if you would point that out for me along the way, that would be helpful.
Mr Klees: I'd just like to follow this up if I could. I'm still not clear as to what authority the commission will have at this stage to request additional information that may not be in the file submitted by the complainant. Does the commission have the authority to request any additional information?
Ms McChesney: Under section 71, the commission has broad powers of review and it's permitted to take into account any material provided by the chief or board or complainant. In my view, that language is broad enough to give to the commission the power to review a range of documents, not just the initial complaint form.
Mr Klees: All the authority the commission has, it can bring into this initial review process. Is that what you're saying?
Ms McChesney: Yes. The chief may determine that the misconduct or work performance is either of a serious or a non-serious nature. If the chief determines that the conduct is not serious, then the act provides for a new way of dealing with these kinds of complaints. Where the conduct is determined to be not serious, the bill permits, under section 63, the parties to try to informally resolve the matter. That may just mean an apology from the officer, it may mean an explanation, but it's an opportunity for the complainant and the police officer to try to deal with the complaint outside of the discipline process.
Mr Carr: Sorry to interrupt as you're going through this. Could you explain the process of deciding serious and non-serious so that people will understand what that means? Could you go through that and give us some indication how you're going to decide serious and non-serious?
Ms McChesney: The code of conduct as it currently appears in a regulation under the Police Services Act sets out a series of offences. Some of the offences in the code of conduct are clearly not serious offences. There are offences that haven't been changed for 50 years. For example, idling or gossiping on duty is one on the list of offences for which an officer could be subject to a hearing under the current scheme. The bill changes that by introducing new provisions that permit non-serious conduct to be dealt with through the grievance procedure, and that non-serious conduct will be set out in a regulation in a revised code of conduct. What we'll see then is a much-changed code of conduct.
If the informal resolution is not successful under section 63, then the chief may proceed to discipline the officer.
Mr Kormos: I was listening very carefully to your understanding of subsection 71(6) of the bill, section 34 of the amendments here. I'm taking a look at subsections 71(6) and (7), and this seems to be a very restrictive role for the OCCPS, "The commission shall review the decision, taking into account any material provided by the complainant or the chief of police, detachment commander or board...." That's very restrictive, because then they have secondary powers, they can refer it out to another police force, right?
Ms McChesney: Yes.
Mr Kormos: But they would need grounds to do that if on its face -- we've been toying with the phrase "prima facie" here up at Queen's Park ever since the Minister of Municipal Affairs was found in prima facie contempt of the Legislature. A whole lot of people went running to the dictionary and looked up "prima facie," because he was charged with prima facie contempt of the Legislature.
If there's a prima facie supportable decision under subsection 71(6), the OCCPS seems to have very limited power if on the basis of the material there appears to be an investigation and the decision made was supported by what it had. You're not suggesting that the OCCPS is going to be allowed to use its powers under subsection (7) in an unrestrained or an open-ended review.
Mr Burnside: I think they would use their powers under subsection 71(7) in circumstances that would warrant it. If they felt that it was necessary to have the complaint investigated in a different manner, they could so order. I think we should also look at the powers the commission has under section 72 of the act; on their own motion, they can look into matters. I think there is a role for the commission, a very viable role, in a sense to review decisions that are very key and critical decisions in the complaint process.
Ms McChesney: To some extent, these reflect the powers of the police complaints commissioner, who, as you know, has a role in reviewing the decision of the chief. It has the same kind of language.
Mr Kormos: All I'm suggesting is that this is a very narrow role for the OCCPS. You obviously don't agree that it's as narrow as I perceive it, and that's okay.
Ms McChesney: The consequences actually are much broader. The current police complaints commissioner may only confirm the chief's decision or send the matter on to a board of inquiry, but under section 71, the new civilian commission on police services is permitted to do other things. It can specify how a complaint should be dealt with, it can assign an investigation to another force or it could confirm the chief's decision. I see that as being a broader power because the consequences are greater than currently enjoyed by the police complaints commissioner.
1140
Mr Kormos: You know the groups coming, the coalition and a whole lot of other people, are going to say, "We've still got the police investigating the police" on the basis of this model, because the OCCPS could only refer it back to yet another police force if it makes a determination under 71(6) that the initial investigation was somehow delinquent or fell short. Maybe you're working on amendments to that right now. You can tell us if you are.
Ms McChesney: I think I'd prefer to continue on the chart. As I say, the grievance procedure is a new one, not currently found in the Police Services Act. If a police officer objects to the summary resolution or penalty that's imposed by his chief, he can grieve the matter in accordance with the collective agreement.
Mr Burnside: I would point out that on the non-serious stream the maximum penalty contemplated is five days' lost pay and that currently under section 59 of the Police Services Act a minor penalty would have to be agreed to by a police officer or a hearing would result. This new provision allows for a mechanism where a more minor penalty can be imposed for a less serious offence, and if the officer is unhappy, the grievance process that exists under a collective agreement could kick in and provide a relief mechanism for that dispute.
On this particular issue, to move to the second page very quickly, you'll notice that when there is a summary resolution of a complaint against a chief or deputy chief, there is the possibility that the dispute mechanism for that could be in the contract that the chief or deputy has with a particular service or police services board. If there is not a provision in the contract, there is an arbitration mechanism contemplated in the act as a fallback mechanism, and that refers to section 50 of the Labour Relations Act, which is a mediation-arbitration model.
Ms McChesney: If the chief determines that the misconduct or poor work performance is of a serious nature, the matter proceeds to a hearing under subsection 63(8), and that's at page 25 of your bill.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the chief may impose any of the penalties set out in section 67. Those penalties range from dismissal through an order to resign, through demotion, suspension and down through forfeiture of pay or time off. In addition, the chief has been given power to issue a reprimand or impose remedial measures such as counselling or treatment for an officer.
The officer has a right of appeal to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services from a decision that he or she must resign or from an order that the officer be dismissed. The commission has the discretion to hear appeals from police officers on other matter; for example, from a lesser penalty such as suspension.
The complainant has a right of appeal to the Ontario civilian commission from an acquittal of a police officer, and the commission has the discretion to hear appeals from complainants on other penalties; for example, that suspension was not an appropriate penalty.
A further appeal lies to Divisional Court under section 70, as is currently the case in our Police Services Act.
Mr Burnside: As I touched on a bit earlier, the process for reviewing a complaint against a chief or deputy is very similar to the one we've just outlined for a complaint against the conduct of an officer. The difference is that instead of the chief of police quarterbacking the complaint, it will be handled by the police services board; the police services board can decide, on a serious matter, to hold the hearing itself or it can refer the matter to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services to hold the hearing. As I indicated earlier, the summary resolution mechanism is through a mediation-arbitration mechanism set out in the Labour Relations Act.
We've touched somewhat on the powers of the commission on a review. There is a time line on the review. As we indicated, it's a non-hearing review and the commission should endeavour to do the review within 30 days. That's to keep the process moving along.
The various misconduct provisions are very similar, if not identical, to the provisions that currently exist in the Police Services Act. They're found in section 73, on page 37 of the bill.
There is a provision in section 75 of the bill where the chief of police or the board of the commission can determine what constitutes unsatisfactory work performance.
I would also mention a new concept that exists, as found in subsection 73(2) on page 37 of the bill, that "A police officer shall not be found guilty of misconduct if there is no connection between the conduct and either the occupational requirements for a police officer or the reputation of the police force." That certainly clarifies the situation. I believe there have been a number of cases on that and it certainly clarifies for officers where they stand in relation to off-duty behaviour.
The transitional provisions are set out in section 79 of the bill, on page 39. Matters currently in the system when this bill is proclaimed will be continued in the existing system until January 1, 1998. There is a mechanism that if there is a board of inquiry hearing which has commenced before January 1, 1998, it will be allowed to continue to completion, as will any part V discipline hearing that has commenced. Then, as of January 1, 1998, any other matters outstanding will be folded into the new system and dealt with as if they were new complaints under part V, as established by Bill 105.
Ms McChesney: Section 135 is the regulation-making power in the bill. It's set out at page 40. There are regulation-making powers permitting cabinet to make regulations establishing and governing standards concerning adequacy and effectiveness.
Mr Tilson: Mr Chairman, before we get into that topic, reference was made earlier to some editorials and articles in the Toronto Sun about changes this bill was making with respect to the special investigations unit. It's my understanding that this bill is not changing that process at all, that with respect to persons who are killed or seriously injured the existing process continues. The Toronto Sun article was totally wrong.
Mr Burnside: I would agree with you that section 113 of the Police Services Act has not been amended.
Mr Tilson: I'm looking at the impression left by the Toronto Sun article, because that was out there, that indicated there were going to be changes to the special investigations unit.
Mr Peters: The sections dealing with the special investigations unit are not amended by this bill.
Mr Kormos: That's precisely the point that was being made, that police officers and the citizenry are still in limbo about what the police officer's duty to cooperate really means. The Solicitor General did say he will continue to address the issue of duty to cooperate. As the ADM, can you advise as to how the Solicitor General is going to do that, how he's going to continue to address the issue of duty to cooperate?
1150
Mr Peters: Not at this point, no. I'll have a discussion with the minister and see what his views are on the matter.
Mr Kormos: Oh, I was sure he would have talked to you before he told us that, but apparently he didn't.
Ms McChesney: Carrying on with the regulation-making power under section 135, I'd point out a few sections here for you. Regulations will be made governing selection and appointment of board members, prescribing courses of training for board members and prescribing standards in that connection. A regulation may be prepared for prescribing a code of conduct for board members.
Paragraph 10 of subsection 135(1) permits a reg prescribing the method for determining amounts owed by municipalities under 5.1 of the act. As I've indicated, the important regulation-making power is in 1.1, which is the regulation "establishing and governing standards concerning...adequacy."
Mr Klees: A quick question: I don't see anything here in the regs relating to perhaps providing some guidelines to the police services board when they have the responsibility to hear complaints against a chief. What I'm grappling with here is that we're asking the police services board to make some fairly significant decisions. What guidelines are in place to help the board make a decision as to what to do with a complaint?
Mr Burnside: In terms of the decision as to whether the matter is not serious, there will be a regulation, which is 23.2, which will assist in determining what is not serious. That will help the police services board. As far as conducting the hearing is concerned, they will be subject to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which sets out a fairly elaborate procedural code that will assist them in how to conduct the hearing itself.
Ms McChesney: Outside of the regulation-making power, the minister may issue guidelines or directives to police forces and to board members respecting police matters.
Mr Klees: And it's contemplated that that will be done?
Mr Peters: I think in a general sense we have a standard governing what should be done by a police service. If there needs to be a directive around how one should approach a hearing over and above the statutory responsibilities, we would do so, but I'm not sure at this point there's a compelling argument to come up with a detailed standard and/or regulation dealing with how one should proceed through a hearing.
Mr Tilson: The topic of adequacy you have briefly touched upon. Can you tell me whether the term "adequacy" is going to change as a result of this legislation? For example, in some of the communities I represent which are rural/semi-rural, the topic of 24-hour police servicing is raised and people are complaining that some areas have 24-hour police servicing and others don't. In some of the more urban communities the topic of adequate or inadequate foot patrol is sometimes debated, or whether police officers have or have not adequate equipment, whether it be vehicles or whatever. Who is going to decide what is adequate and inadequate, and who's going to determine whether a particular community is providing an adequate police service?
Mr Peters: I will try to respond. Of all the concepts in policing, the most troublesome is the adequacy definition. Clearly the intent is, hopefully, to come up with an adequacy definition that's based on the core functions now contained in the Police Services Act, and to have that based on: To discharge that function, here's what must occur.
I think it is not intended that we become overly prescriptive, because what was clearly recognized during the process of the police summit and in subsequent discussions with the Ontario Association of Municipalities and our stakeholders is that there had to be a minimum standard of adequacy that should apply province-wide. Over and above that, it was recognized that there would be some local determinants that would increase or add on to what that baseline was. The challenge we're trying to respond to is to develop an operational definition of adequacy that provides to every citizen a minimum standard of adequate police protection, recognizing that that adequacy definition in some areas, in some dimensions, may vary between rural and urban Ontario.
Mr Tilson: That's the concern I have. Whether you have a commission determining what is adequate or the Solicitor General's office determining what is adequate, meanwhile the community simply doesn't have the resources to provide the type of policing that may be adequate in one community where they do have those resources, that in another rural community they may simply not have financial resources.
Mr Peters: I guess my response on that one would have to be that the expectation would be that all municipalities will be expected to provide the minimum level of adequacy of police services. Clearly, in the context of the act, one of the things that's there, if we go back for a moment and revisit the concept of the joint board, I think it's recognized that municipalities may choose to consolidate and/or opt for a joint police service and spread the costs around among a greater population base. That's the driver behind, for example --
Mr Tilson: But in short, who's going to decide adequacy? The commission?
Mr Peters: Should there be a dispute, ultimately, as it is now, the Ontario civilian commission would be the final arbitrator on adequacy. The real issue here is the standard or the regulation dealing with adequacy and the ability to accept that as, against the minimum, having some variation between an urban and a rural municipality -- below which, though, there is a certain baseline that you would not allow to fall.
Mr Christopherson: Apparently the minister has committed the ministry to producing the definitions in a very tight time frame. Can you advise what that tight time frame is?
Mr Peters: We would like to have a preliminary discussion document available by the end of March. As we go through the legislative process, we certainly would be hopeful that we would have the final definition of adequacy in the regulation coincident with the proclamation of the act, whenever that may be.
Mr Christopherson: It is a regulation you're working towards, not a standard?
Mr Peters: Yes, a regulation.
Mr Kormos: You can bet your boots that adequacy is probably going to contain some consideration of a community's ability to pay; otherwise why would you let the community set the budget as compared to the police services board? Policing is going to get stiffed one way or another.
Panel, I was looking at, remarkably, what happens after the summary resolution of a non-serious matter. What I find confusing about that is after a summary resolution it appears that a police officer can go to the OCCPS and give notice to review that stage, but he none the less is forced to go into grievance. He isn't entitled to a hearing if the police chief deems it a non-serious matter, yet he or she is entitled to a hearing if it's streamed over to serious. Am I correct that the police officer is getting shafted there, stiffed a little bit, in terms of not having a hearing right for a non-serious matter?
1200
Mr Peters: Perhaps I can respond by outlining the intent and try to draw one distinction that this process reflects. Police officers, as well as being employees, are holders of an office, and this model tries to address the distinction between behaviour that should properly be considered as part of the employer-employee relationship as opposed to behaviour that may, and I use the word "may" advisedly, involve the behaviour associated with the discharge of the duties of the office.
Yet if there are disturbances or issues in that employer-employee relationship -- if, for the sake of discussion, someone is habitually late -- it's our view, and hence this model, that the behaviour should not attract a formal charge under the Police Services Act but rather, in terms of the employer-employee relationship, it should go through a process of both progressive and corrective discipline. What the chart recognizes is that the behaviour can come from both -- it combines both the internal process, if you will, and the complaints process. The behaviour can be complained about externally to the organization or internally.
Yet it is subsequently felt that if there is a disturbance in that employer-employee relationship, what would be the due process an employee would expect to have to make sure the imposition of discipline is not capricious or unfair? Clearly, it was our view that that's best anchored in the labour relations model, and if there's a process for grievance arbitration and dispute arbitration it should go through that model.
We felt that where there are questions around behaviours that may involve a potential abuse of the office -- the point was made earlier that we expect a lot and give a lot of authority to police officers. In the exercise of that authority, they enjoy and should continue to enjoy certain protections. There are more formal protections through the formalized hearings process, and that's the distinction we've tried to craft in this model.
No doubt police associations will offer comment on this model as we go through the public hearing process, but it tries to recognize, as I said, those two themes and tries to build into the process the due protections of external arbitration, in the case of non-serious, through the normal grievance process. We believe that's appropriate in labour relations issues. Second, for formal charges you go through the formalized hearings process, the formal discipline process, similar to that which is currently in the act, with the subsequent appeals to the Ontario civilian commission etc.
Mr Kormos: I am confident we are going to be hearing more about that because it's that catch-22 dilemma: On the one hand we're telling a police officer that he or she is a mere worker, such that they have usual Labour Relations Act rights; on the other hand we're telling them they're something more than just regular workers, with guns and powers such that they're subjected to greater scrutiny. The legislator is going to pick and choose when the cop gets to use the one avenue as compared to the other. I think some of them might be a little ticked off or concerned about that.
The Chair: That was a rhetorical question?
Mr Kormos: No, it's on the record. I thought it was well put in the tight time frame I had.
The Chair: Are there any questions from any member of any caucus at this moment?
Mr Klees: I'd like to just go back to clause 22(1)(e). Clause 22(1)(e) sets out a number of areas of responsibility that the commission is given, and (e.2) closes off by saying that in the end the commission will have responsibility to make recommendations with respect to policies or services and so on. Could you refer me to somewhere in the act where it talks about the efficacy of the commission? Does it go beyond simply making recommendations? Is there an obligation at some point to actually act on those recommendations?
Ms McChesney: I'm sorry; is there an obligation on the commission or on the ministry to act on them?
Mr Klees: No. Is there an obligation, whether it relates to the local force or to the local police services board, to act on the recommendations made by the commission?
Mr Burnside: These recommendations are more general in nature. I believe they have their genesis in section 101 of the current act, and they're powers the police complaints commission has to make general recommendations. They're not specific to a particular incident or locality. There may be provisions, in a normal section 25 Police Services Act hearing, for the commission to look into the policing in a particular community, but I think the recommendation powers here are fairly broad and they're in addition to the ones that actually exist within the ministry itself.
Mr Klees: What you're saying is that with regard to the recommendations referred to here, it relates to the policies or services of a board of a particular force; that there really is no obligation on the part of that force to change their policies as recommended by the commission. If so, why are we going through this process, if we have a commission that is acting in the best interest of the public, it goes through the process of hearing the concerns, the complaints, makes its recommendation, and in the end it gets shelved?
Mr Peters: As my colleague pointed out, this recommending authority parallels that which is currently given to the police complaints commission. The commission, in other sections of the act, has quite directive authority in terms of police services to conduct things and to do things. It was felt that the commission should not enjoy the directive authority on recommendations that are coming up in this context; rather, it makes them to the ministry and the ministry may well reflect that in a standard and/or a guideline to police services. That is reflecting, as I said, the process that is currently followed by the police complaints commission.
Mr Kormos: This may be something that you might have to tell us you can get back to us on. The Solicitor General indicated that the ministry was going to generate savings of $3 million because the government was abolishing the PCC and board of inquiry. The question I want to put to you then is, if the ministry's going to be saving $3 million, are those savings going to be put back into front-line policing, into the SIU, into the OCCPS? That's the first question, where that $3 million is going to be reinvested. I think that's what these people call it; they "reinvest" this kind of money.
Second, has there been any assessment of the extra costs that are going to be imposed on police services boards because of the additional duties that chiefs of police have in the review and oversight of alleged police misconduct? Has there been an assessment of that and what that's going to mean to police services boards like where I come from down in Niagara?
Mr Peters: In response to the first part of your question, we'll take it under advisement.
In response to the second part, there has been no work done because in effect in the current system the vast majority of the investigation of a complaint is undertaken currently by the local police department. We're not anticipating a significant increase in cost at the local level for the processing of complaints.
Mr Kormos: Down in Niagara all hell broke loose, because there's a debate whether you have more deputy chiefs or whether you have more police out there in the community. I'm wondering whether this is going to generate a drive for, let's say, more deputy chiefs; after all, the chief is going to be so busy performing his roles. That's a concern of folks where I come from, that there are fewer cops out on the street and more wearing all the braid and the brass and the gold. That was just a comment, that's all; it wasn't a question.
The Chair: Are there any other questions? If not, we will adjourn until 1:30 sharp this afternoon. We have a long afternoon, so I would be obliged if we could start at 1:30. I thank the ministry staff for attending here today.
The committee recessed from 1210 to 1331.
POLICE ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Good afternoon. We are considering Bill 105. Our first presentation will be the Police Association of Ontario: Mr Moor, president, John Miller, chairman, and Richard Houston, executive manager. Gentlemen, please step up and make yourselves comfortable. For the purpose of Hansard, I'd ask you to identify yourself and then proceed with your presentation as we only have 15 minutes. Thank you, sir.
Mr John Moor: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Good afternoon. My name is John Moor. I'm the president of the Police Association of Ontario. I'm also a sergeant with the Windsor Police Service and the administrator of the Windsor Police Association. With me this afternoon is John Miller, chairman of the Police Association of Ontario. John is also the executive officer of the Ontario Provincial Police Association and a sergeant with the OPP. We also have with us Ted Thornley, who is a director on the Police Association of Ontario and also the president of the Waterloo Regional Police Association, and Rick Houston, the executive manager of the Police Association of Ontario. Rick is formerly a constable with the Windsor Police Service and also a past president of the Windsor Police Association. A number of our colleagues are also in the audience this afternoon and several will be appearing before you over the next several days to make their views known with respect to Bill 105.
Given our time constraints, I intend to introduce our concerns in my presentation and present you with materials which should assist you in learning more about the issues that we feel are necessary to bring forward to your attention.
The Police Association of Ontario is the umbrella group for Ontario's 99 police associations. We represent 18,500 front-line police officers in all of Ontario's municipal police forces and the Ontario Provincial Police. As well, we represent 5,000 front-line police employees in municipal police services. Like you, they have dedicated themselves to providing an essential public service to the people of Ontario. Like you, they expose their public and their personal lives to the demands of public service. They know, as you do, what these demands mean. It is more than most people imagine, and it is certainly more than most people give you credit for.
The people of Ontario have given you certain protections so that you can do your jobs, so that you can, to the best of your ability, represent the people of Ontario in governing this province. Making the tough decisions is not always easy. We know that all too well in our profession. While governments may change and while governments may be streamlined, those protections are essential. We would not and should not take those protections away from you.
The front-line police personnel in this province, the men and women who risk their lives for your safety, understand better than most how important that is. We deal with society's problems on an everyday basis: crime, violence, fear, oppression, perversion, sickness and greed, just to name a few. During the course of their duties, police officers may, and in all likelihood will, be confronted with situations where they may be insulted, threatened, assaulted, spat upon, beaten, bitten, attacked with any variety of weapons that you can imagine, and maybe even shot at. Too often our members get injured and, tragically, sometimes they're killed trying to do their job.
There is only one thing we know for certain as police officers: When the dust settles, somebody somewhere, probably in the boardrooms of the Toronto Star or elsewhere, will have a better idea on how we should have or could have dealt with that particular situation.
We, like you, need as police officers and deserve as individuals protections to make sure we can do our job. We have to know that we can go to work each day without the fear of undue reprisals for trying to do the right thing to the very best of our abilities. However, in its present form, Bill 105 will strip police officers in this province of most of the protections that we need. That may surprise you. The editorial writers of some newspapers have indicated quite clearly that they think this bill has been a gift to the police. Well, we're here to tell you that this is not so.
Front-line police personnel deal with more than two million calls for service each year in this province. In 1994, we were the subject of 3,737 public complaints. That's less than two tenths of 1% of our total calls for service that result in public complaints, and many of those public complaints are being made by people who already find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
The 1994 annual report for the office of the police complaints commissioner reports that only 190 complaints against police were sustained. That's less than 5% of all complaints; one in 10,000 contacts with members of the public. The commissioner only initiated disciplinary proceedings in 15 cases, and only six of those resulted in findings of misconduct against police officers. In all other cases, all other complaints, the complaints were dealt with successfully by the internal investigation procedures under the scrutiny of the commission. Furthermore, in 1995 the commissioner did not order one single board of inquiry.
The bottom line is that the $3.8 million that the province spends each year overseeing public complaints could be better spent on police training, additional resources for police services and more police officers in your communities.
Reviewing that, you're looking at two million calls for service by the police, with 3,737 public complaints in 1994 and less, 3,462, in 1995. Only 190 sustained findings that an officer had committed misconduct in 1994, and 148 in 1995. Of the 3,737 complaints reviewed by the commissioner in 1994, only 15 resulted in further action being taken against an officer. In 1995, there were none. The cost to the province: $3.8 million per year.
A number of people will be parading through these hearings over the next six days that you are sitting who will tell you there are systemic problems within Ontario's police services. They will tell you that our ranks are riddled with racists, and in some instances they will accuse us of crimes, likely including murder. These allegations are simply not borne out by the facts, and the numbers speak for themselves. The fact is that there is a thriving industry of public servants, lawyers, bureaucrats, newspaper reporters, editorial writers and special interest advocates making their living attacking the police.
The case for streamlining police oversight is obvious. It's simply a matter of dollars and common sense. We support a move in this direction. We've always supported it, but we will not support it at the expense of our rights of police officers in this province.
We spent the better part of last summer in consultations with the Ministry of the Solicitor General on how this province could improve policing. Many of the recommendations from those meetings were adopted, but certainly not all of them. We are certainly surprised that matters that were the subject of consensus during those consultation processes have been left out of Bill 105 even though there was consensus by all participants.
More importantly and more to the point, we're alarmed that elements of Bill 105 which are devastating to the rights of police officers were never even raised in those consultation discussions; they were never even discussed. We have no idea where they've come from.
1340
We want you to know that police officers of this province are becoming increasingly aware of these amendments and many of them are angry about the proposed changes that we're seeing put forward by the government. Following are a few examples of our problems and our concerns with the bill.
Instead of removing the layers of redundant oversight, we have the de facto merger of the police complaints commissioner, board of inquiry and all of their processes with the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services.
To offset complaints about the elimination of these two agencies, Bill 105 has been carefully crafted to bolster the rights of complainants, giving them a greater role in the discipline process, while reducing and eliminating the rights of police officers in that same process.
On the other hand, we asked for independent adjudication for discipline. Instead, what we've seen today and in the amendments is that the chiefs of police have been given greater control and greater powers in the system. That's not always fair, especially if the chief is more concerned with public image than fairness for his or her police officers.
In the complaints investigation process, the complainant has the right to be notified at all steps of the investigation and the right to request a review at any stage in the investigation. The officer, on the other hand, is a non-entity in this process and has no such rights under Bill 105. Yet the officer is the only one who stands to lose anything if the system goes offside.
In the consultations, we supported a move to increased informal resolutions. Everybody wins in our minds when the process works properly and matters are resolved to everybody's satisfaction. It costs the system a lot less money when that happens. In Bill 105, however, all of the protections for the officers and the complainants have been removed.
Under the bill, if the informal resolution process fails -- and in our view, in all likelihood it will as it stands today -- the officer can be disciplined without a hearing, and the only recourse or the only remedy the officer has available to him or her is the arbitration process. We heard this morning that this was supposed to be an improvement for us. We don't see it as an improvement at all. It's a costly measure to go to arbitration every time a penalty is imposed upon our members without a hearing, and I'm sure you'll hear more about that in the presentations that will follow over the next six days.
Bill 105 introduces a new clause for "unsatisfactory work performance." To us, this is just another name for ticket quotas. It's a big stick that's going to be held that will ensure police officers generate set quotas of revenue for municipalities. If they don't generate that revenue, they'll be disciplined under this clause that has been set aside and apart from the code of conduct. The municipality will not care if the police officer takes abuse. They won't have any sympathy for the officers. They'll be looking for the aggressive ticketing of their communities to raise money. It's the front-line police officers who are going to see first hand the deterioration of the relationship with the public and the community that they serve, not the local politicians who are hungry for cash.
Bill 105 takes away the basic rights of officers to defend their actions in a hearing while giving added rights to the complainant. The biggest and most expensive problem with the boards of inquiry has been delays in the hearing process. This will now be made worse.
Bill 105 has totally gutted an officer's right to appeal. The complainant, even if they are a known and proven criminal, can force an appeal if the officer is found not guilty, yet the officer cannot automatically appeal the decision if the chief of police finds him or her guilty.
In 1995, the commission heard 12 appeals from police officers. Half of those appeals were successful, and in five of those cases the commission threw the charges out completely. One can imagine what would happen to those officers if they had no right of appeal. They would have been left hanging for something that was later thrown out completely, that they were exonerated for. To you, it may seem insignificant that only 12 appeals were heard by the commission. To police officers, it is the only avenue we have available for an impartial, fair review of our case. The fact that we have it makes a difference, and we don't believe you should take that away from us in Bill 105.
Bill 105 gives the control of police services over to municipalities both in controlling the majority of appointments to police services boards and in controlling the finances of the police services themselves. We can live with that as long as there are sufficient safeguards put in place in the bill to hold municipalities accountable to prescribed levels of service. Right now there are none. No prescribed standards have been adopted since this requirement was introduced in 1990. The tradeoff for municipal control must be a stricter compliance process. The commission must have the power to order municipalities to meet acceptable standards, and also must be empowered to impose sanctions when the municipalities refuse. Right now the act, as amended by Bill 105, has no teeth to fulfil this need. It has to be changed.
We are already seeing municipalities cutting their police services and operating with far fewer police officers than they need. Right here in Toronto is one of the worst examples of that. The public knows that public safety is suffering and they are becoming more concerned. In a public opinion poll that we conducted last summer, the public said they did not want to see their police budgets slashed. In fact, they said they were prepared to pay more, much more than even we expected.
The Mississauga News did their own survey to test the public's response and the public confirmed that they wanted more protection from criminals and they were willing to pay for it. But with the control of the purse-strings, many municipalities will now consider public safety the same as any other municipal service. If everything else is to be underfunded, such as garbage collection, libraries and sewage, so too will policing, and there will be a huge price to pay. Criminals are going to benefit by this at the expense of community safety unless minimum, enforceable standards and processes are put into place.
Let me close by saying that the last thing police officers want is another confrontation with the elected legislators in this province. We have attempted time after time, government after government, to work within the system to make constructive changes. Police personnel are becoming very frustrated by the fact that this approach does not seem to be working. Like you, we need to know that we can do our jobs to the very best of our abilities with the necessary safeguards and reasonable protections in place for us. We would not take those protections away from you; please do not take them away from our members.
Bill 105 must be significantly amended where it strips police officers of their rights and safeguards. It must be amended to ensure that acceptable police standards to protect public safety are maintained and enforced. We are prepared to work with the government to address our concerns. We just hope the government will address our concerns. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. That's excellent timing. Your time has elapsed and there's no further time for questions at this moment, so I thank you on behalf of the committee.
1350
CANADIAN CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presentation is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association: Mr Alan Borovoy, general counsel, and Stephen McCammon, associate counsel. Gentlemen, welcome.
Mr Alan Borovoy: Thank you very much. Our remarks today will be focused entirely on the complaint process. That doesn't mean we don't have something to say about other things, it only means that there isn't time to say it, so we'll focus entirely on the complaint process.
There was a statement made a few years ago that best expresses the key issue in the complaint system involved. That statement was made by an RCMP sergeant at the Donald Marshall inquiry in Nova Scotia. When he was asked why the RCMP pulled its punches during its review of the initial murder investigation that had been conducted by the Sydney, Nova Scotia, police force, this RCMP sergeant said: "Police officers are like a fraternity. You owe a certain loyalty to one another."
If that statement is true when one police force is investigating another, how much more true is it likely to be when a police force is investigating itself? As a result of this central fact, we've had in this province over the years many protests from a wide variety of constituencies, from visible minorities to civil libertarians, to unions, to churches. Even the Metro police association joined in the protest against the old police-dominated complaints system. As a result, during the 1970s there were no less than four public inquiries, public task forces into this whole arrangement. In the result we got the current system. A consensus emerged from all of it, and we got the current system in which an external commissioner oversees the handling of civilian complaints against the police, not a perfect system, not, in the view of our organization, even an adequate system, but certainly a much improved system.
Now Bill 105 comes along and threatens to wipe out most of the progress that so many worked so hard to achieve. I just want to run through a short little comparison of the existing act and what Bill 105 would do.
Under the existing act, the external commissioner has investigative powers at least in some circumstances. Under Bill 105 the successor commission will be virtually bereft of investigative powers, so it will be a system of complete police self-investigation.
Under the existing act, the external commissioner at least monitors every complaint investigation. Under Bill 105 the only time the successor commission will even get to see a complaint is in those cases where the parties have the fortitude to file an appeal.
Under the existing act, there is a provision for independent adjudication, for the initial adjudications to be done against regular officers by an independent tribunal, the board of inquiry. Under Bill 105 all of the initial adjudications will be done against regular officers will be done under the aegis of the chiefs of police.
Consider the situation: A person files a complaint. The chief has it investigated, gets back the report, if there is a report -- there doesn't have to be -- reviews it and decides the complaint is not substantiated. The complainant then can ask for a review of that finding by the external commission. This is under Bill 105. The external commission cannot conduct a hearing, conducts a paper review, no witnesses, no cross-examination, just a look at the paper, and decides whether or not it agrees with the chief's finding. In the event that the external commission does not agree -- it has no power to investigate the way it has today, it can't order an independent hearing into it as it can today -- it has to refer the matter back either to the very police department that just rendered this adverse decision or to another police department where the matter could be investigated further or a hearing could be held.
What are the chances, do you suppose, that chiefs of police in such situations are going to overrule themselves? What are the chances that even another police force is going to overrule this police chief? What are the chances, in any event, that a complainant under these circumstances is going to believe he's going to get a fair shake from the very police chief who already found that the complaint was unsubstantiated? That's a prerequisite. The complainant has to go through these procedures before he gets access to the external commission and the right to a hearing, and how many complainants are going to put themselves through it? Can we really take this seriously? In our judgement, we cannot. No matter how fair the police handling of a civilian complaint may be, there is no way it can appear fair. No system will command public confidence if it makes the police the umpires of their own ball game.
When we remove, when we deprive the public of this credible instrument for resolving police-civilian conflict, Bill 105 will threaten to exacerbate the very tensions -- racial, ethnic, class -- that brought about the changes that so many have worked so hard to create. Not surprisingly, within the last couple of weeks we have found a number of people speaking out on this bill just in the last couple of weeks alone: criticism from a Metro Toronto Police Services Board, the Toronto Sun, long-time supporters of this government and the police of Bill 105.
We have this very day in our possession, and we intend to leave it with you, a letter from the International Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, asking the Premier of this province to reconsider his position because this bill is threatening to wipe out what the international community has considered the enviable record that Ontario has achieved under the existing arrangements.
This leads us to respectfully request that this committee, whatever other reforms it considers appropriate, ensure that there be no reduction in the capacity for external investigation, review and adjudication of civilian complaints against the police. We ask for this not only because we believe it's in the interests of complainants, and we think it is; not only because it's in the interests of police, and we think it is; not only because it's in the public interest, and we think it is; but also because that is the best way to reflect the deepest sense of fairness in our community. No one, but no one, should be the umpire of his own ball game. All of this is, as always, respectfully submitted.
Mr Kormos: Sir, this morning when the bureaucrats were here I was referring specifically to what will become section 71, and in particular subsections (6), (7) and (8). The bureaucrats here, and I'm hope I'm not misquoting them, were trying to create the impression that these were pretty broad-ranging powers on the part of the commission. My reading, and I read subsection (6) out here in front of the committee, was that it isn't, and I know you're familiar with the subsection. Exactly what does it mean in terms of the review capacity of the commission? What can the commission do and what does it have to rely upon to do it?
1400
Mr Borovoy: The commission conducts a paper review. Whatever paper has been generated by the investigation, and it doesn't have to, and by the complainant, the commission looks at it. It's not supposed to hold a hearing. Then if the commission disagrees with the chief's finding, it has to refer the matter back to either that police department or another one. It doesn't have the ability to act on its own.
Mr Carr: Good to see you again, Alan. With the changes -- you seem to be saying you like the old system. As you know, there are many complaints about the old system, not the least of which are the time delays, and we heard from the PAO. We have similar problems in our whole criminal justice system with Askov and delays and so on. You seem to be saying you'd like to keep the present system. If not, what can we do to change this that would make it acceptable?
Mr Borovoy: That would depend of course on what problem you're asking to address. We're not necessarily saying the existing system is wonderful; we've had our own criticisms of it. We're saying it is a substantial improvement over Bill 105. All we're saying is that there ought not to be any reduction in the capacity for external involvement, whatever else. If you want to have tougher time limits, I see no objection to that. If you want to consider the merging of some operations, let's say for example the commission and the SIU, there's no particular objection to that. If you even thought of merging the board of inquiry, with the boards of inquiry under the Human Rights Code, if you're looking to save, you could save on bureaucratic costs that way. When you ask a question like that, what you have to ask is: To solve what problem are you asking for what proposal?
I don't think it would take a tremendous amount of ingenuity to come up with ways of accelerating the process and reducing some duplication. That need not be a problem. For those purposes you don't need to reduce the capacity for external investigation, review and adjudication. That you don't have to do.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Borovoy, I very much appreciated your presentation. This morning the minister said that one of the reasons this was going forward was to save $3 million to the taxpayers of Ontario. Do you think, though, that it maybe is worth $3 million to ensure that we have strong civilian oversight of police services in Ontario?
Mr Borovoy: Most assuredly. That, as budget items go, is a relatively small one, and when you consider what external involvement has contributed to the reduction of tensions in our community by giving the community some halfway credible instrument for resolving civilian-police conflict, I would suggest to you that $3 million is hardly a staggering price. In any event, as I suggested in my answer to Mr Carr, there are ways of reducing that budget, if not by $3 million, at least less than it currently is, without compromising on the essential principles that I'm talking about.
The Chair: Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your presentation here today. Being distributed is the letter that was referred to from the International Association for Civil Oversight of Law Enforcement. You could read that at your leisure.
Mr Klees: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: During briefing this morning I directed a very specific question to staff relating to the investigative authority of the commission. The answer I got assured me that the commission has very broad investigative powers. This witness suggests that this bill considerably constrains that. I think it would be helpful to this committee if we could get something in writing from staff to clarify that issue. I have a feeling this may be a recurring question and I didn't get a satisfactory answer, and if I did, I think members of the public certainly aren't very clear about what this bill does.
The Chair: I understand that will be provided to all members of the committee.
HALTON REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Chair: If we can proceed: the Halton Regional Police Association, Mr Bill Henshaw, president; Paul La Course, administrator.
Mr Paul La Course: My name is Paul La Course. I'm the administrator of the Halton Regional Police Association. On my right is Constable Bill Henshaw, who is president of the Halton Regional Police Association, and on my left is John Moor, president of the Police Association of Ontario.
Good afternoon. The Halton Regional Police Association represents approximately 540 members, close to 400 of which are uniform police officers. Our members provide an important essential service that quite clearly ensures that Halton region is a safe community.
In our opinion Bill 105, as it is now, greatly reduces the protections our members need to allow them to perform their duties to ensure safe communities.
Our members deal with the public in many different forums and under a variety of different circumstances. Some of these circumstances may be of a pleasant nature while others clearly may be of a not-so-pleasant nature. As a result, our members may find themselves the subject of a public complaint. As John Moor spoke on earlier, in Halton region the numbers mirror that of the provincial numbers. Very few of the complaints that are filed within Halton region have any substance or foundation, while a large number of these complaints are in fact made in bad faith or are of a frivolous nature.
An informal resolution is an avenue where a public complaint can be resolved between the police officer and the complainant. In order to achieve such a resolution, both parties must agree to the resolution. I'd like to give you a couple of examples, quickly if I could, of informal resolutions. One could possibly be an apology. Another one could possibly be where the subject police officer acknowledges that while he or she does not feel they committed misconduct or operated in a negative manner, they may agree that they could have handled a situation in a different manner. It doesn't mean they did anything wrong; it just means they could have handled it in a different manner. In a lot of our public complaints we deal with that type of resolution on a regular basis.
We are here before you today to bring to your attention the adverse impact the changes made to the informal resolution process will have on the public, police officers and the complaint process as a whole. What we're going to attempt to do in our short time today is to review some of the proposed changes and compare those changes to what's currently in the act and then at the end of our submissions provide this committee with our recommendations.
One of the major changes in the process under the proposed amendments is that informal resolutions can only occur at the conclusion of the investigation, whereas under the current legislation an informal resolution can occur at any time during the investigation or hearing.
It is our view that such a change will clearly reduce the opportunity for informal resolutions and subsequently will greatly reduce the number of informal resolutions achieved. This will only serve to increase costs and needless disputes.
1410
Under the proposed amendments informal resolutions would be restricted to non-serious allegations, whereas under the current legislation informal resolutions can be used to resolve serious allegations as well, as long as there is consent from the complainant and the PCC's office. Once again, the proposed amendment will only restrict and reduce the number of informal resolutions achieved between the complainants and police officers. The goal in any dispute should be first and foremost a settlement when a resolution is possible.
Under the proposed amendments, the chief of police can attempt an informal resolution without -- I stress "without" -- the consent of the officer, whereas under the current legislation an informal resolution does requires the consent of the subject officer. It's our strong view that to allow the chief of police to enter into an informal resolution, or even attempt an informal resolution, without the consent of the subject officer clearly defeats the purpose of informal resolutions and flies in the face of the spirit of the process. Clearly, if a complaint is made against a police officer, any informal resolution must include agreement from whoever the subject of the complaint is -- not the chief of police, the subject officer.
Under the proposed amendments, an officer can be unilaterally disciplined if an informal resolution is unsuccessful. As you heard earlier, such discipline can include up to five days', or 40 hours', pay and can be administered by the chief without a hearing. Further, there is no provision for a reprimand or admonishment, and an entry can be made in the police officer's employment record even if the matter is still in dispute. To deal with this imposed discipline, the only avenue an officer would have is the costly and time-consuming grievance and arbitration process to appeal or challenge such discipline. I can assure you here today that if any of our members are disciplined, be it imposed discipline, all will be grieved, every single one.
Currently, in less serious matters, the chief can reprimand an officer without holding a hearing, after providing the officer the details of the allegation and an opportunity to respond. If the officer does not accept the chief's findings and/or reprimand, a discipline hearing under section 60 of the current act would be held. Under the proposed amendments, there is no provision for a reprimand or admonishment.
Under the proposed amendments, there is no protection for "without prejudice" statements that are going to be made or may be made by either the subject officer or the complainant in a good faith attempt to resolve the matter informally. That's in section 68(8) of Bill 105. Under the current legislation, "without prejudice" statements made by an officer or complainant in an attempt to resolve the matter informally cannot be used later in evidence. That's contained in the Police Services Act, section 96(6). Without this protection for both parties, the complainant and the police officer, those involved, and in particular our members, would be fools to participate in this process.
The proposed amendments allow for a reprimand in addition to a penalty, whereas the current legislation allows for a reprimand in addition to or instead of a penalty. We believe that such a change would handcuff a chief of police when administering discipline, when in certain circumstances the reprimand alone would be the appropriate discipline. The chief's ability and authority to administer the proper discipline would be statutorily prohibitive and, more importantly, would be unfair to the police officer involved.
The proposed amendments in Bill 105 introduce additional powers for a chief of police, allowing a chief to impose counselling, treatment, training or other programs or activities, which may include anger management, drug and alcohol counselling as well as others. Under the current legislation, there is no provision for this type of imposed -- let's be clear; it's imposed -- treatment. It's not discipline; it's treatment. Participation in bona fide and relevant programs should only be required on a consent basis, in order to stay a penalty which otherwise would be imposed.
Collectively, imagine the impact these changes to the informal resolution process will have if a chief of police is authorized to impose discipline without a hearing where an informal resolution was unsuccessful, and include the fact that the chief may now, under the proposed amendments, attempt to resolve a complaint informally without the consent of an officer. Our members, our officers, will now reluctantly be forced to agree to the chief's proposed informal resolution whether they agree with the contents or not, simply because if they don't, there's a good chance the chief will impose discipline of up to five days. This is certainly not a level playing field in our opinion, and our members won't be playing by these rules.
In Halton region, the police association actively involves itself in the complaint process. In conjunction with the Halton Regional Police Service professional standards bureau and subject officers, we have utilized informal resolution in a very proactive and positive manner. I would be accurate in telling you that approximately 20% to 30% of complaints filed against Halton police officers are successfully resolved informally to the satisfaction of the police officer and the complainant.
To the best of our knowledge, in Halton a board of inquiry has never been initiated as a result of a public complaint, and one of the main factors has been our ability to deal effectively in resolving complaints, both of a non-serious and serious nature, in an informal manner. It would be tragic if this success was jeopardized as a result of the proposed amendments. Currently in many instances the association recommends, and in some cases encourages, our members to resolve a complaint informally. I can quite clearly tell you today that if these amendments are enacted, our positive approach to informal resolutions will cease immediately, and although this clearly would be a step backwards, we would be left with no other alternative.
When it's properly administered and encouraged, informal resolution is a productive and cost-effective method of resolving complaints. We urge you to restore, with the necessary modifications, the informal resolution and informal discipline process in the current legislation, with the following criteria and recommendations: that it may be initiated at any stage in the process; that it not be restricted to minor allegations; that it must require consent of the officer and the complainant -- not the chief of police and the complainant, the officer and the complainant; that it restore the discipline process available under section 59 of the current act, as opposed to the more costly arbitration process; that it allow for an officer to be reprimanded instead of or in addition to a penalty and allow, as is current, for a maximum penalty of two days' time off; that it provide full protection for statements made in an attempt to resolve a complaint informally.
The act should prevent an informal resolution from being used against an officer, or an entry made on his or her employment record, where misconduct has not been established. The act should prevent informal resolutions from being used against police officers for discipline purposes in the future. Informal resolutions are made by both parties in good faith and such resolutions should be solely for the purpose of resolving that particular complaint, nothing further.
We have attempted today to put forth our concerns, as well as offer some suggestions in our presentation for you today. We hope you think about what we have said and, most importantly, we hope you act on what we have said. Don't make change for the sake of making change, and whatever changes are made, be absolutely sure that the process and the people involved are treated fairly and that the process, if not improved, at least does not deteriorate. These proposed amendments do neither.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. We would be glad to try and answer your questions, if there are any.
1420
The Chair: There's only one minute per caucus remaining.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much, Paul, for an excellent presentation. Some of the changes that you talk about obviously deal with the informal resolution. I know we didn't have a whole lot of time for you to get into other areas, but is there any other part of the model that you'd like to see changed, or if we address some of these issues, is that your major concern?
Mr La Course: To be fair, one of the areas we were pleased with -- I don't know if this is going to answer your question -- is that there are no longer third-party complaints. We think that's a step in the right direction. It adds cost to it as well. Again, we find traditionally that usually there's no merit to third-party complaints.
Mr Carr: There's so little time, but the other issue, governance, you weren't able to touch on in the time frames. Do you have any concerns in that area? As you know, municipalities will have control. Could you give us your perspective, a Halton perspective, on what that will mean regarding the governance issue?
Mr Moor: If I may, and Paul's asked me to respond to it, certainly on the governance issue, the concern, as we pointed out in our last presentation -- I think it's shared by all our members across the province -- is that we're going to see municipalities lumping police services and the safety of the public in with all other services. When there need to be cuts in funding, with little regard or no regard for safety, they're going to cut our budgets the same as the sewage budget or the library budget or any other particular budget.
We have a difficulty with that because usually when you cut those funds you increase the safety risk to our members and to the public also. That's certainly been the concern that we've had and we've shared with this government since the consultation process came forward. But we're prepared to live with it -- we said that and our members have told us that -- if the government puts the safeguards in place to ensure that's not going to happen, and the way to do that is through the standards with the regulations on policing services.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm very impressed with your ideas about the informal resolution and discipline process. In the one minute that's there, could you give me an example of how that process would work if I made a complaint at the police department?
Mr La Course: Certainly. What happens in Halton region, once a complaint is filed, is that investigators from the professional standards bureau come down to speak with the subject officer and any witness officers. The association, we're involved, we meet with them as well. On a regular basis we resolve complaints collectively, informally, a large number. We obviously haven't got to the point of mediation with the complainant, but the investigating officers, myself or another association rep, with the subject officers and witness officers, we get together and if there's a problem with it, then we'll deal with the problem. If there's discipline to be administered, our professional standards people will put that position forward to us. If that's going to be part of the informal resolution, then we negotiate that with the parties. Like I say, it's worked wonderfully.
Mr Kormos: One minute is oh so short, so I should move on and get to it. I don't know if you heard this morning when I tried to express with the bureaucrats some of my concerns about how one day you're a worker subject to a grievance hearing, the next day you're something other than a worker subject to a more intensive hearing process that carries with it, as it should, far greater consequences. It's almost schizophrenic, the approach. I'm interested in hearing what more people have to say about your suggestions and the PAO's suggestions on enhancing the informal hearings and getting rid of that wacko sort of grievance intervention as compared to hearings.
The PAO talked about how this bill merges with the amendments to the Provincial Offences Act, which let communities opt in to pick up not just spare change but big bucks. I'm from small-town Ontario in Niagara, not that different from Halton. They're going to have municipal councils set the budgets. Why would the legislation say they can set the budgets if there were really some sort of overriding power? I suspect there's not going to be any real overriding power and you guys are going to get turned into running bake sales, effectively.
Laughter.
Mr Kormos: Well, one way or another, be it by doing PAO blitzes instead of doing what you want to do. A wink is as good as a nod, and you know what that stuff means. When someone higher up in the chain tells you to do it, you do it. That's what scares me. The PAO talked about quotas and tickets. My God, that surely doesn't go on, does it?
The Chair: On that note, we must end. Gentlemen, I thank you very much on behalf of the committee for your very thoughtful report and recommendations.
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
The Chair: Our next presentation is from the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, Ms Avvy Go. Welcome Ms Go.
Ms Avvy Go: My name is Avvy Go and I'm a lawyer and clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.
At the outset, let me state that I hope that my presentation today will not be disadvantaged by the fact that I'm the first woman to present before an all-man committee on an issue that concerns a profession that is male-dominated. With that caution aside, let me just begin my presentation.
Our clinic is a member of the Community Coalition Concerned about Civilian Oversight of Police, which came together after the Solicitor General appointed Mr Roderick McLeod to review the province's police oversight system. Like all the other members of the coalition, our clinic believes strongly that good and effective policing services can only come about when police forces are accountable to the public and that all people, regardless of their race, gender, ability, nationality, sexual orientation, economic and social status, are entitled to equal treatment and respect by the police. Over the years, we have represented individuals from the Chinese and Southeast Asian communities who have become victims of police misconduct, whose claims ranged from unfair treatment to illegal search and detention, or even physical assault by officers.
We have taken complainants through the police complaint system and we have seen how the system fails each and every one of the complainants. The system fails those complainants whose complaints are dismissed because of the prohibitive burden of proof on a clear and convincing standard. The system also fails the complainants whose complaints are found to be valid but inevitably the officers get off with a slap on the wrist.
It is clear to us that the complaint system as it now stands is unacceptable and must be changed. But the government's proposal under Bill 105 is not going to improve the police accountability system. If anything, it is going to make the police even less accountable to the public and to the communities they are supposed to serve and protect. So in our minds, Bill 105 is a big mistake. It is a mistake because it ignores the key principles that any civilian oversight system must operate upon, and these are: accessibility, accountability, fairness, thoroughness and impartiality. The provisions in Bill 105 violate some or all of these principles. The following highlights some of the key issues concerning the bill from our standpoint.
To begin with, the government proposes to combine the police complaints commissioner's office -- the PCC -- the board of inquiry and the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services -- the OCCPS -- into one new agency also called OCCPS. The new agency will be given half of the existing budget to perform a civilian oversight role in relation to the police in Ontario. With fewer resources but a much broader mandate, the new OCCPS will not be able to effectively monitor the policing oversight system and this will serious reduce the system's accountability. It will also not be able to ensure that the tasks of policing oversight are done thoroughly at the local level. At the same time, the government wants to transfer the jurisdiction over the new OCCPS from the Ministry of the Attorney General the Ministry of the Solicitor General. Since the latter also has the mandate to oversee police services, its ability to act as a fair and objective civilian oversight body of policing is therefore suspect.
A number of changes have been suggested which affect every stage of the civilian complaint system from the initial stage of filing to the final adjudication of police wrongdoing. For instance, right now a complainant may file a complaint with the local station of any police force or the office of the PCC, but the government wants to make sure that a complainant can only file a complaint with the station of the police force in which the complaint arises or to the new commission, which will have fewer offices across the province. The restriction on where a complaint can be filed makes the system less accountable to people who wish to complain about an officer in their own community.
Further, under the current system, even when the complaint is initially filed with a local police station, the PCC is entitled to receive a copy of the complaint. In Bill 105, there's no requirement that the new commission be served copies of the complaints that are filed with the local police. The commission's role to monitor police complaints is made practically impossible if it is not even notified when a complaint is filed. It has no means of ensuring accountability at all at the local level.
The bill also eliminates third-party complaints and this creates two issues: First, the system will be less accessible for individuals who feel disempowered to file a complaint; and second, it makes the system less accountable because it discourages complainants from coming forward for fear of retaliation.
1430
One of the most alarming features of Bill 105 is the enhanced power given to the local police chief. Among the new-found powers of the chief is the classification of complaints without the consent of the civilian oversight body. The chief can classify complaints according to their nature and seriousness. If, for instance, the chief believes that the complaint is not serious enough, then he could decide not to refer the complaint to a hearing; rather, the complaint will be resolved through a so-called informal resolution whether the complainant agrees or not.
The increased power to the police chief to classify complaints undermines the principles of fairness and impartiality, hence it renders the system less accountable. The informal resolution that is forced on a complainant is not going to make the system better. As we have heard from police officers, they are not very happy with the information resolution that is forced on the officers as well. The whole process will make it less accountable and more vulnerable to police manipulation.
Under the new system, the police chief also designates who does an investigation, who conducts a hearing and what penalty is to be imposed, if any, on the subject officer. There is no provision for the investigation to be conducted by the new commission, and the commission's power to conduct a hearing is limited only to appeals on record.
Also under the new system, at the end of the investigation the chief will simply notify the complainant how he shall dispose of the complaint, with no requirement to give reasons or to report to the new commission about his final decision.
Public access to the commission is seriously undermined by Bill 105 if the public needs to rely on the chief to reach the right decision. Also, the accountability and impartiality of the system is compromised when the civilian body cannot review decisions properly and adequately.
While the government has claimed that the proposal will reduce the delays that plague the current civilian oversight system, in reality the time limits that are contained in Bill 105 are more false than real. Any time limit can easily be extended by the police chief when he feels like it, with no reasons needing to be given. Meanwhile, some of the time limits that are found within the current system will be eliminated.
The requirements to file monthly interim reports, for example, to the complainant and the PCC within the time prescribed will be gone. All that is needed is one final written report to the police services board about the complaint. There's no obligation on the chief to send any investigation report to the new commission.
Finally, giving the chief the monopoly over the adjudication of police complaints is the ultimate affront to the civilian policing oversight system.
Given that these are all the problems with Bill 105, what then is the alternative?
In its report entitled In Search of Police Accountability, the Community Coalition Concerned about Civilian Oversight of Police presents its vision of a system that will truly fulfil the public's right to demand police accountability. The coalition recommends, among other things, that it is the independent civilian oversight agency, not local police departments, which should be mandated to accept complaints, to investigate police wrongdoing, to determine the proper disposition of complaints, to adjudicate complaints and to rule on the disciplinary actions.
The coalition also recommends that the civilian oversight system take on an active role in educating the communities on issues of police accountability and providing advocacy and support for complainants who are going through the difficult and intimidating experience of challenging police authority.
As a member of the coalition, we support and endorse all the recommendations contained in the coalition report as they relate to the public complaint system.
The coalition also makes recommendations about the mandate and power of the SIU, the special investigations unit. To the Chinese Canadian community in Metro, the issue of the mandate of the SIU and the issue concerning duty to cooperate really hit home when one of its members became the latest victim of police shooting.
Mr Edmond Yu, an unarmed, homeless man with a psychiatric history, was shot just a few weeks ago by an armed officer during a five-minute altercation on a TTC bus. It is an understatement to say that the community was in shock as a result of the shooting. Hundreds of people attended a community forum to discuss the shooting and hundreds more came out to a public rally demanding justice for Edmond.
It has been one month since Mr Yu's death and yet the subject officer has still refused to even speak to the SIU investigators, let alone cooperating with the investigation. If the person who killed Mr Yu were not a police officer, the killer would not have gotten away by simply refusing to talk to the authority. He would have been charged first; then he could exercise his right to remain silent. Why should it be any different when the killer of Mr Yu happens to be a police officer? Why should the police officers have it both ways?
The recommendations made by the coalition on duty to cooperate are more than reasonable. We all know that holding police officers accountable will not bring back Mr Edmond Yu, Dudley George, Faraz Suleman or all the other civilians who have died senselessly at the hands of police. What we do get by making officers cooperate is the truth.
It is therefore the position of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic that in searching for a civilian oversight policing system that is truly accessible, fair, accountable and impartial, the government of Ontario must scrap Bill 105 and thereby replace it with a new set of amendments that incorporate all the recommendations contained in the report by the community coalition. Then and only then can Ontarians be assured that the police forces in this province are there to serve and protect the public, that each and every police officer will enforce the law in a fair and equal manner and that no one is above the law.
We have included a copy of the recommendations in our submission. In fact, the whole report has been made available to the Solicitor General, and we did receive a response from the Solicitor General. However, the response was totally inadequate. We have followed up with a letter to him stating our opposition because he did not address adequately any of our recommendations and concerns.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We only have about 30 seconds for each caucus. Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you for your presentation. Just looking at your report, this does answer one of the questions I had and that is that you would support a type of informal resolution process if the complainant was agreeable. I think if we were to get something like that, it would bring more transparency to the process, especially in dealing with maybe less serious complaints.
Ms Go: Yes. In my experience, a lot of times the complainant is not asking for blood. They have gone through some horrible experience; they want to get it over with. All they needed was a simple apology from an officer, for instance. But right now what's happening is that the officers, out of fear of having a bad record or for whatever reasons, won't even apologize.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Go. If we could move on, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I'm going to speak very quickly because this guy is tough. I understand that the Premier sent the coalition a letter saying that Runciman would welcome comments on his McLeod report and recommendations prior to introducing changes to the Police Services Act; that you were one of the recipients, as a member of the coalition, of that letter but that the only meeting with you was after the act had already been drafted, printed and produced for first reading on January 14. Is that what happened?
Ms Go: Yes, that's what happened. We asked for a meeting before he would introduce any changes to the Police Services Act, and we only got a meeting a couple of weeks after it had been tabled.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kormos. If we could move on, Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for a fine presentation. Just following up on Mr Ramsay's comment, it's your feeling that the informal process can be used effectively, and you'd like to see some changes in that area.
Ms Go: Any process whatsoever, especially when you are talking about resolution, has to be agreed upon by all the parties. Even the police officers have to agree on it.
Mr Carr: On that point with the officers --
Ms Go: Right now Bill 105 says the chief will just impose on everybody. It's not acceptable from the complainant's point of view or the officer's point of view.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Go, for your excellent presentation.
1440
CITY OF NORTH YORK COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY, RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
The Chair: Our next presentation is by the city of North York's committee on community, race and ethnic relations, Mr Samuel Wilkes. This morning you were given -- it looks like this -- the presentation. If you'd look in your morning batch of material, you will find it. Mr Wilkes, welcome. You have 15 minutes, so we'd better proceed posthaste.
Mr Samuel Wilkes: Please permit me to commence by mentioning that I am here as a representative of the city of North York's committee on community, race and ethnic relations, and it has carefully reviewed this submission and has endorsed it.
On behalf of that committee, I attended the meeting of January 30 in the OISE auditorium and the one of February 3 in Minister Runciman's offices. I was also present at the public meeting before the police services board on February 25 and in fact had the privilege of making a presentation to the board, but on my own behalf. The comments made by each of the five panel members on January 30 have been very carefully considered, the report presented to the Solicitor General on February 3 by the community coalition has been read, as has the minister's response of February 13, and the summarized explanation of Bill 105 as presented to the public meeting of the police services board on February 25 has also been carefully studied.
It is recognized that the time has come to make changes to the present Police Services Act, but we are at the same time concerned with three specific details. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, we use as a point of reference the explanation of Bill 105 given to the police services board on February 25 by Mr Albert Cohen, deputy metropolitan solicitor, a copy of which is attached hereto.
On page 3, item 5, section (a), "Overview," the bill proposes to merge the discipline and public complaints systems. We believe these should be separate. Internal police discipline should be handled in a manner similar to that of industry and commerce, namely, that an employee's superiors are in a better position to understand the shortcomings of employees under their guidance. However, we definitely do not agree that civilian complaints should be dealt with solely by police. The two concepts must be kept apart. We do not agree that there is any similarity between what may be construed as internal poor job conduct and conduct that might give rise to a civilian complaint.
We do not agree that third-party complaints should not be acceptable, page 4, (g), and we explain this as follows: A substantial portion of Metropolitan Toronto's population consists of new Canadians, and it is a tragic fact that a large percentage of them come from communities in which a uniform means, at best, dictatorship or bribery, but all too often a severe beating or, worse still, a violent death. Consequently, it is very difficult for them to understand that uniforms in Canada can mean such things as, "To serve and protect."
The report entitled The Extent of Hate Activity and Racism in Metropolitan Toronto, published last June by Dr Karen R. Mock and commissioned by the Access and Equity Centre of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto is precisely on point. The third paragraph on page 29, which is within that part of the report that deals with individual calls and interviews, commences: "Very few of the 1-800 callers had reported the incident to anyone else. However, most of the others interviewed had reported the incident, initially to a member of their own community. For example, individuals from the Somali community, Chinese community or the Jewish community will call someone from one of their own community associations first, and often need encouragement to call the police."
It is therefore absolutely essential that we do whatever is necessary to help them realize how different things are in this country, because with such realization comes acceptance and with acceptance comes cooperation. For a police force to be an efficient and economical body, it must have full cooperation from the citizens of the community in which it serves. We submit that while anonymous complaints should not be acceptable because they would open doors to frivolity or, worse yet, vindictive actions, we believe that a nervous complainant should be able to make his or her presentation through a responsible third party such as a minister of a church or a doctor etc.
Persons involved in assessing civilian complaints must be seen by the public as being fair, objective and, in some sense, representative of both sides of any complaint. It would be undemocratic if, as most proponents for changes to Bill 105 appear to be suggesting, the complaints investigation panel was to be totally civilian, because that would remove rights of representation on the panel by police officers on behalf of the officer who is the subject of the complaint. It would be equally undemocratic if the reviewer were to be either a chief of police, page 4, (d), or an all-police body, because that takes us back to the ingrained fear of uniforms and authoritative persons which we have already mentioned, and it could also lead to accusations of lack of consideration of the complainant's rights.
Our recommendation is that very serious consideration be given to a complaints investigation panel consisting of four parts with a total of seven persons. The first part should consist of two representatives from the appropriate police force. The second part should consist of two civilian representatives from the community at large, at least one of whom could be a lawyer well versed in matters of this nature. The fifth person should be from the judiciary and he or she should be the panel chair. All these five persons must be well versed not only in the wording of the act but also in the meaning of the wording, and all these persons would be permanent members of the panel.
With regard to the remaining two members of the panel, our recommendation is that they shall be made up of responsible and learned citizens chosen by the complainant and in whom, obviously, the complainant would have complete trust. Those so chosen shall be permitted to attend only those panel meetings that pertain to that specific complainant's action, with full voting rights at such meetings, and their service on the panel would cease immediately upon completion of that specific action.
In this way both the police officer and the complainant would be totally represented in all considerations and the deliberations of the panel would always be within the meaning of the act. Neither side would be able to make accusations that their rights had not been given due consideration in their case once a decision had been handed down, although we do agree with that section of the bill regarding the right to appeal.
We also wish to recommend for consideration that interpreters always be available for the complainant's benefit, as is the case in all of our courts, and that the chair shall always be ready to educate the complainant's panel representatives in the scope of their duties, so that at no time shall they be ignorant of their responsibilities or rights while serving on the panel.
Thank God we live in a democratic society, and proof of that is the very existence of this meeting and the previous ones of which I have already made mention and had the privilege of attending. Please, let us not be Orwellian and create degrees of democratic representation for different sections of this, our very precious community. Besides, George Orwell wrote his satires on individual liberty and authoritarianism in the late 1940s. Let us at least hope that in the 50 years since then we have progressed in both areas for the better.
I would now like to add one other point if I may, please. As I'm sure you are all very much aware, the committee, which consists of some 14 members, is very involved in many aspects of the problems of our society, so each one of us becomes responsible for different areas of the problems of our society; mine is that concerning systemic racism within the police force and the relationship of the police to the community and the community to the police.
I have studied all that I can lay my hands on of Bill 105. The committee as a body has, to my knowledge, only had the opportunity to study this, my presentation, which, as I have already mentioned, they have endorsed. As far as Bill 105 is concerned, I recognize that there is a need for change. We live in a democratic society, and bills, once they become acts of law, are not, I realize, written in stone. Government has the ability to change them as society's needs change, and the Supreme Court has the right to force changes when necessary. I am speaking on my own behalf, therefore, when I say to you that I think on the whole the present Bill 105, other than these three suggestions, is excellent. It is a progressive step in the right direction.
1450
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. We have one minute per caucus.
Mr Kormos: I understand the nature of the panel that you want to structure, with various representatives, two persons chosen by police. The other position is clearly that you want to permit third-party complaints. What I don't understand, though, is third-party complaints; to wit, an agent of the aggrieved person or an independent person who may observe something taking place but who was not a party to it either by representing that aggrieved person or by being directly involved.
Mr Wilkes: Not a person who was a witness, for that person might be called by the panel. Permit me to create an example for you: supposing someone goes to a doctor and that person has got a badly bruised chest and perhaps some cracked or broken ribs. The doctor examines him and says, "How did you get this?" and they're a little hesitant to state. Finally the doctor gets from them the fact that, according to them, a policeman puts his elbow into their chest. But the person, because of language problems or because of ingrained fear as part of their heritage, does not want to go, and certainly would not want to go, to a police chief. Nor would I, and I don't consider myself to be an uneducated person. Then I think that doctor would have the right to go to the investigative panel and say, "Look, I've got a patient here and I think you people ought to hear about this." That's what I mean and what we mean by third-party representation.
Mr Tilson: On the question of who should investigate complaints, there are other professions, the most obvious ones that I can think of being the medical profession and the legal profession, where if there are complaints against a doctor, you complain to a panel of doctors. The same with the legal profession: You complain to a discipline committee or other types of committees of the law society and they investigate those complaints. That seems to work fairly satisfactorily. You don't think that this same type of practice of police investigating members of their own forces is satisfactory. Are you suggesting that police are not concerned about the operation of their own forces? I suspect that most police do not want bad cops out there.
Mr Wilkes: I agree with you, sir, but I disagree inasmuch as, if a person has to go to a police chief to make a complaint, then in the eyes of the public it is not seen to be without prejudice. That is my concern. It must be seen to be without prejudice as well as being without prejudice.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wilkes. We have to move on.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Our time is so limited. I'm interested in your complaints investigation panel and I'd like to see that looked into a little further. But my question is, you referred to it being undemocratic if police representatives were not on a complaints panel or complaints board. I'm very supportive of the police; I meet with them regularly in my own community, a habit I got into when I was mayor of the community. But if they work for us, the public, and if they are there to protect us, what's undemocratic if a panel is made up of a significantly greater number of civilians, or perhaps no police at all? What's undemocratic about that?
Mr Wilkes: It's the opposite extreme of the pendulum, if you want the police to police themselves or if you want civilians to police the police. I don't agree with either concept. They're both extremes, like Communism and Fascism. I believe that a panel should have police representatives on it so that they have the right to represent the officer who's being charged.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr Wilkes: Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time.
CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL, TORONTO CHAPTER
The Chair: Our next presenter is the Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto chapter, Mr Keith Wong. Welcome, Mr Wong.
Mr Keith Wong: Good afternoon, committee members. I'm the executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto chapter. Before I begin my presentation, I would like to give you a brief introduction of our organization. Since its establishment in 1980, CCNC, Toronto chapter, has been the local chapter of the national organization with 30 chapters across the nation. Our scope of activities includes political, civil, social, economic and cultural aspects that affect the living and contributions of Chinese Canadians in the Toronto area.
Today we remain an active force for the advocacy of Chinese Canadian people and their political rights. We are one of the few groups in the Chinese Canadian community frequently consulted by all levels of government and public bodies on a wide range of issues. We also make deputations at many public hearings on legislative issues, police services boards and councils of municipal governments. We also provide information and support to individual community members who have experienced discrimination or harassment in the workplace and in their access to services.
In 1989 the case involving Kay Poon, a Chinese Canadian nurse who was beaten by two Metro police officers, brought the issue of policing to the attention of our community. At that time, our organization was approached by Ms Poon to provide support and advocacy on her behalf in her complaint against the police officers. Since then, policing issues have become one of our major areas of advocacy work. Besides supporting many community members in their complaints against police officers, we have conducted two studies on attitudes towards police in the Chinese Canadian communities in the previous years. We have also conducted numerous forums and workshops on policing issues between the police and the Asian Canadian communities, including Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern Canadian community members as well.
Our organization is also a member of the coalition concerned about civilian oversight of the police. We believe that for the police oversight system to be effective, the following principles must be followed: accessibility, accountability, fairness, thoroughness and impartiality. The present system, as it now stands, fails in many of those aspects as a truly independent civilian oversight system. However, the new system proposed under Bill 105 would be far worse for civilians who are affected by the potential police wrongdoings.
I will highlight some of the problems of Bill 105 first, and I will share with you some real-life experiences that CCNC happened to have seen in the past.
The proposed bill will decentralize the system of police accountability to the local level with sweeping power given to the local police chiefs to deal with every stage of the complaint, from the filing of a complaint to the final adjudication of police wrongdoing. The power of the provincial oversight body will be reduced to functions that primarily will be reviewing files. To us this is unacceptable. Specifically, we have the key following concerns on the new bill.
Under the current system, a complainant may file a complaint with the local station of any police force or the office of the PCC. Even when the complaint is initially filed with the police station, the PCC is entitled to receive a copy of the complaint. Under the new bill, it requires that the complainant can only file complaints at the station of the police force to which the complaint relates, or the new commission, and there's no requirement that the new commission be served copies of the complaint and progress of the investigation filed with the local police force.
The restriction on where a complaint can be filed makes the system even less accessible to people who wish to complain about an officer in their own local community. The commission's role to monitor police complaints will be made practically impossible if it's not even notified if a complaint is filed. There is no means of ensuring accountability at the local level at all.
Under Bill 105, all investigation will also be done by the local chief and his or her designate. If the civilian body does not have the power to investigate in the first instance and they do not have the resources to investigate, it seriously undermines the accountability issues and whether the investigation is fair or is being fairly dealt with.
Under the current system, the classification of a complaint is done at the direction of PCC. With Bill 105, it will be the police chief's responsibility. The chief will not even need the consent of the new commission. Such an increase of power to the police chief to classify complaints undermines the principle of fairness and impartiality.
1500
Bill 105 requires that the complaint be made by someone who is directly affected by the police policy, services or conduct in question. The exclusion of third-party complaints creates two issues. First, the system will be much less accessible for individuals who feel disempowered to file a complaint; second, it will discourage complaints from even coming forward. Under Bill 105, any time the police chief thinks the police misconduct, even when proven, is not serious enough, he can resolve the matter informally without holding a hearing. The chief has no obligation to give reasons for his decision. The chief does not need the complainant's consent in order to resolve the matters informally. When informal resolution is being forced upon the complainant, it will only make the system more vulnerable to police manipulation.
Also, Bill 105 gives power to the chief to decide whether or not to hold a hearing and the power to designate the prosecutor at the hearing. There is no provision for the new commission to order or hold a hearing at the first instance. The only type of hearing that the new commission can hold is a hearing on appeal by the complainant. Given the chief's monopoly as an adjudicator of the police complaints, it is the ultimate affront to the civilian oversight system.
I now share two cases of real-life experience that our council happened to be aware of and supported at some stages. To protect their identities, I call them Ms X and Mrs Y.
The incident happened more than two years ago. Ms X, a Chinese Canadian woman in her late 40s, was involved in a tenant-landlord dispute. According to Ms X, she believed she had a valid lease and the bank had some kind of mixup with the lease documents. On that day, the agent and the landlord arrived with the police officers. They forced the tenants out of the house.
Ms X was not fluent in English. She tried to explain the situation in Mandarin and broken English phrases she could manage. However, the police refused to listen. She was handcuffed and taken out by force. In the process, she had bruises all over her arms and legs. Only when a second team of police officers arrived at the scene and realized how badly she was injured, they brought her back to the house and pacified her. During the whole incident, no interpretation was provided. When she sought medical treatment that evening, it was the family doctor who told her to make a complaint against the police officers involved. Realizing she was not fluent in English, her doctor told her: "Go to the police station adjacent to Chinatown. There must be someone who speaks Chinese in the station."
When she went to that station and she told the police officers what she wanted was to complain against the police officers, in her broken English, the officer on duty told her that nobody speaks Chinese here. He said to go home and make the complaint in English writing.
A few days later, she managed to find a friend to write out her experience and brought the complaint to the division. According to Ms X, nobody from the police, including the complaint investigator, ever talked to her or even handed her a pamphlet about the police complaints process. She had no idea what possible outcome she would expect from this complaint she filed. After nearly two years of investigation, the final report only said the police officers used necessary force and handcuffed her in order to protect herself and others from injuries. To add salt on her injury, the report says the police officers spent half an hour to advise her to leave the premise because of possible trespassing charges, but the report does not even mention that interpretation was not even provided to her. Ms X is now totally disillusioned by the police and about the complaints system. She only felt that she was being revictimized by filing a complaint against the police officers.
Another case involved Mrs Y. According to Mrs Y, a man who identified himself as a police officer entered their apartment in the afternoon. In fact, both her and her husband recognized the man as the police officer from a search of the condominium building the week before, and they let the man in. Mrs Y alleged that once they let the man inside the condo, the man forced her husband into a room and locked him up, and sexually assaulted her in the other room. Only when her continued screaming and shouting and her husband's pounding on the wall got too loud did the man leave. Immediately afterwards, they called the police to come. Mrs Y said that the police initially took the case very seriously, but once they mentioned the suspected man was a police officer whom they could recognize from the local division, the attitude changed. They were brought to the police station. They took down their story and gave him a yellow paper and told him to go home. Nothing happened.
The couple knows some simple English but are not fluent. Little did they know their reporting of a crime became a complaint against an unidentified police officer. Nothing happened until Mr Y went to the police station again to urge them to find the police officer. He even volunteered a strategy that may help identify the suspect to the police, including looking at the pictures of the officers at the police station. However, all he was given was the year books that showed tiny little pictures, the police group graduation photos of the officers taken many, many years ago. They were not helpful at all for the identification purpose. During the process, the couple found more hurdles than help from the local division. Only when we looked at the documentation when they approached us did the couple realize they had filed a complaint against the police.
We were also shocked that they never received any progress report on the investigation of the police complaints commission or the police. When we contacted the PCC, we were informed the PCC never received any record about the case nor any progress report on the investigation ever since the complaint was filed.
A few months later, the couple saw the alleged police officer in uniform in the public, and they marked down the badge number. This time, they did not even dare to tell the investigator directly, but asked a lawyer to draw up a letter for them and pass the information in writing to the investigator. I do not know what is in the minds of the couple now, but I can tell you, this couple is more scared about police reprisal than that their complaint will even get a chance of being fairly dealt with.
1510
These cases are real experiences. I do not think that people in this country deserve that kind of treatment from any of our public institutions. The sad fact is that it happened and our government institution is doing nothing to address them. Similar situations will be even worse in the future. Both cases illustrate significant problems of access in filing complaints of existing systems. The lack of and unwillingness to provide language assistance is one major concern. Will Bill 105 address those concerns? No. It will be worse. It will even reinstitutionalize those barriers by requiring complaints to be in writing, in English. If you are not fluent in written English, you can forget having your case heard.
Another serious concern with many complainants, including Ms X and Mrs Y, is police investigating themselves. Many of them filed complaints because they thought Canada is a fair and democratic country. They believed the complaints would be heard and investigated by an independent body in a fair manner. Only when they went through the system did they realize the system could be so inherently biased for the police officers.
The Vice-Chair: Excuse me, Mr Wong. I am sorry. We are on a very tight schedule, and your 15 minutes has expired.
Mr Wong: I can actually wrap up in the last paragraph. Okay?
The Vice-Chair: Ten seconds.
Mr Wong: With the amendments in Bill 105, the scepticism will only be heightened. I also wanted to address the Edmond Yu case, and that's about the chief's remark, but I'm going to skip that.
In conclusion, I would like to urge committee members to recommend the withdrawal of Bill 105. If you listen to the concerns of the community, you should make sure the system will be more accountable. If the government wants to change the Police Services Act for the people in Ontario, please look at the recommendations of the coalition that we presented. There are also the recommendations I would like to bring forward to this committee. A copy is actually enclosed for your reference. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wong, for your presentation.
METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SERVICES BOARD
The Vice-Chair: Our next presenter will be Lois Griffin from the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board. Good afternoon.
Ms Lois Griffin: Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity. My name is Lois Griffin. I'm the vice-chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board and a member of Metropolitan Toronto council.
Ms Joanne Campbell: My name is Joanne Campbell. I'm the executive director of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board.
Ms Griffin: We've circulated copies of our presentation to the committee. As you can see, there are a number of recommendations. I'm just going to highlight some of the more critical ones, as we see it, before us today. I should point out that we did, as a board, hold a public hearing on Bill 105 and as a result of that we've incorporated some of the concerns we heard expressed at that public meeting.
I'll go through these in the order they appear in our presentation. The first one I want to draw your attention to is on page 1 of our brief and relates to the size of police services boards. Under Bill 105 it provides that the board of a municipality other than a district, regional or metropolitan municipality with a population over 25,000 shall have a five-person police services board.
As a result of the legislation currently before the province, Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act, the new Metropolitan Toronto will be classed as a local government, hence we would have the numbers on our police services board reduced from seven to five. We would certainly like to continue to have a seven-person board both from a workload point of view, and it does allow us right now to have three members of council serve on that, which has been useful in having council have a better understanding of the police service. So we would ask for that amendment in the legislation.
You might want to consider making it so that any city, say over 300,000, would have the option of having a larger board if they so chose.
The second area I wanted to draw your attention to is on page 4 of our submission. It deals with the issue of providing time-limited employment contracts for chiefs and deputies. We would ask that you amend section 31 of the act to make it permissible for such time-limited employment contracts to be entered into between boards and the chiefs or deputies. In fact, many police services boards, including ours, now enter into contracts with our senior staff, but there has been some question, because the act doesn't explicitly allow it, as to whether it is, strictly speaking, allowed or what happens at the end of that time period.
We feel that because the recruitment, appointment and monitoring of performance of these senior officers are some of the responsibilities of police services boards, it's important that we be allowed to enter into these time-limited contracts. It certainly provides an important element in the oversight and accountability relationship between the boards and the chiefs. We would ask for that amendment so that there's explicit permission in the legislation for that.
The third issue I draw your attention to is on page 6 and it deals with the issue of loss of qualifications of uniformed members of the police service. Sometimes it happens that uniformed members may find themselves in the position of having lost some of their qualifications as police officers. For example, they may have been charged with impaired or careless driving and will lose their driver's licence; in some cases they may have lost, for some time, the permission to carry firearms. This then makes it difficult for them to carry out their normal function, and we are asking that the legislation would allow the chiefs and the boards, if they can't accommodate the officer, to be given the authority to suspend or demote the officer for the period during which his or her qualification as a police officer has been lost and until such time as the officer can requalify.
We would also suggest that you may want to have the legislation permit that a member can appeal the chief's decision when he would invoke this particular portion of the act.
The next area I want to draw your attention to is the section with regard to the complaint process, and it's dealt with on page 10 in our submission: the issue of suspension without pay. We believe again that there may be circumstances where the administration of police services and public confidence in that administration would be enhanced if the legislation were amended to allow chiefs to suspend police officers without pay when they are subject to allegations of serious misconduct, and I stress the word "serious."
1520
Currently the chief can suspend civilians without pay under these circumstances, and some of the other proposed amendments would allow for the suspension of both board members and chiefs without pay. We think it would also be appropriate that under certain circumstances the chief could also suspend without pay police officers if, as I say, they are the subject of serious misconduct allegations. We have, as part of our policy right now that results in suspensions generally, outlined which of those allegations are of such severity that they would merit suspension.
Right now it has to be a suspension with pay. We are suggesting the alternative that there could also be suspension without pay. The consequence of not having that currently allowed is that if there is a serious allegation that is proven, it may mean that an officer has been off for perhaps, depending on the severity, a year on pay. There is no ability to recoup that at any time if the officer has indeed been found guilty. It doesn't add to public confidence in the entire process.
On page 12 we have some comments with regard to the SIU. I wanted to simply make one reference, one of the things we are asking you for. That is that section 113 of the act, dealing with the duty of police officers to cooperate with the SIU, be amended to clarify the scope and extent of the duty to cooperate. It's right now the subject of some unclarity with regard to the duty to cooperate versus charter rights of an individual. One of our solicitors for the police services board is going to actually be submitting some more comments to you before the end of the week on that, but it's something that we think really needs some additional clarification.
Page 12 of our submission deals with the issue of excluded personnel. Police service employees who are employed in confidential capacities and matters related to labour relations, financial budgeting and planning as it relates to contracts and labour relations and employees who are directly accountable to the police services board should be clearly excluded from membership in bargaining groups. In the rest of the public sector these groups are traditionally excluded from union membership, and we really don't see any justification for treating the police service any differently, so we strongly recommend that section 114 of the act be amended to include a new definition of "excluded personnel" and, as I say, include some of the exceptions that I've mentioned.
One last area that I wanted to draw your attention to is on the last page of our submission and deals with the issue of court security. This has been a long-standing concern of the Metro Toronto Police Services Board and, I suspect, other police services boards as well. Because the province is responsible for the administration of justice and the administration of the courts, we are asking that legislation be changed so that the province would also be responsible for the provision of courtroom security within provincial courtrooms. This would include the escorting of prisoners to and from courts. Right now in Metropolitan Toronto it represents over $20 million of our budget to deal with it. It is only a partially controllable expense. It depends on the province. When new courts are opened we are expected to police them and it gives us, as I say, uncontrollable expenditures that we do not feel are properly the purview of the police services board. We ask that the legislation be changed to no longer make that one of our responsibilities.
That concludes my remarks. As I say, I've just touched on the highlights in our report. It doesn't mean that the rest of our recommendations aren't important, so I hope you would take the opportunity to look at them all.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Griffin, for your presentation. We do not have time for any questions from the members. On behalf of the committee, thank you very much.
YORK REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: The next presenter will be the York Regional Police Association: Paul Bailey, Fred Stojanovic and Steven Horner. If you could all individually identify yourselves for the purposes of Hansard, you'll have 15 minutes and you can begin any time.
Mr Paul Bailey: Thank you, Mr Chairman. On my right is Steven Horner. Steven is a police officer with York Regional Police. He's also on the board of directors for the York Regional Police Association. On my immediate left is staff sergeant Fred Stojanovic. Fred is the vice-president of the association. He's also a staff sergeant with York Regional Police and has 28 years' experience. Of course, you've already been introduced to John Moor, the president of the PAO. My name is Paul Bailey and I'm president of the York Regional Police Association. I'm also a sergeant with York Regional Police and have been for the past 24 years employed by the department.
Our association represents approximately 700 uniformed officers, from cadet up to and including the rank of staff sergeant, and 135 civilians. I'm appearing on behalf of our members to advise this standing committee that we are deeply disturbed by Bill 105, the Police Services Amendment Act. It is our opinion that many parts of Bill 105 are seriously flawed and actually deny police officers the same rights and privileges under law that are afforded any other citizen of this province, protection we need to do our jobs.
Although we have a variety of concerns over the amendments that are before you today, I would like to spend the little time I have to bring to your attention the concerns we have with the special investigations unit and the duty to cooperate.
As a brief reminder of the background, the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services in May 1996 introduced a document entitled Review of Police Services in Ontario: A Framework for Discussion. This document was developed by the government to generate discussion between the variety of police stakeholders so that a policing summit could be held in June 1996 to find better and more efficient ways to deliver police services.
The policing summit was presented a brief from the Police Association of Ontario, which we are members of, entitled Policing in Ontario: Building Safer Communities, which very clearly put forth the views shared by police associations from across the province on how to provide efficient and effective policing while maintaining the necessary protections for police officers.
As I indicated in my opening remarks, I do not intend to review the entire position of the York Regional Police Association or the Police Association of Ontario, but I do intend to bring to your attention two specific areas that both our association and the Police Association of Ontario focused on at the summit, and at most other meetings we've had over the years, concerning our relationship with the special investigations unit.
The first concern we feel the amendments should address is a very serious need for clarification to the act, that an officer is not required to forgo his or her rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when he or she becomes the subject of an investigation by the special investigations unit. This was unanimously recommended by all stakeholders to the minister in the police summit process last year.
It's no secret to anyone that since its inception the SIU and the policing community have had a strained relationship when dealing with issues that may compromise the rights of our officers. Time and time again the SIU has refused to clear officers, based on their decision to remain silent on the advice of legal counsel. This happens even after an overwhelming amount of evidence has shown the special investigations unit that the officer was justified in his actions. Let me provide you with two examples in York region alone, where one officer provided a statement on the advice of counsel and where another officer refused to cooperate on the advice of his lawyer.
In the first example, the officer was involved in the accidental shooting of a drug suspect in the course of a high-risk takedown. The SIU was immediately called in and began its investigation. In the course of its investigation the SIU requested that the officer submit to an interview. The Toronto Star quoted SIU spokesperson Sarah Persaud, "With the officer's co-operation, the investigation could be wrapped up in a matter of days." Several days later the officer, believing that if he submitted to an interview it would allow the SIU to conduct a full and timely investigation, attended the offices of the SIU, where he provided a full and detailed account of his actions. Boy, was he mistaken.
1530
The promised "couple of days" turned into more than a year and a half, with little or no information forthcoming from the SIU. The officer's lawyer was ignored in his written requests for the status of the investigation and the officer went through a living nightmare. Fortunately, the officer was finally cleared of any wrongdoing.
In another incident during the same time frame, an officer received a radio call to attend the scene of a "shots heard" call. The officer and his partners arrived at the scene and were confronted by a drunken, violent, armed man with a .45-calibre handgun. The man pointed the firearm at the officer and refused to drop the weapon. The officer shot the suspect twice. The suspect was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and charged criminally with firearm offences. The officer, on advice of counsel, refused to speak with the SIU, but provided a full written report of the shooting. Further, the officer also agreed to answer SIU questions if they were put in writing. The SIU never responded.
Six months later in Newmarket Provincial Court, the man pled guilty to two counts of pointing a firearm and one count of possessing a weapon while prohibited. The convicted man then said in open court that the officer took the only course of action possible and that he did not fault the officer. The man was sentenced to 15 months in jail. Unbelievably, the officer was still not cleared by the SIU. The man served the required time in jail and was released. Still the SIU failed to clear the officer. Finally, some 15 months after the shooting, the officer was cleared.
This scenario begs the question, how could any self-respecting agency allow a human being to suffer needlessly over such a prolonged period of time and maintain any credibility?
These two cases are put forth to demonstrate the difficulties we have with the SIU and to show that some officers have cooperated and decided not to exercise their right to remain silent and it didn't matter one iota.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was created and passed in law to protect all citizens, including police officers. It boggles the mind that our government continues to refuse to recognize through legislation that police officers are entitled to the same rights as all citizens. Think about it. By continuing to ignore this plea from police, you are telling them that they have fewer rights than monsters like Clifford Olson or Paul Bernardo. What a disgraceful commentary on our society that would be.
The second concern our association has with the SIU was also addressed at the police summit. All the parties at the summit process unanimously agreed that the mandate for the unit should be more clearly defined to focus resources on the serious occurrences involving life-threatening injuries or death. Too much of the unit's time and resources are spent tracking relatively minor occurrences.
In York region, one of our officers was responding to an intrusion alarm at a convenience store. While en route to this incident, the officer had his roof lights activated. As the officer entered the intersection, a member of the public, in a high state of intoxication, suddenly crossed the road and was struck by the cruiser. He suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The SIU was called in according to protocol and an investigation commenced.
The SIU waited to the last day before the six-month statute of limitations under the Highway Traffic Act was to expire and charged the officer with careless driving. The charge went to court, but a Newmarket judge dismissed the charge, saying there was no evidence to continue. The officer didn't even have to enter a defence in that case. The officer was cleared by the SIU 10 months after the incident.
Again, what is wrong with this picture? Further, why is the SIU wasting valuable time investigating minor traffic accidents that could have been handled by local police agencies? It is our view that the SIU should have clearly defined mandates to investigate only serious occurrences involving life-threatening injuries or death. Too much time is spent on relatively minor incidents.
In closing, you have already heard from several of my colleagues on a variety of subjects. We wish to emphasize our extreme concern that the legislation will further diminish the rights of police officers. Further, we urge you to adopt the recommendations of the police summit. Further, the SIU mandate should clarify that police officers are not to forgo their rights.
In my brief that you have before you, I have provided documentary evidence on the cases I have just mentioned to you and it also displays some of the letters written by lawyers on behalf of those officers.
I also have to add a remark that if government wants to take rights away from police officers in this province, who's next? Is it going to be doctors, lawyers or perhaps even politicians?
I ask you to very carefully consider our information, and I truly thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.
Mr Klees: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have to say to you that much of what you've said seems to make a great deal of sense. I don't think this particular piece of legislation deals with the SIU specifically, but as a member of this committee, I can certainly undertake to you that this particular subject matter will be brought forward and we will have some discussions on this. It does make some sense. I thank you for your presentation.
Mr Ramsay: I too want to thank you very much for your presentation. I find it very valuable and we'll hope to incorporate some of your ideas and amendments.
Mr Kormos: Earlier today, when the Solicitor General was here, we raised -- you know full well there's a whole lot of people who want to talk about the duty to cooperate, not from your perspective but on creating a duty to cooperate. We expressed our concern to the Solicitor General that this wasn't an issue during the course of these hearings. It's simply going to linger there until it's addressed one way or the other and it's going to have to be debated. As you well know, there are arguments to be made; you've made one, and we're going to hear other arguments this afternoon that are not in accordance with yours.
But the Solicitor General did say he will continue to address the issue of duty to cooperate. I was heartened by that, but when I asked the assistant deputy minister what the minister meant by that, he said basically, "I don't know because I haven't talked to the minister about that yet." I'm in limbo too. We'll be prodding the Solicitor General. At some point it's going to have to be addressed.
Mr Bailey: Mr Kormos, if you go back to some of the comments that were made this morning, and I sat here listening to them, one of the things we're requesting in the SIU mandate is a more focused approach to their investigations. You have to understand that any time a person is placed at the head of a group of people, like the director of the SIU, he brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge but he also brings with him his own particular point of view.
What we've been faced with in the last seven years since the SIU became an entity is that we've had more directors in charge of the SIU than the Maple Leafs have had coaches of their hockey club, and I can say that the Maple Leafs have a better record.
Mr Kormos: Or than this province has had premiers in the last seven years.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much on behalf of the committee for your presentation.
1540
TOWN OF HUNTSVILLE; TOWNSHIPS OF GEORGIAN BAY, LAKE OF BAYS AND MUSKOKA LAKES
The Vice-Chair: The next presenter is for the town of Huntsville and township of Muskoka Lakes, Chris Williams. I see here that you're also representing the townships of Georgian Bay and Lake of Bays. You'll have 15 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Chris Williams: Mr Chairman, members of the committee, I'll try to be brief. You should have now a written submission that looks like this. If you turn to the first page, you'll see the names and addresses of the parties and witnesses making submission. My name appears at the top. I'm going to be speaking on behalf of the town of Huntsville and the townships of Georgian Bay, Lake of Bays and Muskoka Lakes.
We also have in attendance to answer questions -- I don't think they want to speak at this time -- Mr Len Clarke, who's the deputy mayor of the town of Huntsville; Mr Mike Kennedy, who's the mayor of the township of Georgian Bay. And we've had a change in cast: As we go down the page, instead of Mr Thomas Pinkcard, the mayor of Lake of Bays, we have Janet Peake, who's a councillor; and Mr Russ Harvey, who's the deputy mayor of the township of Muskoka Lakes.
The submission, at the second tab, contains a letter that I forwarded to your clerk, Mr Arnott, on March 13, and that basically outlines what our submission is going to be. I'm not sure if the members of committee have all had a chance to read this over, but the position of the municipalities I represent is essentially to support the amendments proposed by the Police Services Amendment Act, except for one key provision which relates to the administration of the provision of police services, and I'll come to that in a minute.
First of all, to explain my clients: The municipalities I'm representing here are all local municipalities within the district municipality of Muskoka. They comprise four of the six area municipalities within Muskoka district and have a combined population somewhat in excess of 25,000; that's over 50% of the population of Muskoka.
The district of Muskoka, while it's called a district, is, by virtue of the Muskoka act and the Regional Municipalities Act, deemed for all intents and purposes to be a regional municipality. So administratively for most purposes it functions like the region of York or the regions of Niagara, Ottawa-Carleton and so forth, even though it's called a district municipality.
There's an important difference, though. In accordance with part VIII of the District Municipality of Muskoka Act, all police functions are performed by the OPP at no cost to the local municipalities and no cost to the district municipality. All other upper-tier municipalities in a regional government system, with the exception of the restructured county of Oxford, which is a bit of an anomaly, currently provide their own police services. For example, you've got the Metro Police, York Regional Police, Peel Regional Police and so forth. That's not the case in Muskoka, and that's unique in that the OPP provide the services to all the municipalities in Muskoka. It's not through a contract and it's not paid for -- which I guess has been a nice arrangement so far, although obviously that's ending with this act, but it's not through a contract with the upper tiers. It's simply being provided in the same way it's provided in townships, municipalities and counties.
The Police Services Amendment Act is generally a step in the right direction. Aside from providing for proper financial responsibility for the provision of police services, it provides greater flexibility in providing police services. Municipalities have a greater degree of control in the direction that is provided to their inhabitants and there are mechanisms put in place to ensure accountability and public input.
Our clients, Mr Chairman and members of the committee, endorse the thrust and intent of the act, in particular as it was articulated by the honourable Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services upon its introduction, where he stated: "Local government should make decisions about local services, while the provincial government should ensure province-wide standards of policing and community safety. The amended act" -- that is, the Police Services Act -- "will cut red tape, foster community involvement and allow more local control over police service delivery." I put an emphasis on "local" and "local municipality."
The Police Services Amendment Act permits many municipalities greater flexibility to determine the best way in which police services are going to be provided to their inhabitants. That includes, as you are likely aware, establishing or maintaining their own police force, contracting with other municipalities for the provision of police services, setting up joint police forces with other municipalities, and contracting with the Ontario Provincial Police. If they do nothing, the Ontario Provincial Police are required to provide the police services and they bill the municipality.
However, the Police Services Amendment Act precludes local municipalities within all district, regional or metropolitan municipalities, with the exception of the restructured county of Oxford, from enjoying this greater flexibility and autonomy. The sole authority for contracting for police services, providing police services, setting up a police force and so forth is restricted to the upper tier. That may make sense in all the other regional government systems where there are currently regional police forces or, in the case of Toronto, a Metro police force; you may not want to dismantle or leave the door open to dismantling an existing system. But in Muskoka, as I've said, it's the only regional government type of municipality where police services are provided, and exclusively provided, by the OPP and not through contract with the upper tier. In that sense they are the same as county municipalities or northern district municipalities.
The town of Huntsville and the townships of Georgian Bay, Lake of Bays and Muskoka wish to have the flexibility to directly contract with the OPP, as provided for in section 5 of the Police Services Amendment Act, and to establish a police services board. It's important for them to be able to establish their own police services board. That could be done either individually or jointly. The OPP currently provide police services to all municipalities within the district of Muskoka. That seems to be operating very well. There is currently a large detachment in the town of Huntsville, one in Bracebridge and one in Midland, which serves the township of Georgian Bay.
Notwithstanding the fact that my clients comprise two thirds of the municipality within Muskoka and have over half of the population and households, they're precluded from assuming police service functions through the service migration provisions which came about by the omnibus bill last year, which was to provide greater flexibility and local autonomy, because police services are not included within the list of services that can migrate. This act effects a fairly great hardship on my clients and precludes a lot of local discretion and decision-making and flexibility, which exists in Muskoka in kind of an anomalous situation.
I'd point out that the restructured county of Oxford is also deemed to be a regional municipality by the Regional Municipalities Act and by its own enabling legislation, but it, which is provided some of its police services by the OPP, and others, the local municipalities that have their own forces, likewise enjoys the flexibility accorded all other lower-tier or local municipalities in the act. If you want to look at a more analogous situation, Muskoka is much more similar to the situation in Oxford than it is to the situation in Metro Toronto or York region.
On behalf of my clients, therefore, we request that the Police Services Amendment Act be amended by adding a subsection to the end of section 5 to permit area municipalities within the district municipality of Muskoka to contract with the OPP. I have included a proposed draft at tab number 6. It's fairly short and I'll just read it to you:
"(6) Notwithstanding subsection 4(4)" -- and 4(4) is the part of the act which precludes local municipalities and regional government systems from having any role in police services -- "an area municipality within a district, regional or metropolitan municipality that was provided police services by the OPP on January 14, 1997, may enter into an agreement under section 10, alone or jointly" -- and section 10 is a provision in the new act which allows for contracting with the OPP upon the establishment of a police services board for the provision of police services -- "with one or more councils" -- so they can do it jointly or individually -- "to have police services provided by the OPP," which is the situation today.
Rationally, you could take the situation in Muskoka much further and really establish the same system that has been set up for all county governments, for the restructured county of Oxford and for northern district municipalities by letting all municipalities have that ability to set up their own police forces, contract for police services, set up joint forces or contract with the OPP.
We are only asking for a small piece of that pie. We're simply saying that my clients would like the ability to contract with the OPP. The amendment I've proposed would in no way limit the regional municipality of Muskoka from contracting with the OPP, even setting up its own police force for Bracebridge and Gravenhurst or, if one of my clients had a change of heart, to provide police services for them. It provides the maximum level of flexibility without diminishing a role which the district municipality may want to take. Frankly, I see no reason why the district of Muskoka should not have the same treatment as county municipalities or northern district municipalities.
1550
I'd point out that Muskoka is entirely, aside from the fact that the OPP currently provides all the services, surrounded by county and district municipalities on all sides to which the benefit of the proposed changes to the Police Services Act amendment will apply. These are Simcoe, Victoria county, Haliburton district and Parry Sound district.
It appears inconsistent with the stated goals and objectives of the Police Services Amendment Act and inappropriate to exclude local municipalities within Muskoka from the flexibility provided to their immediate neighbours, and there's no reason not to do that. As I say, the reason that I can see for putting this restriction on regional government and municipalities is if there's already a regional police force that's functioning and there may be some concern over undermining that existing municipal police force. In this case there is no district municipality of Muskoka police force; the OPP simply provides the service, as they do to most county townships.
It is our submission that the amendment which we've requested promotes and advances the expressed thrust and intent of the act by allowing municipalities within the district greater flexibility in providing police services while providing for public accountability and cost savings.
Aside from these concerns, my clients support the amendments contemplated by the Police Services Amendment Act. We would be pleased and the representatives, my clients personally who are here, would be pleased to answer any questions which you have concerning this. Again, we would request that the amendment which we've asked for be made, and I would point out that the municipalities comprise two thirds of the municipalities within the district of Muskoka and they hold over half the population. Thank you. Are there any questions?
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Williams. Your timing is impeccable. You've used the full 15 minutes, so there will not be time for questions. On behalf of the committee, thank you for your presentation.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF POLICE SERVICES BOARDS
The Vice-Chair: The next presenter is the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards. Good afternoon.
Ms Hazel Lloyst: My name is Hazel Lloyst. I am a member of the Belleville Police Services Board and also president of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards. I am joined today by Sandi Humphrey, executive director of the association, and by Malcolm Winter, our labour relations adviser.
OAPSB is a voluntary membership association of police services boards throughout Ontario. Our mission of excellence in civilian police governance is pursued through the provision of advice, guidelines, education, training, advocacy, research and information services to boards throughout Ontario. Our brief has been circulated, and while it contains a number of issues, we will choose to limit our remarks to six areas of concern, which will hopefully allow a few moments for questions.
Composition of police services boards: Our association has historically maintained that the current composition of local police services boards, whereby a majority of board members are appointed by the province of Ontario, serves the public interest by precluding local political interference in police operational issues. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has long argued for the abolition of local police services boards in order to enable local councillors, elected by and accountable to local taxpayers, to govern police services and determine policing priorities and needs at the local level.
The proposal in Bill 105 which will allow municipalities the ability to appoint one of the citizen members of the board is clearly a compromise. We are prepared to work with municipalities under this new governance model and seek to move beyond the difficult and strained relationship that exists between some boards and councils. We anticipate an opportunity to have input into the development of regulations under the act and seek to ensure that the council appointment process, criteria and appointment term mirror that utilized by the province of Ontario.
Transportation of prisoners and court security: During the summit and post-summit consultation process, our association reinforced our long-held view that transportation of prisoners and security in the courts are not policing functions. Bill 105 fails to respond to the views of municipalities and local boards which put forward the concept that duties that do not require the power of arrest should, in the interests of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, be assigned to other government agencies.
Vacancies on police services boards: Lapses in appointment terms of members of police services boards have plagued us for years. In some instances boards have been unable to undertake business because of the lack of a quorum. This is a circumstance that cannot be tolerated, given the magnitude of responsibilities that fall to local boards. We propose the following amendment to Section 27(10):
"If the term of appointment of a member appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council expires, such member will continue to serve until a new appointment or reappointment is made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council."
Police funding inequities: Since 1990 our association has advanced the concept of fairness and equity in the financing of policing services throughout Ontario. We applaud the government of Ontario for its commitment to have all communities and municipalities in Ontario finance their policing through the municipal tax base. Addressing this issue will place all municipalities on an even playing field and will go a long way towards ensuring accountability for policing service at the local level.
While we are pleased that the government plans on making all municipalities financially responsible for their policing, our delight has been tempered by a proposed amendment to section 7 of the act providing that "two or more boards may not agree that the police force of one board will provide the other board or boards with all the police services that a municipality is required to provide." This will preclude smaller municipalities from exploring the option of contracting for their local police service from an existing police service municipally. Their only contracting option will be with the Ontario Provincial Police. While many police services boards are extremely pleased with the service provided in their municipalities by way of a contract with the OPP, we suggest the option of contracting with a municipal police service will provide for an alternative policing method and a competitive marketplace that best serves Ontario's taxpayers.
Ms Sandi Humphrey: There is a provision to deal with severance pay in the act in the event that a police service disbands. Section 40 provides for arbitration if matters relating to severance have not been agreed to by the local police services board and members of the local police service. There is a separate provision in the Employment Standards Act that allows for severance pay. That provision has traditionally not applied to police service transfers because they have rights under section 40 and because uniformed officers are almost always offered employment with the successor police service, OPP, and do not lose continuity of employment.
In the case of the Orillia police service move to OPP policing, a section 40 hearing has been held relating to severance but a decision has not yet been rendered. At the same time, the Orillia Police Association has filed a complaint with the employment standards branch claiming severance under the Employment Standards Act. Should the Orillia Police Association's claim for severance under the Employment Standards Act succeed, 33 police officers, each of whom is now employed with the Ontario Provincial Police, will share a severance award estimated at over half a million dollars funded entirely by the taxpayers of the city of Orillia.
It is preposterous, in our view, that the taxpayers of Orillia may be facing this massive expenditure. It is our position that the intent of section 40 of the Police Services Act was to preclude application of the Employment Standards Act in this case. Obviously the Orillia Police Association does not share this viewpoint. We urge the government to clarify this issue by way of an amendment or regulation making it clear that section 40 of the Police Services Act is intended to supersede any other severance rights under the Employment Standards Act.
Another issue we wish to speak to was just previously addressed by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board relating to exclusions from association membership. This again has been a long-standing concern of police services boards and relates to the need for board staff, labour relations and human resource employees who are unencumbered and uncompromised by membership in a collective bargaining unit. Such personnel are traditionally excluded from trade union representation in the rest of society, and we concur with Metro's view that there's no rationale for different treatment in the policing sector.
1600
The final issue of concern relates to the allocation of resources and the assignment of police personnel. Police services boards are of the view that bargaining by associations and police services boards should not be permitted in respect of the allocation of police resources or assignment of police personnel. Interest arbitrators have on occasion conceded to police association demands to prescribe the number of police personnel attending to police duties at certain times. These matters are clearly best determined by police management and the police services board, who are ultimately responsible for determining what and how resources can be used efficiently and effectively to best meet community expectations. Management requires the flexibility to deploy police resources in a cost-effective manner.
Ms Lloyst: In conclusion, we have advanced a number of proposals for amendment, most of which seek to provide local police services boards and police managers with the flexibility to govern and manage police services in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The public demand for high-quality and affordable policing service places police services boards in a difficult position. We want to provide quality policing and yet we have very little flexibility under the Police Services Act to do so in a cost-effective and efficient manner. We urge your consideration of our proposals to help us do just that.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have two minutes per caucus, starting with the Liberal caucus.
Mr Crozier: Good afternoon. On page 2 of your submission, under "Composition of Police Services Boards," although I think you go on to say you're willing to work in this area, you made the comment that the current system serves the public interest by precluding local political interference in police operational issues. How do you see that as differing from provincial political interference?
Ms Lloyst: At the present time the composition is made up of a majority of provincial appointees. The proposal to the act is that there would now be a majority, if you like, municipal in that there would be two councillors.
Mr Crozier: I understand, but what's the political difference? Right now they're provincial political appointees. Presumably they are, and most of the ones I see in my area are, current government supporters, so they're political appointments. Having been on a police services board and on a municipal council and mayor of a town, I'd much rather they be a local political appointment than the current system of being a provincial political appointment. That's the difference I'm trying to get at.
Ms Lloyst: I can tell you that I wasn't a political appointment, but I may be the exception.
Ms Humphrey: I have served as executive director of the association of police services boards now for 10 years. I think the act under which we've worked for many years whereby there has been a majority of appointees appointed by the province has served to advance the application of provincial standards. I think that was the intent and I think the application of standards at a provincial level and the province appointing a majority and the majority of those appointees being told, "Your job is to apply this act at the local level," advanced the application of standards.
However, it also advanced the war between provincial appointees and council appointees, and the different points of view as to who should serve as a majority has been going on for a lifetime and has preoccupied a number of local jurisdictions, and the provincial jurisdiction as well.
I just see telling one body, "You must by law do this," and having another body funded, riddled with -- I mean, the end result being the war doesn't surprise us. I guess that's why there may be some people here surprised to see that we're -- we've got to try something else because we don't want the war to continue. We want to try a different methodology where municipalities and boards can attempt to apply standards and yet govern in a different manner, closer to the municipality. Time will tell whether this works.
Mr Crozier: That can be resolved, certainly, by having the province pay for it all, since it has the standard.
Ms Humphrey: I have thrown that out on occasion. It didn't go very far.
Mr Kormos: I'm trying to get a handle on the motive for the new model in terms of police services boards now that there's effectively a domination by municipal members on the boards. In conjunction with that, they've transferred responsibility for setting police board budgets on to the shoulders of municipal council. Mind you, the bill still says and the minister would say there's still a right of the police services board to seek something from the OCCPS. I'm suspicious about it. I'm wondering what's going on here. Have you got any handle on what's going on, why they would create effectively municipally dominated police services boards but then give municipal governments the power to set budgets? Something fishy is going on here. Do you have any feel for it?
Ms Lloyst: AMO has advanced the statement that those who pay have the say, that they are paying the bills so they should have the say. Even though at the summit and post-summit process a majority of the stakeholders supported the status quo, that did not happen and we are attempting to work with this new model that has been presented to us.
Mr Kormos: I know municipal politicians too, and yes, I was one as well, and I know the kind of pressures they're under to generate things like zero property tax increases, notwithstanding that it's going to mean fewer cops on the street, longer response time, the whole nine yards. What's going to happen?
Ms Humphrey: I guess we are sitting here somewhat comforted by two things: (1) that the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services is still there; (2) that if a board gets a budget back that municipal council has taken a pencil to, a budget comes back to the board and the board is sitting there saying, "This no longer gives us the ability to adhere to the standards of the province that we are, in accord with legislation, bound to comply with, nor does it give us the ability to satisfy the requirement for adequacy that we've been told we're going to soon have input in developing and that finally we're going to have a definition for adequacy," the mechanism for appeal is still there. Those are the pieces that we've been told will come, and if they do, hopefully this will settle things down.
Mr Kormos: It's been a long time since I've felt warm and comfortable and fuzzy with this government, honest.
Mr Tilson: We didn't feel too comfortable with your government.
Mr Kormos: We didn't shut down police stations.
Mr Carr: Thank you for your presentation. It's good to see you again, Sandi. I think your comments about the summit were correct in terms of the debates that went on there. There were some lively debates, not only in the formal part but also informally, and they're not unlike what I recollect we had in caucus when this discussion came up as well.
But my question relates to the issue of oversight. If you've been here today you've heard a great deal of concern about oversight, both from the association and from some of the other groups that have come forward. What would your recommendation be on the oversight? You basically said go back and take a look at it, which isn't really too helpful because we need to move forward. If you were going to set it up, how would you do it? How would your association say we should do it?
Ms Humphrey: With respect to oversight, we took a view at the summit that the public has significant demands for oversight and that the public, under the current model, has a lot of questions and currently under this proposed one seems to have more. When we looked at what resulted from the summit, the summary of summit proceedings, it became evident that all stakeholders at the summit agreed that any system of police oversight must be credible, clear, fair, transparent, independent, direct, objective and open. Our very real sense at this point in time is that what is being proposed does not satisfy that. We want a system that will, and we are more than prepared to continue discussions and work towards that. We are civilian overseers ourselves. We are trustees of the public interest in policing at the local level, and we take that seriously. We are uncomfortable with the proposal that is in front of us.
Mr Carr: Let me put you on the spot a bit here, Sandi.
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Carr, we've run out of time. Thank you very much for your presentation.
1610
PARKDALE COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES
The Chair: Our next presenter is Parkdale Community Legal Services, Tanya Lena and Patricia Allard.
Mr Kormos: Chair, while these folks are settling in, can I pose a point to you for a response from the ministry? That is with respect to this issue of the role of the OCCPS under the new structure of municipal councils setting budgets, because I think somebody is being set up here. Can we receive some written confirmation from the government that the OCCPS will continue to have an unfettered discretion to determine the standard of policing and not one that's modified by, for instance, the ability of the municipality to pay, which is a standard that this government has been importing, let's face it, in Bill 84 for arbitration of firefighters' salaries and minimum staffing? I think it's important for us to know that.
The Chair: Mr Carr, did you understand the question?
Mr Carr: Yes. As was indicated, as a suggestion from Mr Klees, we will get that clarification for you, for all of us.
The Chair: We can then proceed. Welcome. You have 15 minutes. I'd ask you to proceed.
Ms Patricia Allard: Good afternoon. My name is Patricia Allard. I'm an articling student. I'm joined by Tanya Lena, who is a community legal worker. We are here on behalf of Parkdale Community Legal Services.
Parkdale Community Legal Services was established in 1971 to provide advocacy and legal representation to people with low incomes living in the Parkdale area. The Parkdale community consists predominantly of people who are marginalized within the dominant culture. We work with people of colour, immigrants, refugees, homeless people, working-class people, the unemployed and psychiatric survivors. These communities perceive that they are heavily policed yet have limited access to police services and police protection.
I'd like to start with a quote: "In my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there has got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world to be built and the only way it's going to be built is with extreme methods. I for one will join with anyone, I don't care what colour you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth." This was an excerpt from a speech given by Malcolm X at the Oxford Union Society in 1964.
Change to end miserable conditions that exist with regard to policing in Ontario is not only needed, it is necessary. I must at the very least applaud the present government for acknowledging that change to the Police Services Act is desperately needed. However, I must end my applause there.
Bill 105 gives Ontarians the appearance of change for the better. If you take a good look at the bill, you'll quickly see that the changes that the present government is proposing are changes for the worse, changes that lack thought, changes that ignore the needs and concerns of all Ontarians who are directly affected by these changes; changes that ignore some of the most basic principles of administrative law; changes that enable police officers to continue to harass, degrade and murder Ontarians without being held accountable for their actions; changes that increase and ensure difficulty of access to the police complaints system in Ontario. Why are such changes present in a bill created in a country that prides itself on being so democratic and pro-human rights?
The answer is simple: The democratic process was never used in creating Bill 105. The most intensely policed communities in Ontario were never properly and genuinely consulted in the review of the Police Services Act. Bill 105 is the product of government officials in consultation with the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. Ontarians like me and those who will appear before you this month and next month never had any input. Anyone who allows Bill 105 to be passed and become law in Ontario will be shamed for not upholding the genuine and proper democratic process.
Ms Tanya Lena: The first specific issue that we wish to address today is the duty to cooperate with the SIU. Since 1978, 24 Ontarians have been shot by police officers. The vast majority of these shootings have been fatal. The majority of the victims have been people of colour. In no case has a police officer been convicted of an offence with respect to the shooting of a civilian, and in most cases no charges have been laid.
The special investigations unit was created by amendments to the Police Services Act in 1990 to provide accountability in precisely such circumstances of serious injuries and deaths that may have resulted from criminal offences committed by police officers. However, until police officers, whether they are suspects are not, are compelled to cooperate with the SIU, the SIU will not fulfil its intended function. We therefore recommend that subsection 113(9) of the Police Services Act be amended to require that any officer involved in an investigation falling within the jurisdiction of the SIU be required to turn any requested information and evidence over to the SIU no later than 24 hours after the request.
Secondly, the government should take the position that subsection 113(9) is constitutionally valid, and officers who refuse to give information or provide evidence should be charged with obstructing justice unless and until a court of law has determined that subsection 113(9) is unconstitutional. Criminal charges should also be laid where there is evidence to support the charge.
Thirdly, a subject officer who does not cooperate should be suspended or dismissed from the police service as a result of failure to meet conditions of employment.
In addition, the special investigations unit must be adequately resourced to hire and train more investigators and staff. These employees should be primarily civilians and should reflect Ontario's racial diversity. Police officers should be required to report all incidents of police use of force to the SIU within 15 minutes of the incident, and the SIU should be equipped to respond immediately. The public should have access to the SIU through a 24-hour phone line to be used to report instances of police use of force.
Ms Allard: We're now going to turn to the public complaints system. The rules of procedural fairness in administrative law, as we all know, dictate that for an investigation and a decision to be of any value they must be done by a neutral, impartial investigator and decision-maker. It can be deducted from the report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System and the Uniform Treatment, a community inquiry into policing of disadvantaged people, that the police force is pervaded with biases towards people of colour, homeless people, sex trade workers, immigrants, youth, and gay, lesbian and bisexual people. The ability of the police force to investigate police complaints has been and continues to be questioned by the community agencies and their members.
I'd first like to address classification of complaints. Bill 105 empowers the chief of police to determine whether a complaint is about the policy of or services provided by the police force or the conduct of a police officer. Further, the chief of police has the power to decide to not deal with a complaint if he or she deems that the complaint is frivolous or vexatious. This amendment empowers the chief of police with the authority to arbitrarily dismiss any complaints. This amendment does not provide for any accountability on the part of the chief of police.
It is our position that the classification of complaints should continue to be the responsibility of a civilian oversight body. Further, no complaint should be dismissed merely on the grounds that it is frivolous or vexatious without an investigation, written reasons given to the complainant and a right of appeal.
1620
Ms Lena: Next we want to address third-party complaints. Under Bill 105, a complaint can only be filed by a person directly affected by the policy or service of the police force or the conduct of a police officer. The bill does not define "person directly affected." Bill 105 gives the chief of police the power to determine whether the complainant is directly affected and subject to the review of the new commission upon the complainant's request.
These amendments severely undermine both the accountability and accessibility of the police complaints system. The amendments place the burden exclusively on the victim to file a complaint. This is analogous to requiring that an abused woman file a complaint with her abuser after she has been beaten up.
Secondly, the elimination of third-party complaints limits the democratic rights of all Ontarians by preventing people who witness abuse by police officers from acting to redress the abuse of power that they have seen.
Finally, the amendments deliver a carte blanche to the chief of police to determine who exactly has been victimized by members of his own organization. An accessible police complaints system must include provisions for third-party complaints, for anonymous complaints and for complaints to be filed by community organizations on behalf of individuals.
Ms Allard: I now turn to the investigation of a complaint. Under Bill 105, all investigations will be done by the local chief of police or his or her designate. The chief of police does not have to file any investigative report with the new commission. This effectively removes any civilian investigative power into police complaints and removes any civilian review power of investigations completed by the police. If the civilian body does not have the power to investigate or have an inherent right of review, there is no guarantee that the investigations will be thorough, fair or impartial.
The investigations of complaints must be handed over to a civilian agency. This agency must be representative of communities it services. This agency should be assigned to do the investigations, maintaining the whole process separate from the police force. This would assist in restoring public trust in the police complaint system. Further, having the totality of a complaint processed within one agency can potentially speed up the process and reduce costs.
Ms Lena: Next we will address filing a complaint. Bill 105 requires that police complaints be filed with the division of the police force to which a complaint relates or with the new commission. As it stands, individuals who wish to make police complaints are often fearful of laying complaints at local police stations due to the intimidation and harassment they have already experienced. Furthermore, legal clinics have documented increased harassment of individuals by local police officers after they lay complaints. Thus, restrictions on where a complaint may be filed make the system less accessible to people who wish to complain about an officer in their community.
All public complaints should be filed with a streamlined civilian oversight agency or satellite offices of that agency, not with local police departments. This will ensure accountability and accessibility to the citizens of this province.
Ms Allard: Giving the chief of police the power to classify, the power to determine whether a complainant is directly affected by the conduct of a police officer, the power to decide whether to deal with a complaint without having to give any reasons for his or her decision, the power to conduct an investigation into a complaint and the power to resolve a complaint informally, without the consent of the complainant, defies the rules of procedural fairness. The chief of police is a member of the municipal or provincial police force. Bill 105 effectively makes the chief of police a decision-maker without any accountability.
Ms Lena: Since the beginning of 1996, eight Ontarians have been shot by police officers. Community mobilization in response to this increasing police violence has been vigorous. The public no longer has confidence in an increasingly violent police force, nor in a government which sees fit to place this police force above the law.
The importance of a truly independent, accountable system of citizen review of police cannot be overstated. Bill 105, if enacted in its present form, will severely erode the principles of accountability and send a message to the police that they will not be held accountable for the abuse and misuse of their power. The changes proposed in Bill 105 are completely unacceptable to the people of Ontario. We take the position that Bill 105 is not salvageable. It is a piece of legislation that will place the police of Ontario above the law. Therefore, it should be withdrawn. In its place, a civilian oversight system based on the principles set out in the coalition report In Search of Accountability should be introduced by way of new legislation.
The Chair: As our time has elapsed, I thank you very much for your excellent presentation here today.
PEEL REGIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presenter is the Peel Regional Police Association, represented by Mr Stu Campbell, administrator. Welcome, sir.
Mr Stu Campbell: Just for the information of Mr Kormos, we don't have bake sales in Peel.
Members of the committee, I'm here to speak on behalf of the 1,100 uniformed members of the Peel regional police service. These members have some major concerns with the proposed amendments to the Police Services Act, particularly the amendments to the hearings and appeals processes.
At some point in their careers every one of these members could face an allegation of misconduct arising out of some alleged disciplinary infraction. These amendments would have significant ramifications on the legal rights of these officers. The members of the Peel regional police service and all serving police officers in this province deserve to be accorded legal fairness in the disciplinary process, fairness in the form of the preservation of the existing legal and procedural safeguards that govern the hearings and appeals processes.
This committee must be under no illusion about how profoundly the proposed legislation would destroy the legal rights and procedural safeguards of all police officers in this province. This legislation is without precedent and without justification. This legislation will not save the taxpayers of this province one cent, yet it will eradicate legal rights and protections that all previous governments in this and all other provinces have recognized as fundamental and essential for police officers for the last 75 years.
The late Arthur Maloney QC, arguably the foremost criminal lawyer and jurist this country has ever seen, stated in the early 1970s that police officers, by virtue of the legal obligations facing them as they carry out the most dangerous of all public responsibilities, and that's the protection of public safety and the enforcement of the law, were not to be treated as if they formed just another group of public employees in the discipline process. The labour model has no place in the police discipline process. The proposed legislation would instantly transform policing into that very mode. In short, this proposed legislation means nothing short of the deprofessionalization of policing.
The most basic characteristic of procedural fairness is having the right to a hearing before a finding is made against you. Fairness also envisages a hearing where the charge is required to be particularized, where the law requires that it specify the alleged infraction of the code of offences and not where it may be arbitrarily conjured up in the mind of the chief or the sergeant in charge of the division under the basket clause of "unsatisfactory work performance"; a hearing where reasonable disclosure is required; a hearing where an officer is faced with only one prosecutor; a hearing where the prosecutor has the burden of proof, which never shifts and which is at least on the basis of a requirement of clear and convincing evidence; a hearing where the officer cannot be compelled to give evidence if he does not wish to; and a hearing where the officer is tried by a senior officer who is unbiased and has a familiarity with policing issues and who acts in accordance with the principles of fairness and natural justice. As well, fairness is having the right to an appeal where errors in the hearing process can be rectified.
These two keys to fairness, the right to a hearing before a finding of misconduct is made and the right to an appeal, would be largely destroyed by the new bill. My membership asks that you ensure that fairness in the hearings and appeals process is maintained.
1630
Policing is a unique profession. It is unique in the special powers and special obligations that are a part of policing. Officers are required to maintain peace and to enforce laws. They deal with people who break the law and who would readily seek to use deadly force against them to avoid arrest. The very recent incident in Toronto this past Friday is further proof of that horrifying reality. They are required to use force, if necessary, to carry out their public duties. Officers are accountable for using force in the discharge of their duties. They are also accountable for failing to do so.
The issues they deal with on a day-to-day basis are complex ones. Police officers operate under more intense public, media and legal scrutiny than any other profession or employment. There are groups and individuals who are ever ready to allege criminal and/or disciplinary violations against them. The possibility that officers may be faced with a criminal or disciplinary offence simply because they are doing their job is a very real one. That is why it is important that there be fairness in the disciplinary process. Police officers should be entitled to fundamental justice in their hearings and in the appeal process. Integrity must be maintained in the system. These amendments must be reconsidered.
The proposed bill will import arbitrary power into the discipline process by permitting a finding of misconduct and the imposition of inordinately severe penalties against an officer: a forfeit of up to five days' pay without a hearing. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the discipline process would know that the vast majority of discipline hearings do not result in penalties as severe as this. The proposed bill would therefore mean there would be little real likelihood that an officer will have any opportunity to defend himself. This bill will ultimately destroy the morale of police officers. As a consequence it will harm the citizens of this province who look more and more frequently to the police for their protection and for their peace of mind.
My membership asks, who drafted this legislation? Do those who drafted it really have any idea what it will mean once it's put into effect? My members ask for the following amendments to the proposed bill.
With respect to the hearings process:
Remove any reference to the basket clause of "unsatisfactory work performance."
Reintroduce section 59 of the Police Services Act so that for non-serious misconduct an officer could face only admonishment, unless he otherwise agrees, and then he would be entitled to an internal disciplinary hearing. The proposed offer of the arbitration process, which is an after-the-fact and costly remedy, is no remedy at all.
Provide that the complainant should not be afforded full party status at a hearing, the result of that being that an officer would face two prosecutors at the same hearing. There's never been a need shown that this is needed, and we would ask for an amendment there.
Ensure that an officer cannot be compelled to testify at his own hearing.
Allow for an officer to be reprimanded instead of or in addition to a penalty where an officer is found guilty of misconduct.
Remove any reference to alternative penalties. An officer should only be subject to such penalties as a reprimand, days off, loss of pay, gradation in rank, suspension or dismissal.
With respect to the appeals process:
Give back the full right of appeal that officers have always been entitled to.
Remove any appeal from a finding of not guilty.
Delete any amendment that gives the commission the power to substitute its own decision for that of the trials officer on an appeal.
Unsatisfactory work performance: I guess one of the most important safeguards an officer can have is that misconduct is codified in the code of offences. An officer could not be subjected to the threat of discipline and to the risk of dismissal at the whim of the chief or of a complainant. The officer would have notice as to what conduct could be legally capable of constituting misconduct.
The proposed legislation incorporates something called "unsatisfactory work performance." This is nothing more than a basket clause. If the conduct for which the chief wishes to discipline the officer is not to be found within the code of offences, the chief would be able to rely on this new provision of "unsatisfactory work performance" under section 75.
"Unsatisfactory work performance" is not defined in the bill and could be defined in an arbitrary fashion by the chief of police or his delegate to include any matter that is typically dealt with in a performance evaluation or otherwise. This proposal could leave open the possibility that hearings could be held where an officer has not issued enough summonses or tags, where it is alleged that he has put on too much weight, that he doesn't work well with his fellow officers, that he does not accept criticisms by his supervisors, that his report writing skills are not adequate or merely that his sick reports are poor.
One could submit that you could take any category in a performance evaluation report and turn it into a hearing into whether an officer is guilty of unsatisfactory work performance and make the officer subject to penalties for previously unarticulated deficiencies. An officer is already subject to discipline if he neglects his duties on today's date.
Without a definition for "unsatisfactory work performance," an officer would not know what performance is subject to discipline. Inclusion of "unsatisfactory work performance" in the Police Services Act would inevitably increase the number of hearings, because we certainly would be fighting that fight.
As well, we have a concern that consistency across the province in terms of what the various chiefs of police would deem to be unsatisfactory work performance would suffer. Consistency is the hallmark of fairness.
Misconduct and the accompanying threat of discipline will literally be in the eye of the beholder with the basket clause of "unsatisfactory work performance." It is clear that the institution of the discipline process will, if this bill becomes law, be nothing short of arbitrary.
The members of Peel Regional Police ask that you delete section 75 of the proposed amendments and any reference to "unsatisfactory work performance" in this bill.
The next subject I'll deal with is no hearing and non-serious misconduct.
Under the proposed bill, the chief would have the discretion to determine whether the alleged misconduct was serious or non-serious. The bill provides no guidelines as to how this determination is to be made. This will determine whether or not an officer will get a hearing.
If the chief is of the view that the alleged misconduct falls into the non-serious category, he can impose a very substantial penalty on the officer without a hearing. This provision in subsection 63(16) is the single most striking feature of this proposed bill.
Never before have police officers in this province been subject to disciplinary penalty without a formal hearing. There will be no proof "on clear and convincing evidence." There will be no particularized charge sheet or complaint. Indeed, charge sheets and complaints will be unnecessary in view of the new basket clause called "unsatisfactory work performance." The code of offences will become redundant and obsolete. There will be a finding of guilt and a swift imposition of penalty without a hearing. The penalties will include the forfeiture of up to five days' pay or 40 hours' pay -- fairly substantial.
Members of the Peel Regional Police force ask that there be a deletion of subsection 63(16) and a restoration of section 59 of the Police Services Act such that for non-serious misconduct a chief may admonish the officer, but if the officer does not accept that admonishment, he will face a disciplinary hearing before a trials officer and not face the costly grievance arbitration process, which leads me into the grievance arbitration process.
The Chair: Sorry, Mr Campbell. You've only got about three minutes left. I'm not saying you can't do it, but there might be points -- we all have the written report -- that you want to emphasize.
Mr Campbell: I think I'll just roll along because there are a few points that are certainly of concern.
1640
The Chair: Okay, fine.
Mr Campbell: What will the officer's remedy be in the proposed amendments when the chief has docked him five days? His only remedy under subsection 63(18) will be to grieve the discipline. The penalty, however, will already have been imposed and the matter will have been recorded in his employment record, notwithstanding that the officer has grieved the issue.
The officer will, if he has the backing of his association, be able to take the matter to arbitration. The costly arbitration process begins, costly not only to the association but also to the force. His association will be required to pick up 50% of the cost of the arbitration process and the force the other 50%. The arbitration process will have commenced and the officer may be able to look forward to a happy day two or three years down the road when, at a cost of thousands of dollars, he may or may not be successful in his arbitration.
Under the new proposed amendments, an officer may be compelled to testify at a hearing. In subsection 68(6) of the bill, with the deletion of the words "Despite section 12 of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act," there will now be a risk that an officer may be compelled to testify at a hearing. We would ask that section 68(6) be amended to read: "Despite section 12 of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, an officer shall not be required to give evidence at a hearing."
Furthermore in this bill, in addition to the severe financial penalties of loss of pay without a hearing, the chief will be able to order an officer to participate in a host of other programs and activities. Enforced attendance at behavioral modification courses could be ordered. These might include anger management, gender and race sensitivity courses, drug and alcohol abuse counselling, as well as others. We are concerned that participation in such programs could be required by a chief of police for reasons other than the proper ones. These additional penalties would be recorded and permanently on the officer's employment record. We have some major concerns with that.
Finally, for the officers to have confidence in a disciplinary system there must be a full right of appeal. A full right of appeal ensures that there are checks and balances on the trials officer who presides at the hearing against the officer. This trials officer will realize that the decision he or she makes will be subject to review if he or she does not act on the evidence or does not act in accordance with the principles of natural justice.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Campbell. I believe your time is up. We have the written copy, so we can follow along. I thank you very much for taking the trouble to attend today.
I have a question, Mr Carr. The point has come up a number of times, and perhaps everybody on the committee could obtain a copy: Is there an opinion as to whether or not the requirements to testify and the use of that testimony -- could the Evidence Act of Ontario not be taken advantage of in claiming privilege?
Mr Carr: Where's our legal expert on that? Fred, did you want to comment on that? Could you repeat the question?
The Chair: The question was simply: If there is an obligation to testify, could the persons testifying not avail themselves of the protection of the Evidence Act?
Mr Peters: Mr Chair, I might prefer to refer that to our lawyers and we'll undertake to respond to that tomorrow.
The Chair: Okay, thank you.
LAW UNION OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Our next presentation will be the Law Union of Ontario, Mr Paul Copeland. Members of the committee, you received this morning the brief from Mr Copeland. Welcome, sir.
Mr Paul Copeland: Do you want me to try to answer your last question before I start?
The Chair: No, we'll rely on the legal opinion so that we all have it. Thank you.
Mr Copeland: I intend to deal, members of the committee, only with the special investigations unit and the duty of officers to cooperate with that investigative process.
I have included in the material for you, the second-last item at pages 17 to 20, an affidavit that was prepared for an intervention in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Stillman case. It gives you the background in relation to the law union's activities over the years relating to policing issues. I'd refer you briefly to paragraph 3 of that at page 17, that the law union was originally formed arising out of concerns about police misconduct at the Artistic Woodwork strike in 1973.
Referring to page 19, there's reference to the fact that the law union has been concerned -- I'm referring to paragraph 7 -- with police complaint procedure, racism in policing and police wrongdoing. There's reference in paragraph 9 to our interest in matters relating to policing. It makes reference in paragraph 10 -- this relates to the Stillman case, but one which will develop the law relating to police misconduct and the exclusion of evidence under the charter.
I adopt for myself in relation to this, since this is my affidavit, I had indicated to the Supreme Court that we had played a significant role on issues of police wrongdoing, racism, the need for adequate civilian investigation, control of police behaviour.
I've also attached to the very back of the material a copy of my CV. I attached it really to show you how long I've been practising law and indicate I spent eight years as vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, I'm a long-time member of the law union and I have been, probably for too long, at the law society.
There has been a long history of struggle for adequate civilian oversight of police, and it starts probably with Arthur Maloney, who was referred to earlier, Mr Justice Morand and Sidney Linden creating the police complaint process. Where I want to start in that history, very briefly, is when the NDP was in power in this province. You may recall there was a fairly significant strike by officers mainly of the Metro police force. You may recall the newspaper picture of a number of those officers wearing baseball caps, fairly outraged in front of this Legislative Building. They were talking at that point about abolishing the SIU and abolishing the proposed requirement that they have to report when they draw guns. They didn't win either of those arguments at that particular time, but it's my view that they were sufficiently successful in intimidating the NDP from taking any action in regard to correcting the problems that existed with the SIU, particularly in regard to the requirement that police officers cooperate fully with the SIU.
In regard to the procedure or the bill you have before you now, the government met with the police and with municipal officials for over one and a half years. There was eventually a story in the Toronto Star; shortly after that the McLeod review was announced by the Solicitor General. That review process was a very speedy process. Many of us who participated in it, and there were a number of people who declined to participate, thought it was too fast, and my view, from meeting on the three separate times I met with that committee in different capacities, was that they thought it was a little bit fast.
I would suggest to you that the non-cooperation with the special investigations unit by police officers, and particularly by subject officers, as they are called, is the most significant matter of public concern. I would refer you, in the material I've provided to you, first to where at pages 1 and 2 I've produced extracts from the Cole-Gittens committee, the report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System. At page 1 of that they indicate: "The SIU faces a fundamental problem of antagonism and obstruction from some police services. This has been expressed in various ways, including delays in notifying the SIU of an incident and reluctance to turn over notes, reports and other potential evidence.
"Such delay raises suspicions that police `screen' or review the form and content of the information and evidence that is being transmitted, and that the police have something to hide. There is no justification for withholding such information and evidence, which should be produced immediately upon request. Although the Police Services Act requires police officers to `cooperate fully' with the SIU, experience indicates that a specific obligation is required to ensure the full and timely transfer of information."
They then make a couple of recommendations. Then, going further down the page, they say:
"The third problem arises when police officers implicated in a shooting refuse to be interviewed by SIU investigators. In these cases the officers typically justify their refusal by reference to the constitutional right to remain silent. A police officer in these circumstances might well be a suspect, and a suspect has no obligation to answer questions from investigating officers. However, a police officer who has used a weapon is not in the same position as other suspects.
"All police officers must accept that the authority to carry and use a firearm in the course of their employment entails a duty to explain completely any circumstances in which it is discharged. A refusal to provide such an explanation prevents the SIU from conducting the thorough investigation required by law, and thwarts the accountability that police officers must have to their superiors in carrying out their duties. Such accountability is crucial to public confidence. Suspects who wish to exercise their right to remain silent may do so. However, such a suspect should not also be entitled to continue to carry out the duties of a police officer. Officers in these circumstances should be suspended without pay."
1650
Then produced in the material is the very brief reference in section 113 of the Police Services Act, which reads:
"(9) Members of police forces shall cooperate fully with the members of the unit in the conduct of investigations."
Mr McLeod looked at this question, and I've reproduced for you the title page and then the chapter, section 5, on the duty to cooperate fully. Mr McLeod said, and I'm referring to page 30:
"5.2.3 It may be appropriate to clarify and strengthen an officer's duty to account in a regulatory discipline context.
"5.2.4 However, I am not prepared to recommend legislation to that effect without further consultation and legal analysis. I believe that the same practical result can be achieved, if desired, by regulation as long as the regulation-making power is clear in the legislation."
Then he makes some recommendations on the next page. It says:
"Subject to the criminal law and charter rights of a member, a police service and each member thereof shall cooperate fully with the members of the unit...in the conduct of investigations.
"The legislation should also clearly permit regulations relating to: the duty of the chief, as part of his management responsibilities, to compel an account from a `witness' or a `subject' officer in an SIU investigation, and the timing of the exercise thereof, and the discipline consequences of the officer's failure to so account."
It then goes on to say, "No such regulations should be passed without further research and consultation."
Then produced in the material for you is the protocol that presently exists, and it is very sketchy, in my submission to you. I would refer you to the bottom of page 12 and the top of page 13. That protocol is from 1992. There were subsequent attempts to amend that protocol in 1994 and they came to naught.
It's my submission to you that the police officers and the police generally are happy with the present situation. There is no cooperation going on with the SIU by subject officers. I think the police are happy with the status quo, and that is where the situation is going to remain, because this legislation says nothing whatsoever in relation to the duty to cooperate.
I went with a community group that met with the Solicitor General and I asked Mr Runciman about this. He said, "We're going to deal with that question by way of protocol." I predict to you that the Conservative government will remain in power and for whatever length of time remains there will be no protocol that's ever agreed upon. I think it's incumbent that this legislation deal with this question.
As some indication of what I regard as the police comfort with the present situation, I have reproduced for you a letter I sent to Mr Walters, the president of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association. That's at page 15. I acknowledge that we seem to be on different sides most of the time on these issues. I asked him if the association had "any written suggestions or recommendations to police officers or their counsel in regard to the problems in dealing with the SIU. If there is such written material would it be possible for me to get a copy of it?" I can tell you I have received nothing whatsoever from Mr Walters. I haven't received the courtesy of a reply from him.
I did go on to set out for him what I intended to propose to the committee in regard to the situation of a subject officer. It is set out on the bottom of page 15. What I recommend to you is that subject officers be required to cooperate, that there be legislation setting out that duty to cooperate. I'm not desirous of having the officers lose what protections they have under the charter. The suggestion in the letter to Mr Walters and the suggestion I make to you is that the statements should be statements that cannot be used in any prosecution of the officers, save and except perjury, that they be regarded as compelled statements and that they be inadmissible.
I further went on to say to Mr Walters, and I say to you, it is a very important question, when an officer has shot and seriously injured or shot and fatally injured a citizen of this society, that the officer not be allowed to return to the street with a firearm until such time as he's given an account of his behaviour. I certainly fully acknowledge that he's entitled to counsel before he does that. I'm not suggesting that he not be entitled to speak to counsel, but I think at the conclusion of speaking to counsel there should be a legislative scheme that says, "If you decide you're not going to speak to counsel in a statement that won't hurt you in any potential prosecution of you, you should no longer be carrying out your police functions, at least until the conclusion of the investigation, and if charges are laid, until the conclusion of the criminal charges."
I'll make one last brief comment. In regard to a case that is presently before the courts, and I will try to restrict my comments so it doesn't impact on that case, I act for Shaheen Kamadia. Her son, Faraz Suleman, was shot and killed by an officer of the York Regional Police force. Ms Kamadia I'm sure would be before you if she were in the country, but she's presently out of the country. The subject officer in that case refused to speak to the SIU. He had, as a result of the discharge of his firearm, caused the death of a 17-year-old, her son. He remained on duty throughout the time that the SIU was investigating the matter. He's now charged with manslaughter. He is still on duty with the York Regional Police force.
Subject to any questions you have, those are the submissions I wish to make to you.
The Chair: We have time for one-minute questions.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Copeland, I'd like to thank you very much for your presentation. You've injected a couple of very interesting ideas into the discussion this afternoon and I'd certainly be prepared to take a look at them in our consideration for amendments.
Mr Kormos: Very quickly, if I can. You speak of the compulsion to make a statement, failing which you're no longer a police officer; you're suspended without pay.
Mr Copeland: I'm not sure I'd go so far as "suspended without pay." That is what Cole and Gittens said. Since every other police officer suspended is usually with pay, I'm not suggesting they take the pay away from them during the time period that things are going on. I leave that to be fine-tuned in the legislation.
Mr Kormos: If the purpose of compelling the statement is to require the police officer to relate his or her version of what happened, one can circumvent that then by, let's say, submitting to a suspension. One of the interesting things in the submission from York regional: There were a couple of newspaper accounts, one of a police officer who cooperated with the SIU, made a statement to them, participated in the process, another who didn't, if I've got that correct. The narration is of the horror show or the lack of cooperation, the police officer who indeed felt he went the whole nine yards to cooperate. You almost have there an obligation without any remedy on the part of the community for the failure of that police officer to abide by that obligation. How do we overcome that?
Mr Copeland: If I understand your question, presently there's an obligation to cooperate. Nobody is cooperating, at least as I understand the process. Certainly from talking to lawyers who are representing police officers, their recommendation is, "Don't cooperate, don't speak, perhaps turn over your notes from the incident if you made any," and that's basically about where things stop and there is no remedy. I think there is no remedy at the present time because the police chiefs will not say to the officers, "I think you have a duty to cooperate; I think you have a duty to speak to them." It's something with which I'm dealing with York regional force right now in relation to the Suleman shooting.
Mr Carr: One minute doesn't give us very much time, so I just want to thank you for your time and for your submission. We appreciate your coming here and appearing before the committee.
Mr Copeland: My pleasure.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Copeland. You've raised a number of interesting issues for the committee.
Our last presentation for the day is the Toronto Coalition Against Racism, Ms Mary Gellatly. Is Ms Gellatly here? It would appear not.
Mr Tilson: I propose that we adjourn until tomorrow morning.
The Chair: There's a motion for adjournment. Any objection?
Mr Kormos: Ms Gellatly could be contacted and we could find a way of slotting her into another slot. I'm sure she'd be here were it not for something untoward having happened.
The Chair: Perhaps we could have our clerk attempt to determine it. We are adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1659.