The committee met at 9:03 a.m.

[R. Singh in the chair.]

R. Singh (Chair): Good morning, everyone. I’m Rachna Singh. I’m the Chair of this committee, and I welcome you all. You have taken the time to come and meet with us.

Thank you so much, Mr. Pecknold. We’ll start with the…. If you can introduce yourself and your colleagues, then we can make the introductions, and we can start.

C. Pecknold: Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, all.

I’m Clayton Pecknold. I’m the Police Complaint Commissioner. With me today is Deputy Commissioner Rollie Woods and Deputy Commissioner Andrea Spindler. Just by way of introduction, the committee may know I was recently appointed to this position as of February 14 of this year.

Mr. Woods comes to the office after a 35-year policing career with the RCMP, with the Edmonton police and with the Vancouver police department, retiring at that time as the OIC, officer in charge, of professional standards at the Vancouver police department and with ten years as a union executive member. He comes with a wealth of experience, and he’ll be available to answer any questions the committee may have.

Ms. Spindler came to the office in 2010 and joined as an analyst in the office. She came out of academia with a master’s degree in criminology from Simon Fraser University and has worked her way up to the position of deputy commissioner, recently appointed to that position. She will have a bit of a formal presentation for you after I make my opening remarks.

[9:05 a.m.]

R. Singh (Chair): Thank you so much.

Committee members, I’ll start with Garry.

G. Begg: I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

A. Olsen: Adam Olsen, Saanich North and the Islands.

E. Ross: Ellis Ross, MLA for Skeena.

M. Morris (Deputy Chair): Mike Morris, MLA, Prince George–Mackenzie.

R. Singh (Chair): Also, Mr. Morris is the Deputy Chair of this committee.

We would like to hear from you. I know you have a lot of information to share with us. We’ll start with you now.

Briefing by Office of the
Police Complaint Commissioner

C. Pecknold: As I mentioned briefly, I’ll have a few remarks that I might characterize as context-setting, for the committee to consider as it goes about its work. Then Deputy Commissioner Spindler will give some more detailed information. We did provide the committee with some material this morning, and we’re prepared to answer any questions with respect to that. Then we are certainly available for any questions that you may have.

By way of introduction, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is presently sitting at about 60 percent civilian versus former police officers. We have a variety of backgrounds of people working in our office — people with law degrees, people who came from the Correctional Service of Canada, federal government investigators, former police officers from both within British Columbia and outside of British Columbia. So we have a diverse workplace — a small workplace of about 20 persons, but diversity within that small workplace.

I’d like to make a few points, if you don’t mind, context-wise. First, I’d like to acknowledge that we welcome this opportunity to both meet with the committee and to participate and cooperate in the statutory review, and we’ll do our best to make sure that it’s a successful exercise, at least from our contributions.

I’d like to also acknowledge the former commissioner, Mr. Stan Lowe, who has spent both terms working very hard to bring the office into a high state of collaboration with stakeholders and a high state of efficiency in terms of its application of the act. One of his legacy items was, of course, advancing the amount of alternate dispute resolution opportunities that the act affords. Ms. Spindler can talk a little bit about that. And, as I say, we’ll give you some detailed information.

In terms of key points, and just for context, I’d like to point out — and it could be obvious to many in the committee — that there are literally thousands of calls for service for the police throughout the province of British Columbia every day, both RCMP and municipal police officers.

Of those thousands of calls and thousands of interactions with the public, only a very small number of those interactions end up coming before our office in any form. And only a small subset of those matters that come before our office are actually admissible and examined by our office in some form or are dealt with otherwise. And an even smaller subset of those actually become substantiated matters, where a finding of misconduct has occurred.

As a portion of the overall potential opportunities for police officers and the public to interact and perhaps engage in conflict, a very, very small portion result in misconduct that falls below the standard one would expect from our police.

However, there is, of course, a small number of matters that by virtue of their seriousness and by virtue of their high impact are disproportionate to their frequency of occurrence. These are serious matters that potentially can undermine the public trust. These are issues of gross misconduct, dishonesty, deceit, abuse of power or the gratuitous use of physical force. Again, I emphasize this is a very small subset, but it is certainly one that can be very impactful in terms of the public trust of the police.

In that sense, these matters often involve a considerable amount of complexity and could have associated investigations — concurrent investigations of the independent investigation office or even, potentially, criminal investigations. It’s the task of our office to navigate through both our procedural complexities and the complexities that are associated with those types of serious investigations.

[9:10 a.m.]

Ultimately, it was Commissioner Lowe’s and my view that our North Star, as it were, is the public trust, in terms of the outcome of those matters.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw the attention…. While these have a significant impact on the broader public trust, these equally have an impact to the officers on the ground every day who are busy doing their job with a high degree of integrity and compassion. When these incidents occur that fall below the standard expected, they impact the public trust, but they equally impact those officers who strive to do the best they can every day.

There is a bond of trust, I suggest, between those officers who fall below the standard and those officers who maintain that standard appropriately every day that must be part of the consideration of any regulatory regime. In that sense, I suggest, respectfully, to the committee that those officers who fall below the standard must not break faith with their fellow officers as much as they must not break faith with the broader public trust.

I hope to advance the view that in any police oversight regime, it’s just as critical that the police officers hold each other to a high standard as it is for them to be held to a high standard by our office or by the public at large. In my view, that’s critical to the proper functioning.

I’d like to give you a few words on the evolution, from my perspective both in my newly appointed position and my previous positions, of the oversight regime in the province. In reviewing and preparing for this committee appearance, I went over some of the appearances at the previous audit six-ish years ago. I noticed that there continued to be a dialogue on the acceptance of oversight, using the word that the police “accept” oversight.

I’d suggest that we’ve evolved beyond acceptance — that it’s no longer an optional matter. Properly viewed, a proper regulatory regime that includes an aspect of oversight for misconduct is not a matter of acceptance. It’s a matter of core requirements for a properly functioning police organization within a democratic society.

I think we’ve evolved to that place and that it’s critical and foundational, ultimately. Mr. Justice Wood, as he was at the time when he did his review, actually spoke of the importance of the police and the public being free from misconduct as foundational to democracy, as foundational as the independence of the police. That was somewhat compelling to me, when I read that.

I think it’s equally important, from a context perspective, to merely observe that a daily scan of the media and a daily scan of what’s going on more broadly and globally will tell us that there continues to be an erosion of trust, at times, in our institutions — whether it’s policing, whether it’s our office or others — and that these institutions, buttressed by their regulatory structures, must be able to resist emergences of racism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, intolerance and isolationism.

I was recently reviewing a survey by Edelman consulting group in Canada that talked about the downturn in trust in public institutions. In my view, we are well situated in Canada. We have a high standard of policing. To quote Mr. Robert Peel: “The public are the police, and the police are the public.” I think that’s demonstrated by our police officers every day. But where they fall short of that, it’s important that we not take that trust for granted.

It’s equally important, of course, that in conducting our work, we maintain a watchful eye on the independence of the police. That’s key to a properly functioning police organization in a democratic society.

[9:15 a.m.]

I do suggest that there is a danger of erosion of a viewpoint — that some organizations may move away from a peacekeeper’s mode of thinking to what may be referred to as a warrior mode of thinking. I use the term “warrior” in the negative sense.

There has been some writing in the United States about that. We see that in popular culture. We would encourage, through our work, the police not to view themselves as enforcers of the law per se but as peacekeepers. I think that that’s in the best traditions of Canadian policing.

In our view, what’s important about the regulatory regime, beyond all the things that I’ve identified, is that ultimately it must reinforce the accountability of the police and the transparency in what they do, and it must reflect the public values in which they operate. It does bear repeating, from our perspective, that that accountability is inextricably linked to their effectiveness and is linked, of course, to their adherence to a civilian oversight regime.

I’m happy to say that when you look back at those things I opened my remarks with, if you consider the amount of incidents that actually result in serious findings of misconduct, they are a small fraction of all of those day-to-day interactions where the police do good work for the public.

I’d like to just give you a couple of things that we see on our horizon and that you may want to think about as you’re going about your work. Obviously, there are the demographic shifts that you’re well aware of. I’ve alluded to some of it around trust in the media; the rise of social media; issues about alternative facts in the media and the impacts on policing, more broadly, of some of those matters; and the broader impacts of some of the things they’re struggling with.

The police, in my estimation, have done a good job of adapting to those social changes, in terms of utilizing emerging technologies of social media or others but have also had to deal with their own challenges, in terms of sexualized violence, harassment in the workplace and the impact of the changing norms of society. The last legislative reform was done about ten years ago. I suggest that both the institution of policing in the public at large and our institutions have evolved considerably since then.

We’ve also seen a number of structural changes to policing in the province and the rise of integrated units where both municipal and RCMP officers are on those units. We’ve had the results of one inquiry into the missing and murdered women in the Downtown Eastside. We have another national inquiry pending. We have a rise in awareness of the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, a number of social-context matters and a number of things coming our way that are impactful to the oversight regime.

Then on a practical level, there is an evolution in some communities towards taking on a municipal policing model. That will certainly impact our workload and is something we’re preparing for and considering as we do our business planning.

There is also an outstanding question about the degree of cooperation and, perhaps, synergy that can be created with the RCMP Civilian Review Commission. I’ll be meeting with the newly appointed chair of the commission soon. There are provisions in the RCMP Act for better cooperation and collaboration. Of course, those have impacts in terms of both finances and resources for our office.

It was, I would note parenthetically, a recommendation of Mr. Justice Oppal, during the last inquiry, that our office work more closely with the RCMP Civilian Review Commission. I believe the recommendation suggested the RCMP come under the model. That was never really brought to realization. It obviously comes with significant complexity.

[9:20 a.m.]

I think I’ll pause there, before I turn to Deputy Commissioner Spindler, and just reiterate what I think bears repeating. My early view is that we have a model that is reflective of those values that I’ve espoused here today, that we have police organizations with whom we work collaboratively. And other stakeholders — we work hard to work collaboratively with them.

There are many opportunities within the present act for conflict. Some of those conflicts arise. We have cases before the courts presently that we’re dealing with. Often those matters are brought on through a disagreement over findings or decision-making. There’s an inherent potential for that type of conflict.

Equally, there’s a potential for improved alternative dispute resolution, improved mediation opportunities, to get to the earliest possible outcomes. After Ms. Spindler speaks, I will perhaps suggest some areas you may want to consider, in terms of your recommendations that may be linked to legislative reform, that could get at those matters. I’ll ask Deputy Commissioner Spindler to make a few comments.

A. Spindler: Thank you very much for having me here today. I’m going to take you through a few points in relation to the last audit that was conducted back in 2012. There were two recommendations that flowed from that audit that I wanted to speak with you today about, to tell you what our office has done in relation to those recommendations.

I’m going to start with the first recommendation, which relates to the six-month time limit that is laid out in the Police Act to complete investigations. That’s a statutory time limitation period for all investigations to be completed.

When the audit was done back in 2012, the auditors had found that less than half of investigations were completed within that six-month time-limitation period. They had recommended that our office identify and address the challenges associated with achieving that six-month time limit. So what we, this office, did was…. We took a look at the reasons for why extensions were being required.

Professional standards investigators are responsible for conducting investigations. They will send a request to our office to extend the time period to complete an investigation. When we looked at some of those reasons for why extensions were required, we identified a few reasons why these extensions were being requested.

One of them had to do with the ability of investigators to obtain statements in a timely manner. There were some issues, at times, in relation to locating or contacting complainants. Some complainants don’t have a fixed address or a phone number where you can contact them. They may be in infrequent communication with professional standards offices or with our office.

There were other issues in relation to receiving duty statements from respondent and witness officers, the subsequent need to schedule an interview and then the additional subsequent need for an additional follow-up interview. That all introduced some delays in the system.

Also, another area was investigative advice being provided by our office in relation to investigative steps that should be completed. I’ll discuss this point in a little more detail in a moment.

Also, there are some departments where they have limited resources to dedicate to professional standards. These officers have their own day-to-day responsibilities of policing, and they are doing these investigations off the side of their desk for some of the smaller departments that we provide oversight of.

Our office implemented a number of changes in an effort to improve the timely completion of investigations. We formalized the process for extension requests. For investigators who are needing an extension, they needed to lay out the steps they had completed, what needs to be done, how much time they need and why they were not able to complete the investigation on time.

Most of the time these requests go through their supervisors, so they are also aware of the need for an extension. All requests are reviewed by management at our office to identify if there are any issues or trends that need to be elevated and discussed with professional standards sections.

[9:25 a.m.]

In addition, our office issued what we call an information bulletin that goes to all police departments to assist in addressing that issue of delay.

We took a recent analysis of all investigations completed in the past five years, and we did find a positive result that three-quarters of investigations are completed within the six-month time period and did not require a specific extension by this office to complete that investigation. When you compare that to the results in 2012, we did find that there was a significant increase in the number of investigations completed without an extension.

Another factor that I alluded to earlier as resulting in delays in the investigative phase of the complaints process relates to the ability of this office to receive investigative materials in a timely manner and provide, then, that timely feedback to professional standards investigators relating to any additional investigative steps that may flow from that.

As you all know, Justice Wood had envisioned a contemporaneous model of oversight, and that was outlined in his 2007 report on the police complaints process in British Columbia. He had envisioned that the OPCC would be linked electronically to the complaint files at each of the municipal police departments, which would then allow for our office to have a real-time review of those materials as they’re completed by investigators.

As of now, this contemporaneous model has not been fully implemented. Our current system of review involves the use of a secure file transfer system, where investigators electronically upload investigative materials for review for this office.

Related to the second recommendation by the Auditor General was that we provide training to police detachments on the receipt and handling of complaints. What our office has done…. There’s a statutory guideline on receiving and handling of complaints. We went through that guideline, and we updated it, providing some additional clarity so departments were very clear on their roles and responsibilities. We updated our complaint form so that it was very clear in terms of what steps needed to be taken, what complainants rights were and what the next steps of the complaints process was.

We also prepared a training presentation that was disseminated to all professional standards sections and chief constables for front-counter staff and for any employee that might be expected to receive and handle complaints. Our training package also included a communications toolkit, discussing effective communications strategies when taking complaints.

The last part of this recommendation that we wanted to do — and we will do — is a compliance audit of all municipal police departments to ensure that those statutory obligations are being followed. This was planned for 2017. However, due to budgetary reasons, this implementation was delayed and is projected to occur sometime in 2019.

I’m going to take a few moments now to talk about the alternative dispute resolution program of this office. Clayton had alluded to it earlier. I want to take a few moments to discuss the benefits of the program and some of the successes that our office has seen in this area.

Generally, it’s been our experience that resolving complaints through communication, understanding and reconciliation really results in a more meaningful resolution for participants, both for the members and for the complainants.

There are a high number of complaints that are better suited to ADR, alternative dispute resolution. By allowing participants, both members and complainants, to have input and to have direct participation in finding solutions or the resolution to the complaint, it really allows for those participants to come away from that process confirming that the experience resulted in a meaningful level of satisfaction.

As a result, this office has found that there’s a greater degree of learning and relationship-building that can occur when complainants engage in this process, compared to the traditional, formal investigation, which can span many months and may not always be the outcome that a complainant is looking for as well.

[9:30 a.m.]

I want to take a few moments here to talk about a pilot project this office entered into with the Vancouver police department in this area. We did a one-year pilot project with the Vancouver police department to really try to identify ways we can improve this program. The Vancouver police department receive, due to their size, the greatest number of complaints, so we thought we would focus on VPD.

Many of the strategies developed and implemented really involved a greater role of this office. The legislation limits the role of our office in this area to promoting and encouraging alternative dispute resolution. So that’s what we really wanted to focus on: our office playing a more active role in discussing with complainants the benefits of the process, alleviating any sorts of concerns that complainants may have about participating in the process and also educating professional standards investigators on how to approach these types of complaints and resolutions.

What we had done is…. This office actively reviews all files at the intake stage for suitability of dispute resolution based on criteria that we’ve outlined in a statutory guideline. We have frequent communication with complainants and with professional standards investigators. At the conclusion of that pilot project, the Vancouver police department saw a 50 percent increase in the number of successful resolutions.

Last year approximately 50 percent of all admissible complaints appeared suitable for alternative dispute resolution. What our office does is highlight that to professional standards investigators and say: “We think you should attempt a resolution of this complaint. The complainants are interested in such a process. Try it out.” We found that of those complaints that we deemed suitable, 45 percent of those were successfully resolved.

Our office also hosts a number of training sessions in the area of dispute resolution. We’ll have either a trained mediator come in, who has experience in resolving police complaints, to discuss strategies with professional standards investigators, or lately we’ve been using professional standards investigators who seem to have real skill and ability in resolving complaints to lead these training sessions with other professional standards investigators to really discuss any tips or communication strategies for resolving.

It is the goal of this office to continue to promote ADR for police complaints and work towards legislative change supporting early, effective resolutions of suitable matters.

C. Pecknold: Madam Chair, I have perhaps two minutes, and then I can conclude.

R. Singh (Chair): We have one question from Mr. Olsen.

Would you like to wait?

A. Olsen: I’ll wait to hear the commissioner’s comments.

C. Pecknold: I would just like to end by suggesting some areas where the committee might want to think about legislative reform in its recommendations. We have a detailed submission to government that we’re updating presently — we’re happy to share that at a later date with the committee — that goes into more detail.

More broadly speaking, as you’ve heard, we support alternative dispute resolution and any legislative change that could allow us to improve the quality, outcomes and early resolution of matters, in the interests of all parties. We’re supportive of that.

I’m of the view, and the office is of the view, that the reality is that there continues to be some both real and perceived bias, especially in smaller departments, in conducting these investigations. The committee may want to consider, and the previous commissioner made suggestions to government, about the ability to have a core investigational capacity, either within the office or separate and apart from the police through an integrated structure, to allow for a more arm’s-length investigational capacity.

I do think that when you speak to some of the police leaders — and I met with the chief of Vancouver last week — they’ll say that they would welcome that potential opportunity. That may not be unanimous. I won’t speak for them. So that’s something to consider.

You may be aware that the discipline proceedings are legally complex. Often these are done by senior officers. They take a lot of time and energy and have a considerable amount of complexity associated with them, even if the officers themselves are legally trained or otherwise.

[9:35 a.m.]

These police executives have busy jobs with a high level of expertise. It may be an opportunity to think about an arm’s-length, professional adjudicative model that frees these officers from these lengthy discipline proceedings.

Although our office has some ability to do some areas of study and issue reports, other officers occupying similar positions in the country have the ability to do self-initiated systemic reviews to improve the preventative and proactive resolution of matters, trend analysis and to try to resolve things on a more policy-oriented basis as opposed to the ex post facto review of an incident. I believe that in the RCMP CRC, they are called chair-based reviews.

Finally, we’ve noted that as the law enforcement models evolve…. For example, when the special municipal constables became more widely used — Vancouver brought in a community safety officer program; special municipal constables are used in their jail — there had to be a regulation created to bring them within our office.

You may want to consider, perhaps, a more flexible way to make sure that our office is overseeing those people who are doing jobs that hitherto were done by police officers. Some chiefs, for example, are moving towards tiered policing models, using different levels of officers. If those officers are engaged in activities, such as guarding in jails or otherwise enforcement activity, I suggest to you that it’s in the public interest they come within our oversight.

Those are our remarks, and all three of us are available for questions. Thank you. I apologize for going a little over.

R. Singh (Chair): Thank you so much. That was great information.

Now we will start with the questions.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, for your comments. It just dawned on me while I was listening to the statistics, the numbers, with respect to the six-month time frame…. That’s what’s in the legislation. That doesn’t mean that that is the right number, I guess — in terms of six months.

I recognize that further in your report, you highlight that about 75 percent of investigations have been able to…. And that there’s been a 67 percent increase since 2012. But a file being completed on time is one metric to determine how our process is. There’s satisfaction on both sides of a dispute that can arise. There are a bunch of other metrics. We could go into them.

I just don’t want to get past this point where the Auditor General has done an audit at the request of the office to say: “Where are we at and how are we doing?” I just have the basic question. Is six months a fair amount of time? Does it hamper actually getting to a better result in the end? What’s your thought around that piece? We may move past this very quickly, or we may not.

C. Pecknold: I think I’ll let one of the deputy commissioners answer that, if you want.

R. Woods: Thanks very much. I think lots of research went into that number, going back to Wally Oppal’s review of the police complaint process in the ’90s, then Mr. Joe Wood. I sat on one of his stakeholders’ committees with him when he was consulting.

Actually, one of my requests — I was in charge of pro­fes­sional standards at that time — was that we increase the six months, because it was difficult sometimes. Our caseload was quite high. It was difficult to complete them in six months. But he disagreed. He felt that it was important that members have an end date in mind when a complaint is filed and there’s an investigation conducted into their conduct. Also, complainants themselves…. You know, six months can seem like a pretty long time when you’ve laid a complaint and you’re going to wait for an outcome.

He felt the six months was the right number. We have consulted with other agencies across Canada that do the same type of work as us. In Ontario, for example, we met with the inspector in charge of professional standards there, and they have a six-month timeline as well. He said that in their regime, because you have to ask the chief constable for an extension, they rarely asked for them. They had their complaints, the investigations, completed within six months. In fact, they had them completed within four months in most cases, even if they were complicated.

[9:40 a.m.]

The only time they would ask for extensions would be when some new information came to light late in the investigation. So in spite of the arguments that I made back in 2006 and ’07 and was unsuccessful, my experience in in this office now has led me to believe that six months is probably the right amount of time. If the police department’s professional standards are properly resourced, most files can be completed in six months or less.

R. Singh (Chair): Any other questions?

G. Begg: Thank you, Commissioner and your staff, for a great presentation. I’m very gratified to hear the commissioner speak. I think you’re a little bit ahead of your time, which is always a good thing. Policing evolves slowly, but some of the changes that are being undertaken now are very important and will have tremendous effect.

My question revolves around ADR. I need an example, either real or made up, of what would be a suitable offence that could be covered by ADR.

A. Spindler: When we’re looking at suitable complaints for ADR, examples would be that a police officer was rude or unprofessional during their encounter. It could be that, during the encounter, a person was not afforded their Charter rights, in terms of they weren’t informed of the reason for arrest. It generally involves less complex types of allegations, and it won’t include allegations of, say, deceit, corrupt practice or those ones that really get at the integrity of a police officer’s actions. They are definitely of the less serious type of allegation.

There are some complaints where complainants are…. There have been low levels of use of force. For example, we get some complaints where the handcuffs were too tight, those types of use-of-force allegations where it’s very low level. It may be a leg sweep to the ground, but something very low level, no-to-minimal injury.

We also have determined that if a complainant is wishing to seek that type of process, we will talk to the complainant and to the police department to see if they’re willing to engage in that process. Also, all complainants can have the support of a support person or have someone with them to support them through that process as well.

G. Begg: The vetting process. Perhaps you can explain that at the outset. How do you decide?

A. Spindler: Sure. At the intake stage, an investigative analyst will contact a complainant, depending on what is written in their complaint form. If it is of the less serious type of allegation, our analyst will speak with that complainant, tell them about the process and gauge their level of interest in that process. Also, on our complaint form, we have a check box where they can indicate if they’re interested in such a process as well.

Then when we’ve determined, based on the information received at the front end, that it’s suitable, in the notice that is sent to police departments, we’ll write right in there that this is suitable for an attempt at resolution.

G. Begg: Which could be, then, initiated without the further involvement of the Police Complaint Commissioner?

A. Spindler: Our involvement still remains, because we have to approve all resolutions at their completion. So a resolution agreement is drawn up between a member and a complainant, and that resolution agreement is sent to our office, and we assess it to determine whether that resolution is a meaningful resolution. Were the perspectives of both parties gathered through this process? We also speak with every complainant at the completion to determine how satisfied they were with the process.

G. Begg: I guess my question is: is there an attempt made at the earliest possible juncture in the process to resolve it informally?

A. Spindler: Yes. In our office, we actively review all files at the intake stage. Also, even if a complainant says: “No, you know, I’m really not interested right now. I want a formal investigation….” Sometimes emotions are high when you’re filing a complaint, and you may really want a full investigation initially.

[9:45 a.m.]

Then we’ve found that when we’ve come back to complainants after a month or so…. We will have another conversation with them to see: “Okay, you’ve learned a little more information about what’s occurred. Why don’t we discuss this process again?”

C. Pecknold: I should point out, MLA Begg — and I stand to be corrected — that we do not have the ability to force things to informal resolution.

M. Morris (Deputy Chair): Just a couple of things, following along the lines of Garry’s comments there. You mention ADR as part of your legislative reform that you have coming up. I’m just wondering now: is ADR not an option that all police agencies — RCMP, municipal forces — use anyway? Or do you see that there’s a need to formally legislate an ADR process?

C. Pecknold: I’ll let the deputy commissioners add some of their practical experience, but as I recall, in my interactions during Mr. Wood’s review, he may have made the recommendation, or at least he’s inclined to make a recommendation, that there be mandatory mediation, for example, that there be mandatory resolution. But he was also concerned that there be a proper accounting and transparency and oversight of any informal resolutions of matters.

I have no doubt that matters are dealt with informally every day by supervisors and by others, but there are occasions when our office becomes aware of something that probably should have been reported to us and brought to our attention and that either needed to be properly overseen or investigated. That does happen on occasion.

Although expanding, from a legislative perspective, the applicability of outcome-based alternative resolutions, I don’t believe I’m suggesting, or I would not suggest, that we not have some level of oversight and accountability for those resolutions.

R. Woods: I’ll just point, historically, to the old legislation that existed before the amendment in 2010. ADR did exist in the former Police Act, but I can tell you that it was rarely used. It was not the focus of professional standards or the chiefs of that time. I know there were times when I would attempt an informal resolution with complainants and the police officer, and I had a lot of resistance from the members and from the union. It got to the point that it was a waste of energy to even approach it.

With the focus in this legislation being to attempt ADR where appropriate, and the focus of this office in making sure that there were the tools available both for police in terms of training and support from our office and then support for the complainants, we’ve been able to get the informal resolution up to the percentage that we have today.

I still think that we’ve, really, probably, gathered most of the low-hanging fruit, and there is still some room, but part of it would be some encouragement, I think, for police and complainants to be more compelled to participate in ADR. Quebec, for example, has an ADR program where it’s mandatory, where you have to try it for certain types of complaints. And they have an extremely high success rate in resolving the vast majority of their complaints that do not involve serious misconduct. That’s why I think it’s a model that we might want to think about.

E. Ross: I served as chief and council for about 11 years, I believe. It was always a topic that came up, around complaining about police conduct. I’m just wondering: in your process, do you categorize the types of complaints?

What I noticed was there are complaints that are really serious in nature — maybe it’s abuse of power — but there is another category that talks about the policeman’s attitude or language used, which is absolutely different. Whether or not you could substantiate that or prove it or not is actually different. It seemed to me that it’s a different category altogether when you talk about a policeman’s attitude versus something really serious. Do you categorize these complaints in any way?

A. Spindler: Yes, we do. At the intake stage, we will look at and assess a complainant’s complaint. For example, when you’re discussing the abuses of authority…. Under the act, there are specified allegations of misconduct, ranging from abuse of authority, which relates to unlawful arrests, unnecessary uses of force, unlawful searches. Then, in relation to their professionalism or being rude, there’s an allegation that’s called discourtesy.

[9:50 a.m.]

We have quarterly stats that are released and posted on our website. We lay out the percentage of how many allegations relate to each type of allegation.

E. Ross: Are they treated the same, in terms of process?

A. Spindler: For example, for the discourtesy allegations, our office would advise the police departments to attempt to resolve those through the ADR process. Whereas the more serious complaints — unnecessary uses of force, excessive uses of force, unlawful arrest — would go down, generally, that formal investigative process that takes six months and a finding being made by a discipline authority.

E. Ross: So what would you say the ratio of complaints are — the discourteous complaints versus the really serious allegations? What would you say that number breaks down to? Just roundabout, ballpark. You don’t have to be exact.

A. Spindler: Abuse-of-authority types of allegations are the most frequent type of allegation that our office receives. Last year approximately 40 percent of complaints were of abuse-of-authority allegations. When we’re talking specifically about, say, discourtesy, it is fewer in number — probably around 20 percent or so in relation to discourtesy in terms of how an officer interacted with an individual.

E. Ross: That’s 60 percent. What’s the other 40 percent?

A. Spindler: There are all sorts of allegations under the act. There could be neglect-of-duty allegations. For example, an officer is required to, at least, provide what is called their PIN, their identification number, or their name. It could be that a person is complaining that an investigation was not adequately done. There’s a wide range of other allegations that take up that remaining amount.

G. Begg: I hope the answer is shorter than the question on this one. Do you have a process or procedure in place that allows for the IIO and your office to concurrently conduct investigations — or at least so you don’t get in each other’s way?

C. Pecknold: I’ll let the deputy commissioner speak to the specifics, but the short answer is yes. We cooperate fully with the IIO, and coordinate. We have the ability to suspend a Police Act investigation while they conduct their investigation. I’ll ask them to add anything else to that.

R. Woods: The act is laid out so that criminal matters would take precedence over Police Act matters. The IIO would conduct their investigation. They provide the information to us, though, so that any investigative material doesn’t have to be done twice.

We always wait until they’ve come to a conclusion. In fact, in many cases, if they’ve come to a conclusion that there was no criminality in the conduct of the officer, then the evidence would be similar for a Police Act misconduct, and we would just conclude our file without any further investigation. That probably happens in the majority of cases.

If we find during the course of a Police Act investigation that there has been a serious-harm case — obviously, death would be reported right away — as a result of them reporting to us an injury, we have a legislated requirement that we report that to the IIO. We work very closely together, but we don’t get in each other’s way. We support each other, actually.

R. Singh (Chair): I have one question too. You talked about the training for the police officers to conduct this — how to do the complaint process. My concern is a little bit about the historic disconnect between the police force and the Indigenous populations. In recent years, have you seen any change in that — the attitude or how the complaints are being handled?

A. Spindler: I’ve found that more recently we’ve received quite a bit of support from police departments in terms of resolving and wanting to resolve these complaints. Police officers are seeing the benefits of engaging in such a process. This training that is put on with the professional standards investigators gives them the skills and tools that they may need to successfully resolve a complaint.

[9:55 a.m.]

It’s taking that professional standards investigator and getting them to remove themselves from that situation, not be defensive of the officer’s actions and listen to the complainant’s perspective, giving that complainant a voice to be heard. We have found that with the role of our office recently and with the support from the police departments and from the police associations, there is considerable buy-in on both sides — from our office and police departments — to engage in this process.

The feedback that we’ve received from complainants has been, for the most part, very positive in terms of when they’ve engaged in this process. They’ve found that the professional standards investigators are listening to their concerns. They feel as though they’ve been given a voice and an input in terms of how they’d like to see their complaint resolved.

M. Morris (Deputy Chair): I just have one, sort of back to your opening statements, Clayton. I guess I wanted to say this so that we get some idea of the volume we’re looking at.

I know when I was a senior police manager with the RCMP, I was at a meeting. I think Canadian statistics had come out regarding the number of RCMP complaints that had been reviewed by the Public Complaints Commission at the time. So 3,800 comes to mind. Out of those, 70 percent were resolved informally. They had a breakdown. The colleagues that I was at this meeting with were quite appalled at the number of complaints, but when you look at the fact that there are probably close to two million interactions with the public by the RCMP in B.C. alone, let alone all the other provinces right across Canada….

Can you give the committee some idea of the percentage of complaints that might surface in your office with respect to the number of public interactions that police departments in B.C. have?

C. Pecknold: I believe in your package we’ve provided a snapshot document with some of those statistics. We can run through those if you like, but I think it’s important to emphasize that there are tens of thousands of day-to-day calls for service for the police in this province. If you take the RCMP out of that equation, because we don’t oversee the RCMP, but you just look, for example, at Vancouver police, it’s a very, very small percentage of those interactions or those potential interactions that actually end up before us.

I would be remiss, though, if I did not emphasize that not every interaction or every complaint has the same level of public impact — discourtesy versus those things that are so egregious that they border on criminal activity. Those matters tend to have a disproportionate impact on the confidence in policing. But we certainly show that our intakes and the result of those intakes that ultimately end up in substantiation are a very small percentage.

Andrea, did you want to add anything to that end?

A. Spindler: No.

R. Singh (Chair): Any other questions?

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time and coming and meeting with us. Thank you so much.

We’ll take a three-minute recess while we have the other group come and join us.

The committee recessed from 9:58 a.m. to 10:03 a.m.

[R. Singh in the chair.]

R. Singh (Chair): Welcome again. We have the new group joining us.

Thank you so much for taking the time and coming to meet with us today. We’ll start with introductions.

B. Butterworth-Carr: Good morning. It’s my pleasure to be here today, Madam Chair.

Good morning, committee members.

As you are aware, I am the assistant deputy minister of policing and security for B.C. I’m also the statutory director of police services under the Police Act. A little bit about myself is that I’ve been in the role since March 4, basically four weeks. I have a group of ladies joining me today: Sandra Sajko, who’s the executive director; Jenni Bard, who is director of standards and evaluations; Ardys Baker, director of legislation; and Devon Windsor, senior legislation manager. They’ll be able to assist me with respect to responding to the various questions, given their purviews.

R. Singh (Chair): Thank you so much.

I just want to mention that we are joined by MLA Simon Gibson from Abbotsford-Mission.

Welcome to the committee, and I hope you enjoy the proceedings as well.

We can proceed with the presentation.

Briefing by Ministry of
Public Safety and Solicitor General

B. Butterworth-Carr: Sure. It probably would help if I actually said my name, which is Brenda Butterworth-Carr. I’ve just recently retired from the RCMP as the Commanding Officer for the British Columbia Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after 31 years of policing experience. I can say that based upon my experience, I fully recognize the police complaint commission, their process and the importance of same.

In appearing before you, I will provide committee members with an update on what has been done in response to the issues raised and recommendations made by the Special Committee to Inquire into the Use of Conducted Energy Weapons and to Audit Selected Police Complaints, which was formed in 2012.

[10:05 a.m.]

Prior to providing the update, however, I would like to give you a brief overview of the Police Act and the history of the development of part 11. Under the Constitution Act in 1867, provinces have a constitutional responsibility for the administration of justice, which includes policing, per subsection 92(14). Accordingly, the B.C. Police Act, which was originally introduced in 1974, sets out the role of the provincial government in the governance of policing by mandating: “The minister must ensure that an adequate and effective level of policing and law enforcement is maintained throughout British Columbia,” as per section 2.

The minister, as the Solicitor General and the top law enforcement official for the province, must designate a person, an employee in the ministry, as the director of police services. The director, who acts on behalf of and subject to the direction of the minister, is responsible for superintending policing and law enforcement functions in British Columbia, per section 39.

The director, supported by the policing and security branch, discharges his or her duties by superintending policing in the province; establishing provincial policing standards for police services delivery; assisting in the coordination of policing and law enforcement provided by the independent investigative office, or the IIO, provincial police forces, municipal police departments, designated policing units and designated law enforcement units; monitoring the finances and operations of the provincial and municipal RCMP; administering First Nations policing agreements and programs; providing training and support to municipal, First Nations and other police boards; inspecting and reporting on the quality of police services; developing and coordinating police policy and legislation, including acting as a custodian for the Police Act; facilitating innovative, proactive, evidence-based policing through service delivery and technological innovation.

Also, managing non-police law enforcement appointments and activities, such as special constables and auxiliary members; establishing, approving and supervising programs to promote cooperative and productive relationships between officers or IIO investigators and the public; maintaining statistical records required to carry out inspections, evaluations and research studies and report on provincial crime and police data; consulting with and providing information to the minister, chief civilian director of the IIO, chief constables, chief officers, boards and committees on matters relating to policing; making recommendations to the minister on various matters, including appointments to boards, and the minimum standards for the selection and training of officers and IIO investigators; reporting to the minister on the activities of police forces and departments in their provision of police and law enforcement services; and performing other functions and duties assigned to the director under the Police Act.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, or the OPCC, is established in part 9 of the Police Act, and the processes and procedures for the complaint processes that are outlined in part 11. The Police Act gives the Police Complaint Commissioner certain powers to oversee investigations into police misconduct and sets out the rights in complaints of respondent officers. As the committee is aware, the Police Complaint Commissioner is an independent officer of the Legislature. It is the Solicitor General, supported by the director of police services, who would be responsible for any amendments to part 11 of the act.

As my predecessor indicated when he spoke to the special committee in November 2012, part 11 was created in response to the 2007 report by Josiah Wood, QC, Report on the Review of the Police Complaint Process in British Columbia. As you’re aware, part 11 sets out the investigative process for misconduct complaints against police officers and the duties and responsibilities of parties involved in an investi­gation, including oversight by the OPCC.

Mr. Wood’s report found that the majority of complaints against the police are appropriately investigated and handled. However, the report also found that approximately one in five complaints were not handled and concluded as well as they could be. There were concerns that some of the more serious complaints tended to be the ones that had deficiencies in the investigation or the disposition. A variety of factors were thought to contribute to the deficiencies. In particular, the lack of unconditional acceptance, by some police, of the concept of civilian oversight was concerning. Mr. Wood also observed challenges to the Police Complaint Commissioner’s authority during the review.

Ultimately, the Wood report made 91 recommendations for improvements to the legislative framework aimed at addressing these issues. Generally speaking, each of the 91 recommendations aligned with one or more of the following principles: increasing the oversight role of the Police Complaint Commissioner, improving accessibility for persons to lodge complaints, increasing the rights afforded to both members and complainants through the process, improving timeliness, expanding the use of mediation and other informal resolution processes of complaints, clarifying roles and responsibilities during an investigation and developing a new process for reviewing decisions regarding complaints.

[10:10 a.m.]

After consultation with police stakeholders, the implementation of the recommendations through the amendments to the Police Act resulted in significant changes to the police complaint process.

Part 11, which included over 100 new sections and established the current police complaints process, was created by Bill 7, the Police (Misconduct, Complaints, Investigations, Discipline and Proceedings) Amendment Act, 2009. Bill 7 was given royal assent on October 29, 2009, and brought into force on March 31, 2010.

As you’re aware, section 51.02 of the Police Act sets out the processes and timelines for audits of complaints and investigations under part 11 of the act. The previous special committee was created in May 2012 with a mandate to complete the part 11 audit as well as to inquire into the use of conducted energy weapons, commonly referred to as Tasers. The report was released on March 7, 2013.

The special committee, in 2012, engaged the Auditor General of B.C. to audit whether police complaints were being processed in compliance with the act. The key findings of the Auditor General’s summary report, released in November 2012, were that police complaints are being addressed in compliance with the act, that the Police Complaint Commissioner promotes thorough and competent investigations of police complaints by exercising discretion as provided by the act and that the Police Complaint Commissioner has taken steps consistent with the act to ensure increased public awareness of the police complaint process.

However, the Auditor General’s report also found that less than half, or 45 percent, of investigations by the Police Complaint Commissioner are completed within the six-month limit set by section 99 of the act. The remaining investigations were granted extensions by the Police Complaint Commissioner, and no formal monitoring or training was provided to detachment staff to ensure that individuals wishing to make a complaint were not harassed, coerced or intimidated when questioning or reporting police conduct.

The special committee’s 2013 report endorsed the recommendations made by the Auditor General and made the same recommendations to the Legislative Assembly. Specifically, the two recommendations for the Police Complaint Commissioner were to work with the police professional practices staff to identify and address challenges associated with achieving the six-month time limit and to provide the formal training to staff at police detachments on the receipt and handling of the complaints.

In terms of the response to the recommendations, as you heard earlier, Deputy Commissioner Spindler provided an update on these activities. I can speak to the changes to the Police Act and the work we have completed since then. There have been several amendments to the Police Act since the release of the last special committee report in March 2013.

These amendments include Bill 15, Justice Reform and Transparency Act, 2013, which amended section 40 to allow the director to establish standards relating to the collection, disclosure and analysis of information relating to the administration, management and programs of or related to policing and law enforcement.

Bill 14, Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2014, added a new part, 8.1, on audits and major case investigations and unbiased policing and included a requirement for officers to cooperate with the auditor. However, this part is not yet in force. Bill 14 also added new standard-making authorities related to major crime investigations, increased the maxi­mum size of police boards from seven to nine and changed section 68.1 to clarify the custody and control of crime records.

Bill 4, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2014, added new sections on specialized police services.

Bill 7, Nisga’a Final Agreement Amendment Act, 2014, amended part 9.1 of the Police Act to reflect changes to the Nisga’a final agreement.

Bill 30, Cannabis Control and Licensing Act, 2018, added section 2.1 on provincial policing priorities to allow the minister to establish priorities, goals and objectives for policing and law enforcement in British Columbia. And various minor housekeeping amendments over the years.

In 2013, the ministry released the B.C. Policing and Community Safety Plan. One of the action items in that plan was to conduct a comprehensive review of the Police Act. The review of the act was undertaken in 2015 and 2016, and as part of the project, the ministry sought submissions from various internal and external stakeholders, including the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. The Police Complaint Commissioner submitted several recommended amendments to part 11 to the ministry in January 2015 and September 2015.

[10:15 a.m.]

Under the Police Act review project, submissions or feedback were also received from the B.C. Association of Police Boards, B.C. Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police, the B.C. Liberties Association, the independent investigations office, B.C. Police Association, Pivot Legal Society and transit police service.

Due to other emergency priorities in my branch, such as the opioid crisis, the threat of gang and gun violence and cannabis legislation, the initial review of the Police Act was completed, but consideration of legal amendments was put on hold. However, the branch has retained the submissions from that review project, which included recommendations to improve efficiencies in part 11. Should direction be given to pursue comprehensive amendments to the act, these submissions, as well as updates, will be relied upon to inform any proposed amendments.

I would like to address a few other issues raised by the special committee in 2012. The previous special committee noted that Mr. Wood’s report identified the culture of police and the resistance to complaint processes as a hurdle that was faced in dealing with the police complaints. The special committee inquired whether changes in legislation, meaning the creation of part 11, or changes within police culture more generally had assisted in the successful implementation of the Wood report recommendations.

My predecessor, Clayton Pecknold, when he addressed the special committee on November 26, 2012, indicated there had been significant improvements in policing culture with regards to the acceptance of civilian oversight of police. This was particularly apparent during the development and implementation of the independent investigations office in 2011.

I would just like to reiterate what Mr. Pecknold mentioned this morning, which is that police accountability is part of core operations and functioning among police at both the senior leadership and officers level, and there’s a full recognition of the importance of civilian oversight within police.

In terms of the workings of part 11, I think it is fair to say that there are no other sections within part 11 that are completely unmanageable. However, there are some provisions that could benefit from modifications to improve the efficiency of complaint procedures. As I have indicated, the ministry has not been able to complete comprehensive amendments to the Police Act due to the competing priorities. But to reiterate, these recommendations and suggestions for improvement have been retained and tracked and will be reviewed and updated should there be an opportunity amend part 11 in the future.

In closing, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My staff and I look forward to reading your report and reviewing the recommendations that will arise. Certainly, we’re prepared to answer any questions.

We fully anticipate that this process will be very helpful to us in informing potential future improvements to part 11 of the Police Act. As I mentioned earlier, a transparent and effective complaint process is essential to public confidence in policing in British Columbia.

R. Singh (Chair): Thank you so much.

Any questions?

A. Olsen: Not really a question, other than just congratulations on your appointment to the role, and good luck as you go forward.

I think that we’re in an interesting situation as this group is now taking a look at the office and the effectiveness of the office. We’ve got a new person in both the office and the government and, as well, in the OPCC, so there are a lot of fresh faces, including mine, around policing on this file. It’s a good opportunity, I think, for us to really dig in and make sure that the oversight aspects of our policing in this province do what Commissioner Pecknold highlighted, and you’ve highlighted as well, which is maintain public confidence.

Congratulations in your new role.

B. Butterworth-Carr: Thank you.

R. Singh (Chair): I’ll just echo what MLA Olsen said. We really are looking forward to working with you. It was great to hear from Mr. Pecknold. We just finalized his appointment a few months ago. It’s good to see you in your new position. Having fresh faces in these two key positions, I think, is important.

The things that you have mentioned and what we heard in the morning…. That’s what our expectation is: having that faith in the police and in the complaint process. I’m really looking forward to that. Thank you so much for coming again and making your presentation.

Members, before we make the motion to adjourn, we have some other business. We’re just having a quick photograph, so we have to put on our best smiles.

I need a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 10:20 a.m.