The committee met at 9:04 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): The purpose of the meeting is to receive some submissions from guests. We’ll meet the guests as we go, and then after that, we’ll have time for any other business that members might want to bring forward. In the meantime, we’ll get started.

[9:05 a.m.]

I would like to invite to present to us the B.C. Coroners Service. That will run for about 20 minutes, and then we’ll have about half an hour for questions after that.

I welcome our guests and ask them to introduce themselves, please.

Briefings on Police Act

B.C. CORONERS SERVICE

L. Lapointe: Good morning, everybody. It’s Lisa Lapointe here. I’m the chief coroner. Thank you very much for the invitation to present to the special committee today.

I want to acknowledge that I’m participating in this meeting from the traditional lands of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-​speaking people, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. I’m profoundly grateful to be able to work in this beautiful territory.

I’ll let my colleagues John McNamee and Michael Egilson introduce themselves now.

J. McNamee: Good morning. I’m John McNamee, executive director of legal service and inquests at the B.C. Coroners Service.

I’m thankful to be speaking to you from the lands of the Coast Salish people, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

M. Egilson: Hi. I’m Michael Egilson. I’m the director and chair of the specialized investigations and death review unit of the B.C. Coroners Service.

I’m thankful to be speaking to you from the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking peoples, the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.

L. Lapointe: We’ve created a PowerPoint — easier to, I think, follow along for everybody. I know I have 20 minutes to get through this. Then Michael and John and I are very happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.

I’ll launch right in so that we can get through this as quickly as possible.

I’m going to spend a minute talking about the coroner’s mandate. You may know that all deaths in B.C. that are due to unnatural or unknown cause must be reported to a coroner. A coroner must investigate to determine five things: the identity of the deceased and how, when, where and by what means death occurred. That means that coroners investigate all homicides, all deaths due to self-inflicted injuries or illness, all accidental deaths and any death where death is unexpected and cause is unknown.

Coroners may make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future. Of course, I think you all know a coroner’s investigation is a fact-finding investigation, and there is no fault or blame assigned.

When it comes to deaths involving the police, there is an additional reporting duty. A peace officer under the Coroners Act is defined as a sheriff, a sheriff’s officer, a police officer, a police constable or any other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace. That language is important, and I’ll refer to that a little bit later.

A peace officer must immediately report any death when a person dies while detained by or in the custody of or in the custodial facility of a peace officer or as a result, directly or indirectly, of any act of a peace officer in the course of his or her duty. We call these, in the Coroners Service, police-involved deaths.

They’re often direct involvement, where somebody may be shot by police or taken down in a chokehold and die, or they may die in a police cell. They may die in a sheriff van. All of those are investigated by the Coroners Service.

In 2018, we gathered some subject-matter experts to look into police-involved deaths. We do see a number of them every year, and we were starting to see some similar patterns that concerned us. So we brought together some subject-matter experts.

We have an ability to call something called a death review panel. That brings together experts from around the province in whatever specific type of death we’re looking at.

We do a review of all of our data. We do a literature review. We talk about trends. Then we bring the panel together and go through the data, go through the trends and canvass the panel’s expertise in recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future. Why are these people dying, and what can be done differently to prevent these deaths?

[9:10 a.m.]

Michael Egilson, who’s with us today, was the chair of this panel. Michael actually chairs most of our death review panels. This is a public report. I’ve attached the link there.

I’m going to walk you through the findings of this death review panel. We looked at 127 deaths, and the criteria is on our next slide. These are people who died during an initial police response or while in police custody, or under police supervision or within 24 hours of police contact for a law enforcement action — so a pretty tight circle around the deaths. That was 127 deaths in all.

I should mention, before I go on, that the subject-matter experts who were involved in this panel included a wide variety of law enforcement experts, RCMP and municipal, some folks from SFU, UBC, mental health, Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, First Nations Health Authority, First Nations policing, Civil Liberties Association, the medical health officer for the Island. So we really try to bring together a diverse group of people who all bring their own unique perspective.

Of the 127 deaths, 56 were due to suicide; 24 were due to accidental drug and/or alcohol toxicity; 21 were attributed to police use of force; 16 were accidental causes — MVIs and drownings; seven due to natural causes; and three resulted from injuries caused by other civilians.

The findings. Not surprising, I think, to most people on the panel, mental health issues and chronic alcohol or substance use were the primary reason that people were called, and more than half of those who died were exhibiting mental health symptoms at the time of police contact.

Twenty percent of the deaths were amongst Indigenous people. I’ll talk about that a little bit more in the next few slides. We do collect, as a coroners service, data on Indigenous identification, and that’s done at the request of the First Nations Health Authority. So for every death that’s reported to a coroner, the coroner will ask whether the individual identified as Indigenous, whether First Nations, Inuit or Métis, and record that. We don’t currently collect any other race-based data, which is unfortunate, I think, in light of some of the questions that arise, and I’ll talk about that a little bit later too.

Of those who died, 84 percent were male — 107 people; 16 percent were female — 90 people; and more than three-fourths, 81 percent, occurred amongst people ages 20 to 59. The literature…. As I say, we do a literature search in advance of our panels, and in fact, police interactions are generally higher among males than females. Males have higher rearrest rates and more non-criminal interactions with police.

Indigenous persons. As I said, 20 percent of those who died in interactions with police or within 24 hours of an interaction with police were Indigenous People, and Indigenous Peoples comprise 6 percent of the population. That’s a significant overrepresentation, as you can see. Again, that is consistent with national studies on the topic — that Indigenous People come into conflict with law disproportionately to their representation in the general population. A number of reasons for that…. We certainly know that in almost every death category that we investigate, Indigenous People are overrepresented. A really tragic comment on the impacts of colonialism and the number of injustices that Indigenous People have faced over the years in this country.

Mental health symptoms. In more than half of the deaths, the decedents were exhibiting mental health symptoms during contact. So we know that police were called because they were exhibiting mental health symptoms, and more than half were showing that in their interaction with police. In fact, 87 had an identified mental health concern or condition, 27 of which were diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, and 42 had a history of depression, stress or anxiety. Again, that’s consistent with studies — that people who experience mental health issues, substance abuse, misuse and intoxication all have a greater likelihood of contact with police services.

[9:15 a.m.]

I think what that does is provide a bit of a portrait of those who are coming in contact with police, at least, who are then dying, because, of course, as a coroners service, we only see the people who have a fatal outcome. By far, they are vulnerable people who are experiencing some significant challenges in their lives, whether it’s mental health or substance use challenges.

Two-thirds of those who died had experienced challenges related to illicit substance use. Almost half had a history of chronic alcohol abuse. And more than half had evidence of intoxication on postmortem toxicology reports. Almost half had chronic health conditions, including chronic pain, cardiovascular disease, respiratory conditions, etc. Again, it tells you that these are vulnerable people. They’re coming into contact with police for a variety of reasons, but they are vulnerable to, certainly, illnesses and, as we see, their fatal outcomes.

Additional findings. So 46 percent of the deaths, almost half the deaths, occurred during the initial police response. So in the first interaction with police, almost half of those people died. Among the 127 deaths reviewed, half of the decedents were known to police, so these were not unknown quantities. And 22 percent had a past history of violence that was known to police. Again, the police had a bit of a sense of what they were coming into with these folks.

By population centre, geographic area, interestingly, rural and small urban centres have a higher rate per capita of police-involved deaths. So where we have the large urban populations, the rate of death was lower. You can see that in the small urban…. So 39 percent of the deaths happened in communities under 30,000, and 39 percent happened in the larger communities. But of course, when you look at it prorated by population, risk of dying is much, much higher for those who come in contact with police in a small urban centre or a rural centre.

Again, that is not inconsistent. That is similar to other communities across the country. Many times police are the first line of contact and other services are just not available.

The reasons for the police and decedent encounter: 53 percent were for disturbances, so either a distraught person, a domestic dispute, a public intoxication or a person with a weapon; 20 percent were for physical assault; 20 percent were for traffic-related issues; 5 percent were for police surveillance to serve an arrest warrant; and 2 percent were for property crimes. Again, the common scenario we would see is somebody behaving bizarrely in public, threatening people often, sometimes with a knife or a weapon, and police are called to deal with them.

There is fear. Certainly, when somebody is exhibiting mental health symptoms or intoxication by substances, there is a fear in the public, I think, of the unknown, and police are the first line of defence. They get the call.

The review found three primary themes among the deaths during police encounters. Again, as we talked about earlier, a high proportion of the encounters were among decedents experiencing a mental health crisis. A high proportion of decedents had chronic health conditions and/or substance use issues, and a number of the deaths resulted from police use of force. Those were the panel’s three concluding themes.

With respect to the mental health concerns, the panel looked at the Mental Health Act and found ten decedents whose deaths were attributed to accident or suicide and who had been exhibiting concerning behaviours had symptoms of a mental health condition for which police were called, yet none were taken into custody under the Mental Health Act. I think you know that there are certain facilities designated under the Mental Health Act for the treatment of those demonstrating mental health symptoms and that police can apprehend those folks and take them in if they are considered to be a danger to themselves or others. Then they’re admitted under a physician’s signature.

Why do police not use the Mental Health Act when somebody is exhibiting clear mental health symptoms? A 2008 report by the VPD cited the following reasons.

Police were finding long wait times. If they arrested somebody under the Mental Health Act, they were tied up for hours in the emergency wards.

Oftentimes — we’ve heard this complaint from police numerous times — patients are admitted and then re­leased. By the time the police officer gets back on the road, the patient is back on the road.

[9:20 a.m.]

Admission was denied because the person had committed a crime, so a bit of a catch-22. They may be waving a knife because they’re having a mental health crisis. Police arrest them under the Mental Health Act. The hospital says: “We don’t want this person. They’ve committed a crime.” Or: “They’re too intoxicated.” Or they believe that the person would likely not meet committal criteria.

Similar findings in an RCMP review, where, again, only 14 of 59 detachments surveyed actually had a designated hospital under the Mental Health Act. Travel times were long and sometimes involved more than one member. Wait times in emergency wards were long. Health care providers refused to assess a person under the Mental Health Act if they were intoxicated or under the influence of substances. They were being quickly released by hospital staff — and really a lack of communication between health care and police officers for collaborative care management.

Again, a catch-22. Somebody is experiencing a mental health crisis but may have committed a crime or is alleged to have committed a crime and may be intoxicated by drugs and alcohol. Police think they should admitted under the Mental Health Act. Clinicians think that they are too risky to maintain in the hospital, so they fall through the cracks.

Of the 127 cases we looked at, they died likely preventable deaths, so 44 percent of all deaths were suicides. That’s 56 people. And 14 of those who died were Indigenous People — again, certainly overrepresented in the category of people that we looked at here.

Police use of force was the third theme that the panel identified. Rural and small centres were overrepresented in police use-of-force deaths. Again, that would be either a police shooting…. Oftentimes it’s some type of a hold. A person asphyxiates or a number of police officers are on top of them. And 29 percent of those who died in a use-of-force incident were Indigenous People, and almost all occurred during the initial response. Again, that’s something that we see very frequently. Very fast, within seconds or moments of the interaction, somebody has died, so a very, very quick sequence of events there.

Of those who died as a result of police use of force, again, 52 percent of the calls were related to disturbance issues. So somebody’s calling the public to say: “Somebody’s acting out. They’re behaving abnormally. They’re scaring us. They’re threatening us.” And 33 were related to physical assaults. In 81 percent of the cases, the decedents had a weapon. I don’t have the data, anecdotally. Very seldom is it a gun — occasionally. It’s usually a knife or a metal bar — something that’s nearby that the individual picks up. And 57 percent of them were known to police. So the majority of them were known to police, and 38 percent had a known history of violence.

In ten of the deaths, police used a firearm after less lethal force options were deployed. So they tried a conductive energy weapon, OC spray or a beanbag gun, and those weren’t effective. We do find that, with folks who are inebriated by drugs or alcohol, sometimes those methods just don’t seem to have any effect at all. In eight deaths, police used only a weapon, so no other less lethal force options were attempted. The situation presented that police felt that their only option was to use a weapon, which would be a gun.

In the police use-of-force incidents, 14 of those who died had exhibited mental health symptoms at the time of the event, and 11 had illicit substances and/or alcohol intoxication found on postmortem toxicology testing. Again, that’s a pattern that’s been seen in other studies — that individuals are more likely to be injured in a police encounter if they’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol, either in combination with a mental health illness or not. Certainly, the unpredictability of somebody’s behaviour is a risk factor.

[9:25 a.m.]

The panel found three promising areas to reduce deaths. The first was very much about coordinating between health services and police when they’re encountering people experiencing mental health crises. This is very much not just a law enforcement issue but absolutely needs some collaboration with those who provide mental health services. That access to mental health assessment needed to be increased and referrals to services for people experiencing other life stressors.

As you know, we have a huge challenge in this province in relation to those experiencing mental health symptoms and/or symptoms as a result of illicit substance use. We see it playing out in homeless camps. We see it playing out in deaths due to drug toxicity. The system, the services available for folks experiencing those challenges, is very fragmented and very difficult to obtain.

To utilize the findings from police encounters with the public — those who die, in particular, but in any supports incident to inform ongoing police professional development — there is a form that’s filled in when police are involved in an event with use of force that is submitted to police services. There has not been a lot of analysis. That’s something that police have been asking for when they have those use-of-force events. What could have been done differently? What could have been done better to prevent injury or death to the individual?

Here are the recommendations: incorporate the role of policing within the provincial mental health and addictions strategy and acknowledge that police are often the front line. It’s not their primary focus of their training, but if I go back to the definition of peace officer that I read at the very beginning, which is that a peace officer is a person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace, it’s interesting. What do we want to emphasize? I suppose that’s something that you, as a committee, will be looking at. Is it law enforcement? Is it enforcement, or is it preservation and maintenance of the public peace?

I think we have a, I’d say, movement. It’s really a shift in philosophy in the public service about words matter. Oftentimes the words you use really do change over time how you think about things. We used to hear things that people who used substances had been “clean” for a few months. That phrase is becoming out of use now because what that implies is that before they became clean, they were dirty. It’s a very negative connotation. The same with the Police Act: is it about enforcing, is it about force, or is it about preservation and maintenance of the public peace?

Number two is support and optimize policing mental health assessment and police referral to services. You saw the reluctance of police oftentimes to engage with medical services because of the delay that it would cause them, or they felt that there was just no point, that somebody would be admitted into hospital and released right away. That certainly speaks to the Mental Health Act. I think you know that recently the Representative for Children and Youth released a report on the Mental Health Act and youth, with a number of really interesting recommendations, really valuable recommendations. The Ombudsperson has also looked at the Mental Health Act and released a report in the last couple of years, again with a number of recommendations for government about modernizing the Mental Health Act to bring it more in line with what the public expectations are around those experiencing mental health crises.

In addition to death review panels — and I’m cognizant of time — we also do inquests. An inquest is mandatory when somebody dies when detained by or in the custody of a peace officer, very similar to the definition I told you earlier. Again, all inquests are public. Because of the pandemic, they are now available online. People can attend virtually. Witnesses are called to give evidence about what they heard or saw. A five-person jury makes the findings and any recommendations to prevent similar deaths. Again, no finding of fault.

We’ve done 14 inquests into police-involved deaths since 2018. They are the majority of inquests that we do. Five more have been directed and announced. Thirteen have been directed and are in the queue for scheduling. Our current capacity is about 12 inquests a year, so we are challenged to do these in a timely manner. We’re running anywhere from two to three to four years behind with holding inquests into police-involved deaths.

I’m almost done here.

[9:30 a.m.]

Again, similar themes from inquest recommendations. These are from juries looking for mandatory critical incident de-escalation training, where we often see that individuals come in contact with the police and are dead within moments. Many times the frustration amongst juries is that the individual is not necessarily presenting a risk to anybody else. They certainly may be presenting a risk to themselves, but the rapidity at which these situations escalate, particularly if someone is exhibiting mental health symptoms or intoxication by drugs or alcohol, is very concerning.

Include mental health scenarios in that training. Engage front-line officers in the design. They’re the folks who are coming across these situations. Again, better collaboration between mental health services and police, including information-sharing about some of the challenges, scenarios: what do we do in this situation? Body-worn cameras is something that comes up again and again from our juries.

Analyze the subject behaviour–officer response reports. When these interactions are happening, when they go sideways, when people die, what could be done differently? Some look at the trends, first-aid training and equipment.

The majority of those who die in police interactions are experiencing mental health and/or substance use symptoms. Generally, police critical incident response needs to be informed and guided by mandated and routinely refreshed training and education on mental health and substance-related crises. As much as it would be nice to send mental health folks alone to these situations, it’s not really practical. People are afraid. People are scared. Oftentimes they feel like they need somebody there who has some understanding of how to interact with a violent individual.

Unfortunately, as we know, most of these folks that are on the receiving end of those services are experiencing a mental health crisis or a substance use crisis. They are vulnerable, and things go sideways really quickly. I don’t know if any of you saw the Times Colonist article this weekend about a Mill Bay man who died within moments of police breaking down his front door. He was shot five times.

The police, as is their right, refused to provide statements initially to the independent investigations office. Finally, after many, many months of negotiation, the IIO shared the majority of their investigative material with the police, who then provided a statement, which was remarkably similar to the information the IIO had provided to them. This person was shot five times and died. We don’t have an independent witness. We have two police officers who went in, and within seconds, a man was dead. We don’t have a body-worn camera. We don’t know exactly what happened there.

We will be having an inquest into that death. It’s complicated by the fact that the IIO has shared most of the investigative material with the involved officers before they’ve given evidence under oath at an inquest. That’s one of our challenges. But there’s that need to de-escalate. This was a man at home, alone. It ramped up really quickly, and within seconds, somebody was dead.

Again, for the committee’s consideration, as you can see from the presentation, Indigenous people are overrepresented in police-involved fatalities. Our police response needs to be informed and guided by an understanding of implicit racial bias and principles of cultural safety. That is not something that is referenced in the Police Act at all now, as you know.

A lack of data on police interactions. Again, quality improvement needs to be evidence-based. It needs to include race-based and demographic data. We have not been collecting that on officers involved, but we are going to start doing that.

Certainly it would be helpful if there were a provincial administrative standard for the collection of race-based information, so that all of the provincial agencies that collect that information — or that should collect that information — are collecting it the same way, so that we can compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. If every agency makes up their own way of collecting that data, it makes it very difficult to find meaningful trends or meaningful evidence.

Again, coordination between health services and police is inconsistent across the province. That needs to be collaborative. How should it work? What should it look like when somebody is experiencing a mental health crisis or a substance use crisis and is scaring the people around them — and perhaps waving around a weapon, a stick or a tire iron? What should the response look like, acknowledging that they are in a crisis? The easiest thing is to respond with force, but as we see from the data, 127 people lost their lives that way over the last five years in this province.

[9:35 a.m.]

The next slide is my last slide. I could’ve gone on all day. There’s lots of information that we like to talk about. Thank you again for the invitation. John, and Michael and I are very pleased to answer any questions that you might have.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very informative.

I’d invite members to ask any questions they might have deriving from the presentation.

R. Singh: Thank you for this very informative report. We got a lot of information. Some we were already aware of, but the way that you put it was really good.

You mentioned a lot about race-based data. In my role, I’m very interested in that aspect. Just a question, for my understanding. You talk about collecting Indigenous data. Do the police collect other race-based data, or don’t they collect anything either? When they detain anybody, do they collect that data? Besides the Indigenous communities, are they collecting that data or not?

L. Lapointe: I’m not aware that they do. We certainly don’t get routine information from police around the racial components that they see. I’m not sure that they collect Indigenous data either. There is a provincial Indigenous data standard, and that’s what we use. It would need to be a data standard for all agencies in the province in order to be meaningful.

R. Singh: Yes, that would be great.

I just have one more question. We have seen that mental health has been a big factor in these deaths. In recent months, we have seen a big movement about defunding also. What do you think that the police…? Should there be more agencies, more mental health agencies, involved, working with the police to tackle this problem? This seems like a significant issue, with the police not having enough training, obviously. Also, in going back and forth between the police and the medical help, a gap is coming in between.

Involving people who are expert in mental health, having them work along with the police — do you think that could be a good solution as well?

L. Lapointe: I’ll answer quickly, and then if Michael wants to add anything as the chair of the panel….

Certainly, what we have found is that engaging people with lived experience is critical to any meaningful policies or legislation that is developed. That would include those, too, who have experienced mental health challenges and may have been arrested by police, or may not have; health care providers who are receiving the individuals; the police agencies themselves. What should they be looking for?

Really, some opportunities for an evidence-based re­sponse that really hears from all of the voices who have a stake in this and have experience in it, in our experience, always end up with the best result.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thank you, everyone — well, I guess, Lisa — for your presentation.

Just a really quick question. Looking at the 127 number that you used as a figure for total deaths, in what time frame was that collected? I didn’t see that in the report. You gathered in 2018, but it doesn’t say. Is that over a decade? Is that since the policing…? What is the time frame in which those numbers were collected?

L. Lapointe: Sorry. That was from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2017, so five years.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I just needed that clarified.

K. Kirkpatrick: I may have missed this, but there was an extremely disproportionate number between those communities under 30,000, in terms of the incidents there. What is the assumed reasoning for that?

[9:40 a.m.]

L. Lapointe: Again, I’ll just speak briefly. Then, Michael, I think it would be helpful for you to jump in.

What some of the theories are is that oftentimes, police are the only, or one of the only, resources available in small communities. Many of the hospitals aren’t designated mental health facilities. They don’t have front-line services available to those experiencing mental health or substance use challenges, so the police are routinely called to deal with those. Michael, I don’t know if the panel discussed any other….

M. Egilson: A couple of things that people looked at or suggested are that you’re more likely in smaller communities to have, as Lisa pointed out, less resources. You probably have less specialized and experienced police and fewer options in those smaller communities. There’s a suggestion that that has contributed to those higher incidence rates.

K. Kirkpatrick: Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

D. Routley (Chair): I think we have a question from MLA Begg.

G. Begg: Thanks, everyone. I question going back to the death review panel. The criteria for inclusion isolates three specific areas. And then the subject from the slide “The manners of death.” I wonder if you could break down…? Were the manners of death broken down into those three criterium areas?

L. Lapointe: Michael, I really ask you. So for example, if you’re saying 56 deaths were due to suicide, how many of those occurred during…? Well, those wouldn’t have…. Well, they could have occurred during the initial police response. Sometimes, people are threatening suicide. Police attend, and then they take their life right in front of the police officer.

I don’t know that we broke that down that far, but we certainly could go through the data and let you know that. I don’t think they broke it down by manners of death and criteria.

The report is publicly available though. I’ve just given the highlights. We can through go that. But there is much more information in the report than I highlighted here.

G. Begg: Thank you. An additional question in relation to Indigenous persons. Obviously, you can tell that Indigenous persons are 6 percent of the population and, I think, 20 percent of the persons in these categories. They were overrepresented. Do you know the police contact with Indigenous persons as opposed to other persons so that the rates can be further qualified?

L. Lapointe: Michael, do you know that?

M. Egilson: I don’t have the specific rate exactly, but you raise a really important point. The involvement with police with Indigenous people in general is much higher and disproportionate than with the general population.

G. Begg: One more question, a quick one. Mental health symptoms — a pretty big basket. From a medical practitioner’s point of view, it’s a very wide range of symptoms, and, in some cases, no symptoms that would be apparent to anyone, right? They could be diagnosed, but something that’s not evident.

Was there a further breakdown of those issues? For example, when you say that…. I think the stat was that 69 percent had an identified mental health concern or condition. Is there any more specificity available for that?

M. Egilson: As Lisa pointed out earlier, that really, as you point out, ran the gamut. Some of those would have been discovered after the death of the individual. But in over half of the incidents, somebody was displaying some sort of mental health behaviour, generally something erratic, which is why the police were involved.

[9:45 a.m.]

G. Begg: I believe it was said earlier that it’s things like behaviour that’s scared people, like waving a gun as an example. Is that just anecdotal? Certainly, that’s more than scary — to have someone waving a gun.

L. Lapointe: Waving a gun isn’t something that we often see. What we more often see — and again, Michael can speak to the data — is…. Well, I think 53 percent of the encounters were for disturbances. So a distraught person, a domestic dispute, public intoxication or a person with a weapon. A gun would be extremely rare — if any of them would have had a gun. What we would more often see…. If they have gun, it’s more often that they’re threatening to hurt themselves. Perhaps a knife.

What we see is people picking up whatever happens to be nearby, if it’s a spade or a tire iron. They may think somebody is chasing them. They’re experiencing delusions. Those are not uncommon scenarios.

Michael, I don’t know if you have any more specifics.

M. Egilson: No, I think that’s a good synopsis.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you.

MLA Olsen, Adam, go ahead.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Chair, and the same to Lisa and your colleagues for this report. I think it provides some very important insight as we move forward.

I think that the acknowledgment that Indigenous populations have a much higher than proportionate number of interactions with the police…. Obviously, the question is not for you; the question is for the committee and for, probably, the PSSG — the Minister of Public Safety — just around why it is that’s the case. I think that’s probably what we’re trying to get to the heart of.

But also to Rachna’s questions around race-based data and collecting race-based data. Even if it’s not just race based, a more comprehensive data set around the instances that we’re looking at. More data is better than less data, especially in this situation when we’re trying to figure out how to unpack what it is that we’re looking at.

I’m just wondering. You said in your report — or, at least, there was a comment at the bottom of your presentation — that you collect Indigenous data based on a request from the First Nations Health Authority. Then in one of your answers to MLA Singh, you state that what’s important is that consistent data is collected across government bodies and agencies.

I’m just wondering what it is that you need…. What needs to change in order for all of these agencies to collect that data? I think that that’s the point that I’m looking to uncover here. It’s who needs to instruct you and your colleagues in the various agencies to collect this data, and who we could talk to, to get that change.

L. Lapointe: That’s a great question, Adam. It’s nice to see you again, by the way.

We are aware that there is…. I’m not sure who is leading it at this point. There is some work being done on a provincial administrative data standard for collecting race-based data. It’s challenging. Are you looking at a person’s skin colour, or are you looking at their declared ethnicity? Sometimes some of the challenges that we see for folks who are recent immigrants may be very different for somebody whose family has been here for five generations. It’s determining what is critical to collect, and it would be the provincial government who would make….

Currently the Ministry of Health established the Indigenous administrative data standard that’s been in practice for a long time. So that made it easy for us; there’s an existing standard. But there is no existing standard for collecting other data provincially. It would be for the province to look at best practices across the country and/or across North America and what the best practice is in terms of if it’s a checklist. I mean, we do that when we do a census. Maybe it’s the same as the federal government’s census around identification. Again, what we ask is: what did the individual identify as? How did they identify?

[9:50 a.m.]

Really, recent events and conversations have caused me to rethink this. We don’t collect any of that data around the police involved. We collect demographic data about the decedents; we don’t collect it around the police involved. How many years of experience? What’s their gender? Have they been in previous encounters? Again, it’s not about blaming, but it’s about finding patterns so that we can make recommendations to prevent similar deaths.

We know it’s more dangerous in a small community, for some of the reasons that Michael has mentioned. Maybe the first line. May be less experienced. But we don’t have, currently, a questionnaire that we provide to police officers.

It is a bit challenging in these situations. If somebody dies as a results of an action of a peace officer, they may be legally culpable. The independent investigations office is going to investigate, and those police officers don’t have to provide a statement. They don’t have to say anything.

In many ways, the IIO is working in the dark to try to figure out what happened, but we can collect that data, and we should be collecting that data. It would be the provincial government that would make that…. Whether it’s Vital Statistics — I don’t know, Michael, if you have any insight into who would take that on. No.

M. Egilson: Maybe the chief information officer. I don’t know, Lisa. I’d be guessing, like you.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much. I believe Dan has another question.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I’m just looking around, trying to reconcile the 20 percent of Indigenous groups represented, out of that number. I’ve got a couple of questions around that.

First, of that 20 percent, what was the 911 call response, versus a roadside stop or a random flag-down off the street? Do you have that number or that detail?

L. Lapointe: I’m sorry. I don’t have that in front of me now. Michael?

M. Egilson: I don’t have anything that detailed, but few of these were random police encounters. Most of these were a call that came in, and police were responding to a call.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. One of the directives and goals of this of this committee…. Of course, we do see 20 percent of Indigenous population represented, when it’s 6 percent of the population. Again, I’m trying to relate this around your one recommendation: “Police response should be informed and guided by an understanding of implicit racial bias and principles of cultural safety.”

This all makes sense, but I sometimes wonder. I think we also need to keep in mind that police aren’t randomly attending these calls. These are people calling 911. I think that’s important to keep in mind as well, as we don’t want to take that paintbrush and paint it too broadly.

Your recommendation. I wonder if you can detail it a little more on that final recommendation that police response should be informed and guided by an understanding…. How does one employ that when the police are attending a call that’s not usually…? Race is not usually attached to that phone call. Someone’s out on the street screaming and yelling, and the police respond to that. How do you reconcile that recommendation within that context?

L. Lapointe: One of the challenges, of course, is that so many of our institutions have a racial bias without us being aware of it. Are more calls being received if a person is Indigenous? Do people see an Indigenous person and see that as more of a threat? So right there, are more calls coming into the police? Based on their own experience, are police adopting — again, it would be unconscious — some unconscious bias when they’re responding to the call? We don’t know. This is the kind of data, the kind of information, that we need to start gathering, because there’s so much institutionalized racism.

[9:55 a.m.]

We’ve seen it in health care. And I don’t mean that people are intending that. But the way that the systems are created…. They’re created with a colonial perspective, for example. There is no Indigenous world view in creating those responses.

It really requires, like everything else in reconciliation, working together — Indigenous people, non-Indigenous people — and trying to take apart some of those things and say: “How many calls are coming? What are the experiences when they happen? Why are Indigenous people in this situation in the first place?”

The impacts of colonialism are very complex. It is not simplistic. I appreciate your questions. They’re really good questions. It is not a simplistic answer. It’s generations of dealing with the Indian Act, for example, and the implications of that and the mistrust of police that has developed over the years because of the police being enforcers for some of the more challenging aspects of the Indian Act and the harm that was done to Indigenous people. So it’s very complex. It is not simplistic.

I appreciate that there is a willingness by the province to really move in that direction and to create this committee.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): If I can follow up, Chair. The bias is, absolutely…. I think we definitely recognize that.

Has the Coroners Service worked with and/or reached out to, as well, E-Comm, the 911 providers? Is there an opportunity there, I wonder? Again, that is really your first point of contact for a complaint. That’s what starts the ball rolling on every single aspect. Has the Coroners Service worked with them in any aspect at all?

L. Lapointe: When we investigate deaths or do a death review panel or hold an inquest, certainly, E-Comm…. There have been recommendations for E-Comm in the past.

Michael, I don’t know if your group gathered any data from E-Comm.

We certainly could access that data. Our limitation, of course, is that we only have a mandate around those who die. So we wouldn’t have access to their information generally around calls. We certainly can access it when somebody dies, but it would be very specific to the deaths.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Great. Thank you.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you for those answers. They certainly refer to our fourth element of our terms of reference and relate to…. Thanks for those questions and answers.

Adam has another question.

A. Olsen: As someone who grew up on an Indian reserve, I think that any…. I think it’s pretty well known where those Indian reserves are.

Do you know how many of those calls, just to follow up on Dan’s question, were on reserve as opposed to off reserve? You just think…. A police officer is responding to the reserve. They know where they’re going. They know what they’re preparing themselves for.

L. Lapointe: Michael, did the panel look at that?

M. Egilson: I don’t recall there being many, if any, incidents that actually happened on the reserve. I could be mistaken about that. If there were, there were very few.

It’s a really good question. Certainly, that information isn’t in the report. As we looked at the cases, I don’t recall…. I think most of those tended to be off reserve, as I recall.

A. Olsen: Thank you for that. I just want to, I think…. This is probably not directed to the B.C. Coroners Service. I’ll just make a point generally.

On the one hand, I think we can be very thankful that we’ve got the data about the impact. We see the statistics of this one slice of the B.C. population’s demographic. We know the impact on Indigenous people, because we collect the data. However, it’s still is painting a picture that Indigenous people are problematic, because it’s the only data that we’re collecting. It now exists in this data vacuum.

[10:00 a.m.]

We continue to further entrench the stereotypes that we have of Indigenous people. They are inherently and disproportionately bad. I think that this is one of the perverse outcomes of only collecting data on Indians in this province, or Indigenous people in this province — sorry, I’ll use the less colloquial term — First Nations people, Inuit, Métis people.

I think that on one hand, I am very thankful that we’ve got the data. We’ve got the data on health care. We’re able to paint the picture of just how awful the situation is for Indigenous people. But make no mistake that it also paints the picture of just how awful Indigenous people are. That’s the story that we’ve been telling in this province since the colonial governments were established.

If there’s anything that comes out of this, it’s not that we need to stop collecting data about Indigenous people. It’s that we need to get on with collecting data so that we can put a full contextual picture around this, because we’re not, and all it’s doing is further entrenching our biases that Lisa was talking about and the biases of a police officer heading out to a call.

L. Lapointe: I take your point, Adam. We certainly do need to collect data on all decedents, race-based data. It’s interesting, and I see why people may take that interpretation that Indigenous people are doing more things that require a police response.

I guess because of my exposure in death investigation over the last 27 years, I see it from a different perspective. I see a perspective where there’s a lot of racism in this system. There are a lot of expectations, sort of, or beliefs about how people act or react. Certainly, my take on it — and I know Michael might have an opinion as well — and my experience in 25 years in public safety and death investigation is that it is not that Indigenous people do more bad things, to use your phrase. It’s that they are identified more often than other people are.

There is bias. There is racism, and that informs re­sponses that people are perhaps unaware of. That’s the information that we need to collect. We need to start collecting information about the police officers involved, for example, in these situations, and we need to start collecting information about other races and colours of people. That is a funny thing to say, but what do people see when they come upon somebody?

I certainly see your point, and I would hate for that to be the message that’s taken from this data. For me, what it says is that Indigenous people are more at risk for a negative outcome if they interact with police, which I think is very much the work of this committee in terms of the training and what the Police Act should say.

As they say, it was interesting to me. I had a look at the Police Act. I looked at the language. It’s a lot of language about force and enforcement. There’s very little language about help, support, mental health, public peace. It’s very interesting to see where the emphasis has been over the years.

D. Routley (Chair): To people with hands up, we’ve gone over time. It was a really fascinating presentation. If we can keep it relatively short, Members.

G. Begg: I’ll be very quick. I just want to validate what Adam has just said, that the important thing about statistics is the context in which they are considered. There becomes a glaring inequity when we focus only on one specific group. I acknowledge that they’re overrepresented in the criminal justice system, but in the absence of any other racial factors, I think it’s very important to consider that.

R. Singh: Just very quickly on this, Chair.

Thank you so much, Lisa, for how you explained it.

I could hear the concerns from Adam. I just want to say that what we are hearing today is the importance of collecting the data. Right now we have this data about the overrepresentation of Indigenous communities, and that is making us think: what is happening?

Obviously, the systemic discrimination, the systemic racism — that is within the system. It is not a personal thing; it is within the system. That is what we are here to challenge. But the need to collect all race-based data is becoming very clear.

[10:05 a.m.]

I just want to mention that the province is on top of this, as well, and is on the path of collecting that data. That will be coming out soon. But this presentation makes it very clear what we are missing.

Thank you so much.

D. Routley (Chair): Yeah. It was mentioned in the platform in the election, actually.

Harwinder would like to ask a question.

H. Sandhu: Yes. Thank you, Lisa, for your presentation. Very enlightening. Just a quick question. Whenever I try to look for information, there is very little information or conversation about including mental health workers to respond to distress and mental health–related calls. You did touch upon some points. I’m just curious. How much conversation is happening at that front?

Most of the mental health workers do have code white and personal safety and even more extensive trainings. Your studies have shown that if we had those calls in coordination with a mental health worker…. I’m not saying send a mental health worker there alone but with the police. What type of conversations are we having? There have been positive impacts. I know we have so many inconsistencies when it comes to our system here. What can we do better?

L. Lapointe: Michael, I don’t know if your panel looked at this specifically.

We certainly have had many references at inquests too. The Vancouver Police, for example, have a program — I forget the name of the car — where they will go out with somebody who is trained in mental health response. Certainly, my understanding is that they feel that’s an essential piece to what they need to provide in terms of service to the community, because they are not trained mental health practitioners, although it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have more training around mental health for peace officers.

Michael, did the panel specifically reference that?

M. Egilson: There were a number of specific initiatives like that that were talked about, and people found them quite helpful. Just to quickly put in some perspective, in an average year, the police would attend about 75,000 mental health calls in the province. About 25 percent of those would actually be taken into custody under the Mental Health Act.

Really, de facto the police have become part of the mental health system. One of the big pushes from the panel was noting that they need to become part of the mental health strategy, as well, so that we aren’t just doing a bunch of one-offs across the province but that those actions become coordinated.

What you do in a major metropolitan area may be different than in a rural area, but you want some consistency. Really, as the police are the first attendees to so many of these things, there needs to be more coordination with the mental health system about how you would actually go about that and what actually makes sense.

Then I think what you’re going to do is some of the specific initiatives — like Car 57, I think it’s called, where the mental health people go out — that I think fit in more strategically and systematically, as opposed to some one-offs because people are doing the best they can to try to make something work.

D. Routley (Chair): I believe Trevor has a question.

T. Halford: Yeah. I think it’s Car 87 and Car 88, which are, I think, operating in Vancouver. I think it’s also in Prince George. I just wanted to follow up on that, because I do think that we’ve heard that from a number of front-line workers, whether it’s police, firefighters or paramedics, just in terms of having that mental health worker with them on the front lines when they’re going to these calls.

Lisa, from your point of view, just in terms of…. Are you guys keeping statistics on how many of the death investigations you guys are doing where a mental illness has been defined in that individual that’s been deceased?

L. Lapointe: We do not ask, for every death reported, whether an individual has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder. We do, in our protocol for drug toxicity deaths, ask that. We certainly do for those who die of self-inflicted injury — suicides, we do. We have 11,000-plus deaths reported every year. We don’t ask that for every individual.

[10:10 a.m.]

T. Halford: To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that we were asking that for every individual. It’s just in terms of, for the discussion today, what we’re talking about, whether it’s police presence, if those are defined as…. If there’s a death that occurs, whether or not it’s to find that person has been on treatment for schizophrenia or some kind of other defined mental illness — if you guys track that. I’m assuming you do.

L. Lapointe: Yes.

T. Halford: Also, if those statistics are publicly available.

L. Lapointe: Yeah. We wouldn’t release them for the individuals involved. But in the death review panel report, we did know, I believe, that 27…. I don’t have it in front of me right now. A significant number had been diagnosed with a specific mental illness.

Michael, do you have that in front of you?

It was one of my earliest slides, I think. But we did report that. Yeah, 27. Sixty-nine percent of those who died had an identified mental health concern or condition. So 27 of those who died, of the 127, had a diagnosed condition such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, psychosis or dementia, and 42 had a history of depression, sort of generalized as stress or anxiety.

It depends how…. If you want a diagnosed mental health term, fewer. But of a general what people described as mental health challenges or issues, there were more.

T. Halford: Then just to follow up on that. In terms of your, obviously, close involvement with, whether it’s police boards or police associations, whether or not you’ve seen…. Maybe you’re able to talk about the work that has happened on Car 87 or Car 88 and whether or not that’s something you’d like to continue to see or that you’d advocate for more resources.

L. Lapointe: Can I defer that question to you, Michael. I know you’ve presided, over the last couple of years, on a couple of inquests where somebody in the community was exhibiting a mental health crisis. I think there was at least one incident where the Car 86 or Car 87 was not called — Mr. Hirsi. Again, that’s a publicly available report.

My sense, in speaking with our police counterparts, is that they find those services very, very helpful themselves. I have not seen any data that would demonstrate the value of those per capita in a community that has a Car 87 or Car 86 versus a community that doesn’t. I have not seen that type of data. I would imagine that it might be police services that would have type of data.

Michael, do you know?

M. Egilson: As you point out, Lisa, we’re going to see a very small percentage of the people that the police would be involved with. We’re going to see the deceased. The vast majority of the people, of those 75,000 encounters they have, aren’t going to end up dead.

So there’s a huge data set there that we would have no access to or know anything about, because those aren’t the people that we would actually have information on. Our data set is really quite small. I mean, certainly there weren’t any incidents that I recall on the panel of that program being involved.

T. Halford: Just last point on that is that, and forgive me, for I don’t know, but if you’re going to an investigation where maybe a death has already occurred…? I’m thinking that if, whether or not it’s a father has died or a mother has died, whether or not something like a Car 87 or a Car 88, in those instances, can be also helpful. If there is mental illness in the house, even though it’s not that individual that’s deceased, maybe they can support a family.

I can imagine that in some cases where you guys are going to do an investigation, there may be mental illness in that location or in that house where that resource could be of assistance. So I don’t need a comment on it. Just an observation.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Trevor.

Thank you, Members. I don’t see any more questions.

I’d like to thank Ms. Lapointe, Mr. Egilson and Mr. McNamee for this presentation. It was very informative, and I hope that the committee can refer to you if we have further questions of clarification, going forward.

[10:15 a.m.]

We very much appreciate your presentation and your contribution to this important work. Thank you very much.

L. Lapointe: Thank you for the invitation. Take care, everybody.

D. Routley (Chair): Members, we’ve gone a bit over time. There was some time built into the agenda for a little bit of a break, but with members’ consent, we’ll go immediately into the next presentation and hold our break time for between the second and third. Is everybody okay with that?

Seeing no obvious shaking of heads or gestures that might tell me otherwise, we’ll just go ahead, then, with the next presentation, please.

Hello, good morning. Welcome to the special committee to review the Police Act. It’s important work that we’re all excited to be participating in, and we’re glad that you could come and make a presentation to help us with the task. We went over time with the last group, so I won’t take a lot of time right now. I’ll just jump right into this. Maybe brief introductions, and then the presentation, please.

UNION OF B.C. MUNICIPALITIES

B. Frenkel: Okay. My name is Brian Frenkel. I’m the president of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.

I am presenting today from the geographical centre of B.C., Vanderhoof, and the unceded traditional territory of the Saik’uz First Nations.

Today my co-presenter is Coun. Craig Hodge. He’s the UBCM Metro Vancouver rep and co-chair of the RCMP local government contract management committee. We’re also joined by several UBCM staff reps: executive director Gary MacIsaac, consultant Paul Gill and senior policy analyst Bhar Sihota.

Should I get started, sir?

D. Routley (Chair): Yes, please. Let’s go.

B. Frenkel: I’ve mentioned who we are. Before we begin, for those of you who are unfamiliar, I will note that UBCM represents all local governments in British Columbia as well as eight First Nation members. We’ve existed since 1905, and our members include the largest cities in the province as well as the smaller villages and rural areas. Some of our members have their own police forces. Others rely on the RCMP as their local police force. Still others rely on the RCMP provincial police force for their policing needs. This means that UBCM is uniquely positioned to comment on the important work you are doing.

Before we get into each of the themes, I want to provide some additional context from our perspective. Policing and public safety is a very important issue for local governments. It is a core service and the most expensive service that local governments provide. But it’s not all about money. It’s also about modernizing police services to address current challenges which will better serve all British Columbians. This is why UBCM applauds the pro­vince’s decision to review this key piece of legislation. We feel that collaboration with local governments throughout this process can only enhance the committee’s work.

Lastly, we believe your work is critical and that this special committee has an opportunity to shape the future of public safety for the benefit of all British Columbians.

The paper that we have prepared highlights the issues of importance to local governments and has been organized into broad themes. We will take a few minutes during the presentation to summarize each of the themes.

Turning to the pie chart on your screen, you may be surprised to see exactly how expensive policing is for local governments, who primarily fund this service through property taxes. Data from the provincial government emphasizes the extent to which local governments pay the majority of costs for policing our province. Two-thirds of all policing costs are paid by local governments, which, in 2019, equated to $1.35 billion. This represents more than three times as much as the provincial government contributes to policing. Our members are also responsible for over 6,300 police officers.

[10:20 a.m.]

With this additional context, let’s get into each of the themes highlighted in the paper.

I will now turn it over to Coun. Craig Hodge.

C. Hodge: Thank you.

There is no doubt that the Police Act needs to be looked at in detail, because this has not been done for some time. From our perspective, there is a need to expand the review well beyond policing, because public safety is about more than policing.

The first theme highlights the need to make sure that all public safety resources are properly coordinated and that you have the right people doing the right work.

We are all aware of the calls for help that go to front-line police officers simply because they are the only ones available to respond. Many of the calls they get are outside of their area of expertise. As a result, police officers spend countless hours with mental health patients in hospitals or on the street. Now, because police officers are not mental health experts, many vulnerable individuals are not getting the help that they need. Furthermore, police officers are taken away from their core duties, and this is not a good use of these limited resources.

Now is the time for a comprehensive review of all key areas that factor into strong public safety. This includes areas such as health care and housing, and in all likelihood, there will be a need for preventative and proactive investments to help those at risk. We can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing and then wonder why things aren’t getting better.

This comprehensive review should also focus on the spectrum of resources in each area. With respect to policing, it’s important to look at what others are doing to see if there are things that we can learn. For example, Alberta is using peace officers to perform a number of policing duties, such as traffic enforcement and protective services for designated individuals. Also, a reinvigorated auxiliary policing program that meets local and provincial needs will provide additional human resources to effectively perform a variety of law enforcement functions.

All that is to say that we are already spending a lot of money on public safety, and this has continued to increase very significantly year over year.

To recap, let’s take this opportunity to take a comprehensive look. Let’s look beyond just policing and make sure our residents are receiving the necessary assistance and examine a spectrum of resources, including different supplementary policing options.

If we can go to the next slide, which is slide 6. This theme is public trust and accountability. This is the second theme in our report, and it’s about public trust and accoun­tability.

As you’re aware, these are very high profile issues. We appreciate seeing the issue of systemic racism in your mandate because it needs to be looked into. It is important for the committee to obtain information to better define and understand and address systemic bias.

Also, the public must have confidence and assurance that those responding to their calls have the knowledge, skills and training to assist them in an unbiased manner. The public must be assured that when they submit concerns about the service that they’ve received, there’s an independent, fair, timely and transparent system in place for their concerns to be looked into.

Secondly, police agencies, their governance bodies and the public would also benefit from improved data and business intelligence technologies. While significant investments in technologies have been made in recent years, police agencies continue to provide anecdotal responses to many requests for information, rather than evidence-based supporting data. These investments can help improve the efficiencies in a lot of areas, including the allocation of police resources.

The third bullet there is public trust and accountability. It’s also about including the public and governing bodies in the decision-making process. The public must feel that they are being heard. Those who will ultimately be held accountable for the service provided by police must also have an avenue for providing input. This is why it’s vital to maintain or increase local elector representation on the existing governance structures, police boards being the prime example.

[10:25 a.m.]

To summarize this theme, our recommendations reflect what I’ve just discussed: specifically, the need to examine data and information-sharing, appropriate training for those responding to calls and adequate avenues for the public and those responsible for police services to provide input.

If we can go to the next slide, please, which is slide 7. This is responsibility and resources for services. Discussion around our third theme is preceded by a graph showing changes to the RCMP front-line resourcing over the past 15 years or so. Local governments pay the majority of policing costs. We’re also the ones who stepped up to accommodate population growth and the increased demand for police services.

As you can see, during this period of time, the RCMP municipal service added over 15 times more front-line positions than the provincial police force. In 2004, our ratio of RCMP municipality officers to provincial officers was around 4 to 1, so this increase goes well beyond that rate. This creates a download of costs onto local governments, specifically in joint municipal-provincial detachments where municipal officers are responding to cover the provincial shortfall.

UBCM supports additional police provincial investment in front-line resources as part of a more structured approach to resource planning and allocation. The graph that you’re looking at shows that we’re adding the majority of front-line police officers, despite limited revenue-generating options.

Provincial data shows that local governments are spending a large percentage of property tax revenue on protective services, and this percentage has continued to increase year over year. The appropriateness of using a large percentage of local property tax to fund policing costs should be looked into. This also leads into a discussion about the cost-sharing formula and examining the existing arrangements to see how we can make policing more affordable for British Columbians.

If we can just go on to slide 8. When looking at re­sourcing, we know that our public safety system needs capital investments, especially in the area of technology. Such infrastructure should be provided provincewide so that it can be used seamlessly across jurisdictions. UBCM supports mandating provincial responsibility for providing and funding these very significant investments.

Our second bullet here speaks to the division of re­sponsibility for police services, which can seem arbitrary and confusing at times. So let’s take the Lower Mainland, for example. Why are local governments responsible for IHIT but the province is responsible for the Integrated Gang Task Force? Operationally, these units have a lot in common. They perform specialized work across various local jurisdictions. The same can be said for police dispatch, which is a local responsibility in the Lower Mainland and on southern Vancouver Island but a provincial responsibility in other areas of the province. It’s important for this review to examine these and work with partners to determine who is more appropriate to hold the responsibility.

The last bullet on this theme highlights the importance of making sure that a proper balance is struck between ensuring that service providers have the operational independence that they need to do their work and providing appropriate oversight and accountability for the body that is responsible for that service.

To summarize on this theme, there is a need to examine who is best positioned to provide the different services and also to make sure that those responsible have the proper resources and authorities in place to carry out those duties.

If we can go to slide 9, please. This is our fourth theme, and it’s efficiencies and effectiveness. This examines our collective responsibility to consider options for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the services that are being delivered. For example, there may be further opportunities for integration in areas such as cybercrime and child exploitation, and these should be examined.

[10:30 a.m.]

B.C. is a large province, and in some cases, regional integration may make more sense while, in other pro­vincewide teams, they may improve efficiencies. Any discussion to improve efficiencies, especially as it pertains to new, integrated teams, should involve consultation and communications with the other affected stakeholders.

Lastly, we want to improve efficiencies, but we also want to ensure that people are receiving adequate service and continue to feel safe. The province and the RCMP have previously suggested that B.C. may look to close smaller detachments in favour of larger policing hubs. We would caution against this, as reducing the police presence in smaller communities may have adverse effects. UBCM’s members have supported this position through endorsed resolutions.

In summary, improving efficiencies and effectiveness will involve looking into options for integration, but we must also balance this pursuit by making sure that our residents continue to receive adequate service and, most of all, feel safe in our communities and in our province.

I’m going to pass it back over to Brian now to look at our last two themes.

B. Frenkel: Thanks, Craig.

Our fifth theme looks at coordination and communication. The recommendations made by you, members of this special committee, will play a significant role in policing reform in our province. What we’ve tried to make clear is that there are very few reforms that won’t have an impact on local governments. So when it comes to having these discussions around, for example, which order of government should be responsible for each policing service, we want to emphasize that local governments and other key stakeholders need to be consulted. Furthermore, when it comes to establishing policing priorities, we need those same channels so that local representatives can convey what they are seeing, on the ground, as provincial public safety priorities are being established.

We already have a template for meaningful consultation, through the establishment of the RCMP local government contract management committee, which is a forum of local governments, the province and RCMP to discuss contract policing issues of relevance. Consideration should be given to the establishment of a similar committee that provides local governments an opportunity to inform provincial public safety priorities.

To recap, we’re stressing the importance of partnership by recommending that local governments and citizens be given avenues to provide input into the system as a way to improve accountability.

Building on the last theme, we know that legislative changes will have an impact on local government budgets. Local governments pay the vast majority of policing costs, and as such, ongoing consultation is imperative as you proceed through this review. If amended or new legislation is to be successful in modernizing public safety, it will be crucial for citizens and local governments to be connected to the process.

The importance of this review has not been lost on our members, who, in September of 2020 at our UBCM AGM, endorsed a special resolution requesting thorough consultation with local governments prior to the implementation of any changes to the Police Act.

In summary, we truly believe that this process will be the most transparent and effective if it includes ongoing engagement with all stakeholders, including local governments and their citizens.

We are now at the final slide. We’ve tried to do our best to summarize the information in our report within the 20-minute time allotment. However, further clarity and understanding of our recommendations can be achieved by delving further into the report. Ultimately, I think we have the same goal: improvements to our public safety system while ensuring the affordability and sustainability of policing services. We think the recommendations in our report can move us in that direction.

I’ll leave you with a….We’ll probably hear more as we go through these key messages, but I just wanted to go over them again. UBCM strongly supports a review of this 45-year-old act, and as the order of government that pays the majority of policing costs, we place a high level of importance on this legislation.

[10:35 a.m.]

We also support a comprehensive review that goes beyond only looking at policing, and we understand issues will not be resolved overnight or immediately and will require ongoing dialogue and collaboration outside of the special committee framework. This is an opportunity to shape public safety for the future.

We sincerely thank you for the opportunity to present. Along with our staff representatives, we are happy to answer any questions.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much. It was very informative.

I’ll entertain questions.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the presentation. I appreciate the time you’ve given us today.

A lot of great themes that we’ve heard throughout your presentation, which correlate, as well, with other presentations we’ve received, regarding…. Public input, I think, is one thing — that citizen engagement, that back-and-forth. So that is good.

I don’t believe that the RCMP have that level of public engagement like municipal police forces do where, of course, there’s a board that’s represented by elected officials and others. So that, certainly, is something interesting to look at.

As a former municipal councillor here in Fort St. John, I certainly understand the challenges and issues around municipalities seeming to face increased policing costs. That graph that you showed earlier on, with the very steep line with the municipalities and the very flat line with provincially funded policing, speaks volumes. Thank you for that.

My question is around that. I’m just wondering if the UBCM has numbers that correlate the growth within municipalities, police to people, versus the growth in the rural areas, police to people. How has that outgrown each other?

I hope I’m clear there. Obviously, municipalities…. We have numbers on how municipalities grow and, therefore, how policing numbers grow. Do you have numbers on our rural areas, how they’ve grown and, maybe, how police numbers have not grown?

B. Frenkel: Yeah. That’s a great question, Dan.

I’m going to go to staff here in a moment. I think in rural British Columbia, it’s very, very difficult for officers. As your town grows, getting officers into your community, like Vanderhoof or Fort St. John…. You’re bigger than we are.

It’s always a struggle to find officers — and not just officers in the fact that we can get a body in a seat. It’s an officer that we want to make sure stays in the north and has a relationship to the north. It’s a constant struggle.

Maybe Craig could answer what it’s like when he’s down in an urban setting.

In Vanderhoof, we’ve pushed hard to get five extra officers, and now we have a contingent of 14. In doing that, just like you’re looking…. In Fort St. John, you’re looking at a new building and having some fun with that. We are now putting…. We’ve been successful in getting 14 officers. We’ve outgrown our certain circumstance.

Getting officers, in relation to a building population, looks at capital as well. I think that that’s pretty important to look at when you look at the whole picture.

Craig, I don’t know if you have any comments to make on that.

C. Hodge: Yeah. I don’t know that we have the direct comparison that you’re looking for. Certainly, if staff doesn’t have it, we can get that.

One of the great things about UBCM is that we’re made up of representatives from around B.C. So while Brian comes from Vanderhoof, I come from Coquitlam, which is one of the top-six largest communities. Our population is growing at a rate of 2 percent right now. We’re one of the fastest-growing communities in British Columbia.

To put this in perspective, I had my staff do a little bit of research. Between 2004 and 2019, we added 45 police officers. To put that in perspective with the province, in that time, the province added 67 police officers.

Now, I share a detachment with Port Coquitlam. I bet you that if I add Port Coquitlam’s share and Coquitlam’s share, our one detachment probably added as many police officers, in those 15 years, as the province did for the entire province. I think that speaks to where that imbalance is that shows on that graph.

[10:40 a.m.]

The other thing is that currently municipalities pay about 36 percent of the policing…. Sorry. During that time, provincial spending went up about 9 percent. Provincewide we estimate that that’s gone up, for municipalities, about 36 percent. I checked that against my own community, and we’ve increased police spending by 37 percent, so that holds true with that ratio. In fact, we’re actually exceeding that ratio right now.

I don’t know, Gary, if you have anything further you can add, or we can maybe get the exact comparison.

B. Frenkel: Sure. Craig, if I could, we can get the data.

We just don’t have it in front of us, Dan. We can submit that to the committee so that we can look at population growth versus police growth. We can get that to you.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I think that would be great, to really see those numbers and how they relate to [audio interrupted] municipalities are really carrying, versus what the province’s commitments are. If I might just add one interesting point that you made early on in your presentation as well, it is something that I raised with the Minister of Transport a year ago, referencing Alberta using peace officers to help pick up some of the policing aspects that they’re more than capable of.

We have CVSE officers that are police. I live in a region that’s 170,000 square kilometres with a lot of highway and a lot of small communities out in the middle of nowhere, where there is no police but there are CVSE peace officers that are in that area and that are…. Pardon the pun, but their hands are handcuffed, unable to…. All they’re able to do is pull over truckers.

I think that’s really something interesting — I think we heard that from another previous meeting that we had as well — to seriously look at. Maybe if our committee staff can pull that together — what the Alberta model is, and their use of peace officers — that would be beneficial for all of us as well.

B. Frenkel: Okay, you bet. Thanks, Dan.

C. Hodge: I think there’s also the opportunity to look at a number of areas to try to use our civilian forces more. In my detachment, we have a large number of non-sworn officers that perform a number of functions. It always sort of concerns me when I see highly paid police officers doing a lot of the book work that a sworn officer has to do. I’d like to see that change.

I think there’s also another opportunity: to try to embrace the use of auxiliary officers in order to try to keep costs down. As the committee is probably aware, the RCMP — for those of us who have RCMP service providers — that program is basically on hold. There’s an interim program in place, but we’re eagerly awaiting the opportunity to work with the province on a B.C.-made auxiliary program. I think there is a really important role for our auxiliaries to play, both in terms of providing more service to the community but also trying to keep some of our costs down as well.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks for that, Craig. I’m glad you mentioned the auxiliary program. It is something, again, that we can be looking at.

Thank you very much, Chair.

R. Singh: Thank you for your presentation. From what we are hearing from you, it seems like we’re seeing the teams resonating — which we’d heard before as well — as you were mentioning how the budget is increasing and how the police are challenged with dealing with the mental health issues and other areas that they are not very equipped with.

I had this question for the other presenter as well, and I would ask you the same. Do you think that with more resources — like what the police are doing, especially in dealing with mental health issues — we should be bringing in more community organizations to help the police, especially if they are so challenged? Then would you think that that would help reduce the cost as well? When we are putting the resources into the community social services collaboration between them and the police, obviously they are more equipped to deal with those issues. Do you think that is a solution?

[10:45 a.m.]

B. Frenkel: I think that’s a good question, MLA Singh. I think that we face…. Getting the right person to the right call is the big issue. I think that’s the priority, and we’ve identified that in our report. I don’t think that the RCMP are always the necessary people to go to all of the time, especially in a lot of these. I know that in Metro, in Vancouver, Mayor Stewart has told me that 80 percent of their calls are outside of the Criminal Code. That’s anecdotal, but he’s telling me that.

That’s a pretty big cost. But it’s also telling me that we can do other things with better-suited people — the right person to get there. I think that’s what we’re advocating for. It’s to look at public safety as a whole and make sure, whether the program is Car 67 or Car 43, that you’ve got somebody that can attend in the appropriate manner. Right now, it’s 911, and somebody gets dispatched, and that’s not the most important thing. We are really thinking that that’s the issue.

The costing side of things is really important. It is a big cost to local municipalities, RCMP. But I would look at the service and make sure that everybody is doing the right thing with the right people first. Then let’s make sure that we understand what that means in cost so that when we go forward, we can look at costing, because I can’t tell you if it’s going to be less or more right now. But we need to make sure that we come up with a system that has the allocations of the right people and then, as a whole, we can decide whether that’s an appropriate cost or not. But first, let’s get the framework with the right people going to the right call.

R. Singh: Thank you so much.

C. Hodge: If I can add, from our perspective, certainly down here in the Lower Mainland, we’re looking at numerous issues including a lack of housing, addictions and mental health. So we have to take a really wide approach to those three issues, and I think that what we have to do is look at the best way to address those issues. It’s been our experience that sending a uniformed officer to deal with mental health issues when it really is a health issue or dealing with homelessness issues…. A lot of police resources are being tied up.

This speaks to my earlier comments about being efficient and using the best resources. To have a police officer, who is not trained to deal with mental health, try to de-escalate that situation…. Often he has to accompany the patient to the hospital. We’ve had cases where RCMP officers will spend an entire shift sitting in the emergency ward.

I think it’s a case of getting the best people, with the best training, to that. I think that’s why the Car 67 model has worked really well — where you have a nurse and somebody who understands psychiatric care there. We’ve talked about: “Well, are they the best people to respond?” Probably not, because then there are safety issues.

I think that what we’re seeing with the Car 67, where we have a mental health expert travelling with a police officer…. I think that makes sense. But again, it becomes resourcing. Not every community has the luxury of having an officer or a car that they can dedicate to mental health. Vancouver has several. Surrey has tried it. Coquitlam would like to do it. We’ve sort of said, “Well, maybe the best option is we team up with Maple Ridge, and we have a regional car” — speaking earlier about regional services.

One thing that we do know is that there has to be a better way of dealing with mental health. Years ago, in my community, we were home to Riverview Hospital. Years ago, if there was an issue, and a police officer had to bring somebody in for a mental assessment, they could drive right up to the front door of Riverview and ring a bell. A doctor would come down and take that person in for a 48-hour assessment right there.

Now the way into the mental health care system seems to be through the emergency ward, and that’s tying up a lot of our first responders.

R. Singh: Thank you so much. I deeply appreciate it.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much.

G. Begg: Thank you, presenters. Very informative. Thank you for that.

Theme 4, page 9, “Summary of key issues” — No. 2 says: “Consider the views of local government…when examining changes to detachment policing.” Does that not now take place?

[10:50 a.m.]

C. Hodge: It does. There are different models. Where there’s a municipal force, that can take place through the police board. It’s a little harder in the RCMP detachments, because you’re working with your commander, who is serving the RCMP and, also, serving in the community.

I think that what we’re seeing is that we want to strengthen that community input and have more elected representation on those oversight boards, such as on police boards. In the detachments with the RCMP, it depends. If you have a really good relationship with your chief officer, then you have that ability. But I think that, outside of the Local Government Contract Management Committee, which I co-chair, we deal a lot on the financial and the contract side, not the day-to-day police operations that, say, a police board would look after.

I don’t know if Brian or our staff wants to elaborate on that.

B. Frenkel: Sure, MLA Begg. This is something that UBCM has been advocating for, in a general term, across the province for quite a few years. It’s a bigger issue. Under our Community Charter, we’re recognized as an order of government. The province and the local government side, as an order of government, should work on areas of mutual interest. That’s where we start.

We always start at that and say that if this is a major impact to cost, personnel within our detachments, our policing services, we need to be involved from the beginning. We just don’t want to be a tick box process, and then the phone rings and here’s your increase. You need to be involved right from the beginning. It’s a way better system than getting the phone call saying, “Here’s your increase,” and then move on. Anything we can do to make sure that that happens is what we want to do.

G. Begg: Just a quick follow-up. It’s a hypothetical situation, but I would be interested in your response. Realizing that it’s hypothetical, if a decision is made somewhere to close a small detachment, for example, what would the process be that could make that happen?

B. Frenkel: That’s a great question, because we’ve actually had that in northern B.C. with the north commander. He just retired, but we had that scenario presented to us, where if there are 34 detachments up here, we’re going to take a look at how we make that smaller. We would say, as UBCM, first and foremost that we think that there’s some adverse effects to that, obviously. Now, how would we go about it?

First, I’m again saying it’s adverse, but we would probably want that local input started really, really quite early in the process. Even just hearing from the north district command that this was on the radar had started the conversations with all of our communities in northern British Columbia.

I would suggest, if there’s any thought of doing that, that you bring those communities in way at the beginning so that they understand what’s going on and what it could mean. Then we’re able to relate back to you the adverse side effects of that probably happening. I think that that’s what we would ask: to include local governments at the beginning of a process, because they’ll always bring something different to the table than a committee. Whatever there is, they’ll just bring a different thing that somebody hasn’t thought of.

A. Olsen: I’d like to thank my friends at the Union of B.C. Municipalities, as a former municipal councillor in a relatively small community with a community police force and, as well, now being an MLA that represents communities that are policed both by community forces and by the RCMP. I certainly appreciate the perspective.

If I may just highlight something here, and I think that it’s a piece that I want to come back to when we’re debating the recommendations. That is just the comment that Mr. Frenkel just made. I believe that we should be having these conversations on an ongoing basis if this is going to be a service that is shared. If the costs are going to be shared, then the responsibility needs to be shared. I just wanted to highlight that now.

[10:55 a.m.]

I think that that means us sitting at the table on an ongoing basis. Perhaps we’re not reviewing this act once every 45 years, but we’re having a constant conversation between the communities that are being policed, the elected officials that are there and the provincial government. This is just truly a collaborative process to make sure that we’re achieving the public safety outcomes that we’re looking for.

I’ll get off my soapbox, but I just wanted to add an emphasis to that point before the UBCM left us today.

C. Hodge: I really appreciate that comment. I think one thing that’s clear is that we have very small communities right up to very large communities, and I think that it’s up to the community to decide what’s their best policing model. The elected officials, working with their citizens, are the ones that know best what type of model of police services they want to have in their community.

I think that’s why the consultation is so key, and to talk with our members and see: “What do you think is the right fit for your community?” It may be a municipal force. It may be RCMP. They know their numbers, what their crime rates are, where they want to spend their resources.

I can’t emphasize enough that what we really want to see is that ongoing dialogue and consultation with our members when we start talking about any kinds of changes, upgrades or changes in services in policing.

B. Frenkel: MLA Olsen, if I could add a comment, I appreciate your comments. When I start to look at how we would roll this out — I’m sure you’re probably getting a presentation from First Nation communities — I think we need to be in lockstep with First Nation communities around us.

In our area, in Fort St. James, we have four other communities around the central community. I think that that’s what we need to be able to do: work with our neighbours and come up with something that works. We have eight First Nation members at UBCM. It’s open to most everybody that can do taxation and all of these other things. There are some common themes that we need to be able to work on. There are some themes that are totally different, but there are some common ones that we can work together on.

I appreciate your comment, but I just wanted to add that First Nation perspective.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks again. I just also want to say that I appreciate Adam’s comments there and certainly agree with them.

Going back to some of the funding — I know we touched on this earlier on, one piece — I’m just inquiring. It’s something that I know you have heard from your member municipalities. It’s something that I hear often from Mayor Ackerman, around the 90 percent funding, the 70 percent funding — the funding model in general, which seems to be broken.

Can you give us a quick update? Presumably, this has been brought up to FCM for discussions, because this is not just a provincial change. It has to happen federally. Where are you at with UBCM and the FCM in advocating for a review of this model in funding?

B. Frenkel: We’re very fortunate to have the presidents of both UBCM and FCM 100 kilometres from each other. That’s pretty rare, in the fact that Garth, the president of FCM, and I have had conversations.

We have not talked about this, Dan, but I would definitely add it to our list, to talk to FCM and see where they are on it. I’d make that commitment, that Garth and I talk regularly, weekly. I know we have a B.C. caucus meeting this Thursday, so I will bring it up with FCM at that time.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Just to confirm, is FCM working on this at all?

B. Frenkel: I can’t confirm that, Dan. I’ve just been at the FCM table for the last four months.

C. Hodge: I can maybe add that one area that is being looked at is through the Local Government Contract Management Committee. One of the things, I think, we’re watching nationally is the negotiations with the union, now that the RCMP has joined a bargaining unit. We are watching very carefully as to what those costs could be.

[11:00 a.m.]

We expect there will be some cost increases. We’re wondering. We are concerned. The RCMP has not had a raise in a number of years, so we expect there’ll be some retroactivity involved. I think that’s one of the key things that we are looking at, at a national level. Where are those costs? What are the drivers?

They tend to use comparators from other parts of Canada. Police forces, when they go into contract negotiations, will look at Toronto and other cities. I think there has to be some national interest in this.

Really, that’s an RCMP contract, and we don’t have any direct input into those negotiations, other than through the local government contract management committee. Essentially, these negotiations will take place, and then the bill will be passed down via the province to local municipalities. So that is concerning for us right now.

B. Frenkel: Deputy Chair Davies, I would ask our executive director, Gary MacIsaac, to make a comment. That’s the continuity between presidents. So I’m glad Gary is on the call.

G. MacIsaac: MLA Davies, we can check with FCM, but my sense is that you are into quite different policing in other parts of the country as well. Some members of your committee will know that inside out from their background.

Certainly, with, for example, Ontario and the OPP, it’s just a completely different setup. Your northern territories would be quite different. So it’s probably not a top-of-mind issue for them in terms of a national issue, because it reflects differently in different parts of the country.

From a UBCM perspective, I think the key message that our president came in with today, and Councillor Hodge as well, is…. I think UBCM is not here to wade in on a percentage for policing costs and various things at this juncture. You’re very early times. I think the message they really tried to portray is that UBCM is totally interested in this file, given the amount of takeup that it takes out of local government budgets every year.

As this proceeds, this is the discussion. The whole Police Act review is something that our organization wishes to be involved in.

D. Routley (Chair): I would ask a question. You referenced a provincewide approach to technological improvement. I’m wondering what kinds of inequities exist and whether or not they’ve impacted the ability of policing in your communities, or communities that you know of, to either do their jobs safely and/or with a positive outcome.

B. Frenkel: Sure. I appreciate that question.

I sat through, with Minister Osborne, on mayors and chairs calls last Thursday and Friday — 150 mayors and chairs. The number one issue, just about bar none except for the Lower Mainland, is cell coverage and broadband Internet. Great that there are these funds out in a universal broadband fund with the federal government. But the data that is input into that is somewhat incorrect in a lot of the rural parts of British Columbia. It says that Vanderhoof has high-speed Internet. We don’t.

Every time we take a step forward with new technology, that backbone of technology needs to be in place. It’s almost outside of this jurisdiction. It can be a recommendation to work with another ministry or another form of government, but we need to make sure that a lot of the land mass of British Columbia has proper cell coverage and proper Internet connectivity.

D. Routley (Chair): Any other questions, Members? I see none.

C. Hodge: May I add one point?

D. Routley (Chair): Please.

C. Hodge: There’s one question that hasn’t come up today but that I’m sure you’re going to hear from other presenters, and that’s the defund policing movement that’s out there.

Many of us at the council level have had delegations to our councils saying: “We want you to defund the police.” What I think is really being said there is that they want to see funding placed in other areas. So instead of us taking a reactive approach to dealing with mental health, which is sending a police officer when somebody is in crisis mode….

[11:05 a.m.]

I think what they’re really saying is: “Put money into those services that are causing the police to have to respond.” I don’t think they’re necessarily saying: “Spend less on police.” What they’re saying is: “Reallocate money to areas where it can be used better.”

Of course, at a municipal level, we don’t fund health care and all these other things. I think that’s really where the province has a role to play. That would go a long way to helping us improve efficiencies at the local level with our police forces.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. As usual, I would expect that the UBCM is always ready and willing to contribute. You always have been, and I’m sure we can count on you for follow-up, should members have questions or clarifications need to made.

B. Frenkel: For sure, Chair. I would suggest that if there’s information….

We talked earlier about giving that comparison between population growth and policing. We’re the conduit to 189 communities. We’re that unified voice. So I would suggest that if you need any of that type of data…. Our senior policy analyst has been on this file for years and knows it inside and out. So if there are those types of figures that you need, we can get you those figures.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much. With that, we’ll conclude this part of the presentation. Thanks for your assistance.

B. Frenkel: Thank you for the time. We appreciate it.

D. Routley (Chair): Well, Members, I think we have time for a five-minute break at this point. We’ll be back at a little bit past ten after, maybe quarter after. So eight minutes.

The committee recessed from 11:06 a.m. to 11:16 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Greetings, Mr. MacDonald. I’m the Chair, Doug Routley. There are a number of other members. You’re probably familiar with our names, if not our personalities.

Mr. MacDonald, we welcome you to present. We’ve got important work to do here in reforming and modernizing the Police Act, and we’re very interested in your role and the office’s role in all the accountability measures.

I invite you to begin your presentation.

INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF B.C.

R. MacDonald: Thank you very much. I’m pleased to be able to attend on behalf of the independent investigations office. I think that the work the committee is doing is very important. I think there’s a lot to be considered. I know you already have considered a lot, so I don’t envy the amount of work you have to do, but I think it is very important work.

I will be going through just a little bit of a reminder of who and what the IIO is — who we are. We’ll talk about our investigative philosophy and issues of timeliness. I’ll talk a little bit about what we do for transparency and reporting out to the public on our cases. Then I have it termed here as “issues” or, perhaps, “discussion items” — some of the areas where the committee and others may wish to give some thought to what I see are potential, and would be useful, changes or, perhaps, improvements to our processes and to the legislation.

Simply put, the IIO is the independent investigations office of British Columbia. We’re a civilian-led police oversight agency. We’re responsible for conducting investigations any time police action may have led to serious harm or death of any person. This is whether the officer involved is on duty or off duty. The whole purpose of our organization, in this higher range or more serious types of cases, is to assure the public that an independent body is conducting an investigation to ensure that the appropriate decision is made on whether or not the actions of the police were justified or not in the circumstances.

When we are finished our work, if it’s a matter of some public interest and the matter is not referred to the Crown, we publish a public report so that the public is able to see the work that we’ve done and understand not just our decision but the facts behind our decision and the law that we’ve applied.

[11:20 a.m.]

This is, I believe, a very important part of our justice system, and it’s wholly in support of the rule of law to allow people to have greater faith in their police. In situations where we find the police have crossed a line or, in the terms of the statute, I believe that there are reasonable grounds to believe an offence may have been committed, then the matter is referred to the Crown for consideration of charges.

A key point for the IIO is that it’s an independent and civilian-run body. When I say independent body, obviously we’re part of government. We’re a government organization. However, operationally, we run independently. Administratively, a human resource side and all the regular public service requirements and controls apply to our organization. But operationally, in other words, the decisions that are made with respect to the running of an investigation and where that investigation goes and what the outcome should be are left to us.

The organization is run by myself, a chief civilian director. A chief civilian director can never have been a member of a police agency or a member of a police force. I’m a 35-plus-year lawyer. I’ve worked my entire career in the criminal justice system. Prior to coming to British Columbia, I actually was the first director of the Serious Incident Response Team in Nova Scotia, which is similar to the IIO here in B.C. I began my role with the IIO on October 24 of 2017, so a little over three years ago.

Our investigative team, which consists of over 40 people in total, currently has a ratio of 52 percent with a civilianized background and 48 percent with a police background. This brings a mix of experience from a variety of different backgrounds, which is extremely important in the work we do.

I’d like to talk a little bit about our investigative philosophy. I believe that the three pillars of oversight are relationships — relationships with the people you deal with, police, community, government, the media, etc. A second important pillar is competence. We work very hard on training, ongoing and continuous training, as well as ongoing and continual improvement of our organization. Our goal is excellence in our investigations. Lastly, timeliness. All of these cases cause stress to the people involved, both the individual who’s been injured or, if that individual was killed, that person’s family. They need answers as quickly as appropriately possible, as do the police and as does the community at large. So timeliness is an important aspect of the work we do.

Under those three pillars, our values are excellence. We strive for excellence. We’re not always going to get there, but that is our ultimate goal in everything we do. Community engagement is very important. We are now devoting more resources to that than in the past, and we look forward to continuing to engage with our communities. Fairness is, of course, critical to the work we do. Communication. As I mentioned before, when we finish an investigation, we ensure that we tell everybody about it.

That goes along with the second-last topic there, practical transparency. We want to be as transparent as we can throughout all the work we do. When an investigation begins, we can’t, obviously, give all the details, but when we finish, we try to do the best we can, respecting privacy and trust and needs of the investigation.

Accountability is very important. If we make errors, we’ll acknowledge it. We will try to get better. As I say, continual improvement is an important part of our organization. And lastly, respect. We wish to treat everybody with respect — police, community, everybody we deal with. That’s an incredibly important part of the work we do.

Our investigative approach. My phrase is: we start every investigation from zero. So we don’t start with any preconceived notions. We don’t want to act with any bias. We simply want to go into an investigation, find out what happened and gather all the investigative evidence, being aware of the potential issues to that particular case.

[11:25 a.m.]

Once we have all that information, once we’ve gathered all of the evidence that can be relevant, we then figure out what that means. We then determine whether or not the actions of the police were justified.

So we don’t go into an investigation assuming that the police did something wrong. We don’t go into an investigation assuming that the affected party is to blame. We don’t go into investigations thinking the police didn’t do anything wrong. We go into an investigation with no pre-conceived notions. We go into an investigation wanting to find out what happened. That’s the important part of what we do. That gets preached a lot around our office, and I’m sure sometimes folks get a little tired of hearing it.

Our investigations are conducted, in my view, in the public interest. It is the public’s interest that justifies our existence, and we want to make sure that we meet the interests of the public in these investigations in everything we do. As it’s stated there, the public deserves the truth. They deserve to know what happened, and we want to ensure we deliver that to them as completely and as fairly as we can.

However, the bottom line is that at the end of the day, our main goal is to determine whether or not a police officer has committed a criminal offence, so all of our investigations are carried out to a criminal standard. In that sense, we mirror a lot of practices that one might see in a police agency, but we’re doing it from the oversight perspective. When we get a call, we go to scenes. We investigate and examine scenes. We gather evidence, much like a police agency would for an investigation. But we’re doing it from an oversight perspective.

I mentioned timeliness earlier. When I arrived near the end of 2017, this certainly was a big topic. We immediately started to take steps to remedy this through our processes and our approaches. We’ve made some good strides to date. Our average time in the fiscal year of 2017-2018 — I was there for half of that fiscal year — was 84 days on a file. It then went down to 69 in ’18-19 and to 62 in ’19-20.

Currently in the files that have arisen in this fiscal year, ’20-21, it’s 27. Now, that’s a little deceptive, because there will be files that go beyond this year that will increase that time frame, so that is likely to go up. However, we have definitely made strides. The feedback we’ve had from the organizations and agencies we’re involved with has been very positive in this regard.

I note the timeliness numbers have been either going down or at least remaining steady and, I believe, are going down. This is in spite of the fact that our workload has been going up, and going up quite significantly in the last couple of years.

In the ’17-18 and ’18-19 fiscal years, we see that notifications were in the mid-170s. A notification is when we hear from an agency that they believe there may be a case that fits our mandate. They don’t all fit our mandate. They usually overreport cases to us. But even a notification that doesn’t meet our mandate sometimes may take some work.

Those, then, will turn into investigations, and you can see that in ’17-18 and ’18-19, that was 119 that first year and 127 the next. Now in 2019-20, the number of notifications went up to 242. More importantly, the number of investigations went up to 193, so over a 50 percent increase in caseload in ’19-20. In spite of that, our timeliness numbers remained good.

In this current fiscal year, up to the end of December — so three-quarters of the fiscal year ’20-21 — notifications actually are up significantly, because that’s only for three-quarters of the year. Our notifications were up to 259, and our investigations for only three-quarters of the year are already at 176 for this fiscal year. I expect them to be well over 200 by the time we get to the end of March.

[11:30 a.m.]

It’s hard to put a finger exactly on why this is the case. We believe one of the reasons is that police are reporting more cases to us where the connection between police action and inaction and injury or death might even just be tangential or tenuous, but it still leads us to investigate. For example, if the police had an interaction with an individual who may have had some suicidal suggestions and they take steps and they allow the person to go on their way and then the next day, perhaps, they have done harm to themselves, that turns into an investigation for us. Our numbers on those types of cases have gone up quite a bit, so that’s one example for increased numbers.

On the issue of transparency, we have tried to increase the number of our public reports. We do that. We have formal public reports, which are usually somewhere in the range of four to seven or eight pages, which have a fair amount of detail in them.

We are releasing many, many more public reports now than prior to my arrival. In 2019, for example — the annual year 2019 — we issued 51 public reports and 11 media releases, which are shorter and more to the point. In the past year, I issued 55 public reports and 34 concluding media releases. We’re trying, as much as possible, to ensure that the public is well aware of the work we’re doing.

We don’t issue public reports or media releases in all of our cases. As I’ve mentioned, we have a significant number of cases that deal with self-harm caused to persons and the actions of the police are found out to be, fairly quickly, not the reason for what happened. In those cases, we will sometimes rank the privacy interests of the families involved over the need to tell the public about that type of case. That’s an example of a case we wouldn’t report out on.

At this point, I’m just going to talk about some discussion points, some areas where I believe, and the IIO believes, that changes in legislation would be beneficial for the work of oversight in British Columbia.

First of all, and I believe you’ve heard this before from other presenters, it is our thought that there should be separate police oversight legislation that is separate from the Police Act and that is one piece of legislation to deal with the variety of different types of oversight that exist.

In terms of the varieties of oversight, you have the IIO. We do the investigative work on serious harm and death cases. You have the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which handles conduct and complaint matters. In fact, the coroner’s office gives oversight to police, in a sense, with their inquests.

I think that one single piece of legislation to cover all of that would help to rationalize the interplay between those different agencies. I would also suggest that, to enhance the appearance of independence of the work that each of these agencies does, the IIO report to the Legislature in a similar fashion that the OPCC does. I think even just having separate legislation would increase the appearance of independence.

Ontario has moved toward this, with legislation that flowed from the report done by Justice Michael Tulloch. They passed that legislation prior to the current government. They’re in the process of a proclamation, but that still is ongoing.

One of the changes that might happen when you rationalize the interplay of all of these agencies, for example, could include the authority for the IIO to act as an investigative agency for the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. Currently if the OPCC receives a complaint about a police officer, they need to appoint an investigative agency, which is usually another municipal agency.

I’m not saying that that shouldn’t continue, because it may well be appropriate for a lot, if not most, of their cases, but there may be cases where it’s appropriate that the level of independence and the appearance, maybe, needs to be stepped up somewhat. Given that the IIO is designated as a police agency, I would suggest that it would be appropriate for the OPCC to be able to rely on us, on occasion, to do that type of work.

[11:35 a.m.]

Next, another suggestion that we had is to give legislative authority to the independent investigations office to self-initiate our own public interest investigations that don’t necessarily result in serious harm or death. Currently our legislative mandate is restricted to serious harm or death or to any types of offences that are designated by regulation. Currently there are no offences that are designated by regulation. So our mandate is restricted to serious harm and death situations.

On occasion, there are matters that arise in B.C. where the actions of police raise significant public interest issues, even though there is no serious harm or death involved. In those types of cases, currently the only way for the IIO to become involved is for the director of police, under the Solicitor General’s department, to order us to conduct that investigation. We actually are currently undertaking one that arose last fall.

I would suggest that to give that authority directly to the IIO would be a matter of important consideration. In my previous position in Nova Scotia, as director of the serious incident response team, that was actually a legislative provision — that I could self-initiate public interest investigations. So I put that out there for your consideration as well.

The next item for consideration is to allow the IIO to hire from the widest pool of talent possible. When the IIO was first created, there was a provision that limited the IIO from employing any person who had worked as a police officer in British Columbia within five years after they had stopped working for police. If someone had been a police officer in B.C., they couldn’t work for the IIO if they had worked in B.C. in the previous five years. We could hire a police officer from any other province, Alberta or anywhere else, or from another country. There was no time consideration on how long they had to have not been working.

Now, that provision was staid or put in abeyance for a period of two years from June 1, 2019, to June 1 of this year. It’s still in abeyance. So we have been able to hire police officers who have worked in B.C. One of the main reasons for that was because we were having a difficult time finding the right number of talented people to work for our organization when we had vacancies.

I can tell you that over this almost two years, we still have trouble finding the right people to work for our agency. We’ve had two competitions, and we’re in the midst of a third, where we were able to hire police officers from B.C. who had been working within the previous five years. It’s been very helpful.

For example, we had a couple in forensic, which are near impossible to fill, other than with someone who has previously been a police officer. Those skills are just not taught in the civilian community. We have hired others, as well as non-police people, in those previous two competitions.

The reality is that what the IIO needs is the best people possible. To get the best people possible, it’s my suggestion that we have the widest pool of talent that is possible, both civilian and police trained.

On the civilian side, I am also suggesting that some consideration be given to the removal of the requirement that people who we hire have to come to us with previous investigative experience. That restricts the type of civilian person who can come to work for the IIO. They must already have been working in some form of institution or organization or profession that gives them investigative experience.

Some of the types of persons we have hired, in that regard…. As you see, more than half of our investigators have a non-police background. There are lawyers. There are loss prevention officers who work for large corporations. There are persons who have come to us from Canada Border Services and persons who have come to us from CSIS. Those are a variety of examples.

[11:40 a.m.]

In order for a person to get that experience, they have to be able to get into those professions or institutions. One of the areas that I want to improve at the IIO is our diversity — in particular, the diversity of our investigators and those who we hire. I want our investigators to look more like our community. I think that’s extremely important, and it’s obviously something that the B.C. government supports.

In that regard, every time we put a barrier to employment, issues of systemic racism play a role in restricting the types of persons who might be eligible to apply. I believe that we ought to eliminate the barrier of requirement for investigative experience and allow us to hire good people from the community who we know we can turn into great investigators.

We have now a very comprehensive two-year training program. If we bring people in effectively off the street, we would strengthen that training program for that type of person. We would create a position that would ensure that their training was more significant than those who already have investigative experience, and I think it would give us an opportunity to hire from a much broader set of the population.

What I’m essentially suggesting is that consideration be given to legislation that would allow us to hire without any restriction to ensure that the IIO can be diverse and can be staffed with excellent people.

Right now we have a policy at the IIO where we gather ethnicity data about those persons who are injured or killed. We think it’s very important to be able to understand whether or not certain communities are disproportionately impacted by actions of police. We were unable to do that prior to April 1 of 2020 because we did not gather this information. Under the privacy act, we are restricted in how we can do this. Currently, we are doing it based on voluntary disclosure.

Other provinces, in particular Ontario, have moved to ensure this type of data is collected, not only about affected persons but about those persons who work for the organization and have passed legislation to require such information to be collected. I think it’s very important that we be able to inform the public about issues that surround the police impact on the community and whether it disproportionately impacts some communities rather than others but also to be able to tell the community who the IIO is and how the IIO itself represents the community. With a legislative authority for the collection of that data, that would assist in that regard.

The next suggestion is with respect to victim services supports for affected persons and their families. People who are seriously injured or killed and their families and the families of deceased persons could benefit greatly from these services. At this point, those services are only available to persons who have been subject to the commission of a crime. We believe that providing those types of services to affected persons and their families would greatly benefit those individuals as they’re going through a very stressful period.

Next, on the issue…. One of the things that we have seen come up time and again, actually, with respect to some commentary about decisions made about our cases is with respect to the perceived independence of the prosecution service that is designed to handle our cases. Right now our cases are handled by the Crown attorney’s office, as are all cases.

Justice Braidwood, in his report on the Dziekanski case in 2010, talked about this and made the specific recommendation that a body, which turned into the IIO, should have special prosecutors handling their cases and not prosecutors who on a normal, daily basis work hand in hand with the police and that that would enhance the appearance of independence. I put that forward for consideration and discussion as well.

[11:45 a.m.]

Jail guards. Currently most if not many jail guards in B.C. are civilian employees. They’re not constables. They’re not special constables, and they don’t fall under our jurisdiction. When we have cases that arise in custody, where persons either die or are seriously injured in custody, our investigation can only focus on the police personnel and not on the actions of the jail guards. This doesn’t apply everywhere. For example, Vancouver Police have special constables, so they do fall under our jurisdiction.

However, in other situations, we find ourselves examining the behaviour of the police but unable to make decisions about the jail guards, which can lead to a situation where you have to bring in another agency to investigate the jail guards. Our suggestion is that we should have jurisdiction over all persons who play an important role regarding the treatment of those in police custody.

In addition to that, right now, any witness officer who has relevant evidence to offer about one of our cases can be and has a duty to cooperate with our investigations. That usually means, in particular, that they have to come and give us statements and be subject to an interview by our investigators.

There has been some important case law built up around those requirements. In January of 2020, our Court of Appeal importantly said that what the term “duty to cooperate” constitutes is to be determined by the IIO. As a result of that, we have put forward, after discussions and negotiations with police agencies and police associations and unions, a paper of guidelines, a guidelines document, so that all subject and witness officers are able to understand what their obligations are in our investigations.

We believe, however, that on occasion, certain employees of a police agency who might not be police officers also have relevant evidence to give. At this point in time, they can’t be required to give us statements. We believe that the public interest would be better served if they were so required, so we put that forward as an area for discussion.

Lastly, search and seizure powers. Our current search and seizure powers derive from the Criminal Code. That requires, in most cases, that there be a criminal offence suspected to have occurred. As I mentioned at the outset, our cases arise whenever the actions of police may have led to serious harm or death of an individual. That doesn’t always mean there’s an allegation of wrongdoing. There may well be cases where someone is injured or killed and there isn’t any allegation of wrongdoing, and on initial investigation, there isn’t any obvious evidence of a criminal act on behalf of the police.

As a result, that can make it difficult for us to access the provisions of the Criminal Code to allow us to conduct the necessary search and seizure that we may have to in that investigation. As a result, if we are limited in the investigative tools that we may have, there are other bodies within B.C. that have search and seizure powers, such as the OPCC and the Coroners Service. We are suggesting that consideration be given to us having similar types of search and seizure powers when our investigations do not obviously engage a potential criminal offence.

That’s the end of my direct presentation. I certainly wel­come any questions that any of you may have.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Ron. Thanks very much for that very informative presentation.

Take questions.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you very much. That was fascinating and a lot of information I didn’t know, so forgive me if I’m repeating something that you answered. So the notifications to investigations — what triggers a notification becoming an investigation, and who makes that determination? I’m sorry if you’ve already answered that.

R. MacDonald: Oh no, that’s fine. That’s a good question.

[11:50 a.m.]

The statute requires police, whenever there’s a circumstance where the actions of an officer…. Whenever they become aware that the actions of an officer may have led to serious harm or death, they have a statutory obligation to report that to us. In fact, that obligation rests right at the officer’s level. The agencies have a process by which that occurs. They usually report up to a supervisor, and the supervisor makes sure that the matter is reported to us. That’s where the cases come from, primarily.

We also get people who will call us and say: “Hey, last week I got arrested. The officer broke my arm.” Sometimes what does happen is that people can be injured and might even be taken to the hospital. Initially, the medical finding is not of serious harm, but it may turn out that way. Sometimes our cases come from those types of referrals as well. But the vast majority come from police.

I will say that, in general, they tend to err on the side of caution and report more cases than they need to, but that’s a good thing. As they have become more comfortable with the IIO’s processes over the last three years, I think that’s another reason we see the willingness for them…. Not so much willingness, because they’ve always been cooperative, but the understanding that it’s better for us to look at a case than not look at a case.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you very much.

D. Routley (Chair): MLA Davies.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Ron, for the presentation — very interesting. I’ve got a few questions here.

When your investigators are investigating a case, is it a single person? Is it a team? Is there a group of five? What does that look like?

R. MacDonald: We operate under major case management principles. What that means is you have, at minimum, a three-person team, generally, where you have a team director. Our investigative team has four…. I have four teams. One is the forensic unit. There are forensic scene analysts and collision reconstructionists. They work relatively independently. Then I have three teams of ten investigators, although, as I’ve mentioned, we haven’t been able to fully staff all of those. Each of those teams is led by a team director. The command triangle has a team director; it has a primary investigator; and then it has what’s called a file coordinator, who is responsible for assigning tasks and looking after the administration of the file.

Typically, there are at least three, and then depending on the size of the file, you will assign other investigators to the matter, to carry out specific tasks. They may come and go from a file. Of course, all of this is kept documented through our case management system that we use.

Really, our approach to investigations is very similar to any major case investigations that are done by police in this province. We’re actually subject to the same types of police standards that are put out by the director of policing in that regard.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): All right. Thanks very much.

Between ’17-18 and ’20-21 — I guess it isn’t ’21 quite yet — you showed in your numbers a significant increase of cases and caseload. I don’t believe you touched…. Maybe I missed it. What do you suspect the reasoning is for that significant increase? I’m just curious of your ideas.

R. MacDonald: Sure. We’re actually still analyzing that to a certain extent through our numbers, but one thing we have noticed is…. There are cases, as I mentioned, where the actions or inactions of police lead to reports.

The best example I can give is: police are called to a wellness check for someone who, perhaps, is considering self-harm. They arrive. They interview the individual. They sit and talk with the person. They’re satisfied that the person doesn’t meet the standard for taking them into custody under the Mental Health Act. That requires that a person is suffering from mental health illness and is a danger to themselves or others. That’s a loose definition. They deal with that. They go away. Then the next day, perhaps, that person is found. They’ve committed self-harm and are deceased.

[11:55 a.m.]

We’re seeing a lot more of those types of cases being referred to us. Now, whether that’s because there is a lot more self-harm occurring — clearly, the pandemic has had an impact on mental health in our province and right across the country and the world — or whether…. You know, the police are now a little more attuned to the potential appearance that the police may have played a role, given the current climate. Certainly, the George Floyd situation in the States has greatly increased the scrutiny that the public places on police and, quite frankly, police oversight in this country.

I think the police are aware of that. They want to make sure that if there is any potential for criticism of something they did or didn’t do, we get it so that we can investigate it. That’s one of the examples.

Other than that, there appear to be just more cases. That’s just human nature. To be fair, the strains of the pandemic have caused people to act out more, and many, many of our cases do come from persons with mental health issues. That may well be an example.

I don’t have a definitive answer for you at this point. We are crunching the numbers, and we hope to have something by the time our annual report comes out at the end of the fiscal year. Those are some of the early indications for the increased numbers.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much. Just a couple more quick questions here, if I may.

I know you talked about having more ability to hire broader people from different backgrounds and such. I understand, then, that you…. I had that question of why 48 percent of your personnel are of police background, which kind of raised my little thing where you go into each investigation without bias. I think that kind of does play a role there, and I certainly support the idea of allowing more of a broad background.

I don’t know if you can answer this question. Of your 40 investigators, do they come from — I don’t mean the police — a broad, diverse background right now?

R. MacDonald: Well, yes. Even the ones who have a police background come from diverse backgrounds. We have some who have worked recently in B.C., we have some who have worked as police in other parts of Canada, and we have some who have worked as police in other parts of the world. Many, in fact. We have many Brits. We have some from Australia. We have an investigator from the Netherlands. They certainly come to us, in that subset, with their own variety of backgrounds. That’s really important.

Then our civilianized persons come from all sorts of different places, as I mentioned. Some from loss prevention. They were loss-prevention investigators. They worked for insurance companies. Or we have someone from CSIS. We’ve had people previously from CSIS or from the Canadian Border Services.

Then we also have lawyers, persons who have worked in the law for many years and have decided that they want to focus now on something that is a little different but still related to their previous profession.

We have persons who have come to us from the coroner’s office, who have worked as investigators for the coroner’s office. We have a gentleman who used to be a paramedic who works for us. So we do have a broad range of experiences in our organization, which is very beneficial, because we get to hear all those different perspectives.

I never make a decision on a file of significance, one that leads to a public report, for example, without…. We always have what we call a file review. We sit around a table, and there could be as many as ten or 12 people there. We review the file. We review the important facts. We discuss the issues. I make sure I hear from everybody.

I take opinions, even it’s from the investigative assistant who’s working on a file, if they have an opinion to offer, because I value that variety of backgrounds.

We are quite diverse at this point.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I guess another question, to follow up on that one very directly, is: is there an Indigenous representation at this table?

[12:00 p.m.]

R. MacDonald: Not big enough. One of my goals is to improve our Indigenous background. We really don’t have that in any significance at this point. We have hired this year, through the Indigenous internship program, a very excellent person who is assisting us with those issues and others. Her skills are broad.

We have embarked upon what I’m going to call our community Indigenous liaison program. We’re still getting it up and running. If we have an individual who comes from the Indigenous community, we have a liaison from that community who can help us understand the community and help the community understand us and who will act as a liaison. Not to be an investigator or anything such as that but to help us understand that particular community and help that community understand who we are and help with the engagement back and forth. That will just help us do our job. So we’re working that way.

One of the things I want to see is an ability to hire persons from Indigenous backgrounds, from the Black community, from other people of colour in our community who may well suffer from issues of systemic racism that don’t allow them to get that investigative experience but who might be just the kind of person, with the proper training, that can turn into an excellent investigator. That’s why we’re suggesting that we eliminate that requirement — to allow us to broaden the scope of the types of people we can hire.

Now, that might mean that we create a junior investigator category so that for the first two or three years, you are really subject to always being mentored, etc. That’s what police agencies do. Police agencies don’t only hire people who’ve been police before. So we’re really just asking for that ability as well.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Great. Thanks, Ron.

Hon. Chair, if I may ask my last question here. I promise I will be done then.

Of course, in this report here, lots of good stuff, looking at the 259 cases. How many of those would have been linked to racism reports, systemic or otherwise — of all those cases that have come to your agency that represent, again, a big piece of what we’re looking at here on this committee?

R. MacDonald: The Supreme Court of Canada has told us that it’s difficult to look at a particular or specific case and necessarily find markers that lead to a finding of racism. That’s a challenge that we find in our cases. You have to look more broadly and look for patterns, which is why we have now begun to gather that evidence.

I can’t say at this point that I can point to a specific case where it is abundantly clear from the facts that the police acted in that way because they were racist. If you look at patterns, you might start to wonder: does the issue of systemic racism play a role in how persons from that community are being dealt with?

That’s where we are at, at this point, and that’s why we’re trying to gather this ethnicity data — so that it can help us understand our numbers better.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

R. Glumac: Thank you for your presentation. Certainly, the public very much values the independent nature of being able to investigate these kinds of cases. I appreciate the recommendations that you have put forward.

One question I have, I guess, is…. The independence is a key part of this and the public wanting to see as much independence as possible. One of your recommendations asks to waive the requirement that police officers not be permitted to participate in that. I’m just curious.

[12:05 p.m.]

You also said that one of the other things you wanted to recommend is that people without previous investigative experience be allowed to participate. That makes sense to me. I think that’s a great way to bring diversity into what you’re doing.

I’m wondering. With your challenges in finding people, do you think that it’s that requirement that is the key one: the previous investigative experience? If that requirement were waived, do you think you’d be able to find more people to fill the roles you’re looking for, and would that lead to greater diversity, do you think, than the police recommendation?

R. MacDonald: Well, really, it’s a two-edged sword. I do believe that by eliminating the requirement for investigative experience, it would allow us to explore and attract talent from a broader range. That would help, certainly.

If we’re bringing persons into the organization who have had no investigative experience, then the training for them has to be much more robust than the training we offer now. The training we offer now is for people who already have investigative experience and talent so that we can start at this level. We would have to start lower. That’s understandable, and that’s probably, in some ways, a good thing.

The challenge is to have an organization that can bring in great talent from a broad section of the community but that can also still be excellent in what we do. The work we do…. These are difficult, high-profile investigations. It’s vitally important to ensure that if the police action has indeed crossed the line, they’ll be held accountable. These are criminal cases that are defended very, very aggressively. That’s understandable. It requires excellence in our investigations.

In addition to being able to take people in at the bottom level, it’s my view…. To ensure that we have an excellent team who can train them towards excellence, we need to have excellent people. When we lose people from the higher level, we need to be able to get to the broadest range of people at that level as well. I understand the issue of perception in using former police as investigators, but we need to have that balance between excellence and diversity.

I have worked in this business as the head of an oversight agency longer than anybody else ever has in this country. I’m not sure what it says about me. I can tell you that I have worked with many former police officers. I can assure you that if you hire the right person, they are very, very capable of being objective in the work they do, and they can help to bring us, along with other very talented non-police persons, that level of excellence that we need.

That’s why I’m recommending it on both sides. In one sense, ensuring that we can hire very experienced investigators from a broad range of the community will help us to bring in persons who don’t have investigative experience. We’ll be better able to mentor and train them to become excellent investigators.

R. Glumac: Just a quick follow-up. Do you feel that the public perception could be affected if there…? That independence piece could be, not the fact that…. You may find some excellent police officers, I’m sure. But are you concerned that the public perception could become negatively affected by that?

R. MacDonald: Well, obviously, it’s an issue, but I think perception is always subject to facts and reality.

We have, in our legal system already, examples of where we hire people to do new jobs, and they have to forget what they used to be. The most obvious example is our judges. We hire Crown attorneys to be Provincial Court judges. The next day, even though they’ve advocated for many years on behalf of the state, they’re now having to make decisions against that state, and we accept that.

I’m not saying that every single police officer is suited, necessarily, to be an oversight investigator, but some are. We need to ensure we hire the right ones.

[12:10 p.m.]

The other thing is our system. Don’t forget that in the police world, when police do investigations, it is the police officer who generally is making the decisions. So the team makes the decisions. They do the investigation; they make the decisions.

That’s not the way it works at the IIO. The legislation says that the chief civilian director, myself, a non-police person — that’s why it must be a non-police person — gives oversight to all investigations and is the person who makes the decision as to whether or not something should go to the Crown.

The burden on my office is heavy. I have to make sure that I continually have processes in place to ensure the continued and ongoing objectivity of all our investigations. Not only do you first hire the right person who can be objective, but you have systems and processes in place, which we do. I’m the one who makes the decisions at the end of the day, and I also have two counsel who work in our office — one on the investigative side, one on the final side — who also oversee that.

My view is that with those processes — with the assurances that we hired the right people, that we trained the right people and that we trained them the right way — we can overcome the understandable perception and assure people that in fact we are able to be objective — combined, very importantly, with being excellent at what we do.

It’s a good matter for discussion. That’s my point of view. I know others have different points of view, but I come to you to bring to you my experience. My experience — and that of my colleagues across the country generally — is that if you hire the right persons, the background is less important than their skills.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. Members, we’re going over time here. I’ve got three more people on the list. Are members able to stay in the meeting? Does anybody have to leave?

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I may have to jump off here, just for a minute.

T. Halford: I’m the same.

D. Routley (Chair): Do you have any questions before you go, then? Okay.

In that case, we’ll go to MLA Begg.

G. Begg: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ron. Three, I think, quick questions, and hopefully, three quick answers. One is an example of a public interest investigation that the IIO might commence.

R. MacDonald: Well, all of our investigations I consider to be of a public interest nature, even though they’re criminal investigations at the end of the day. So any of them. A situation where we hear there has been a police pursuit which results in a crash at the end — that’s the type of investigation where the public has an interest in knowing what happened there. That’s why I call them public interest investigations.

G. Begg: No, I meant your ability to self-initiate.

R. MacDonald: Oh, I’m sorry. Well, I’ll give you an example of the one we picked up in the fall — a circumstance where an individual was seen by many motorists, having run from a car that had been pursued by police. He was taken into custody on the roadside, effectively down the bank, and there are uses of force seen applied to that person, who is an Indigenous person from an Indigenous community in British Columbia.

There were a lot of persons who saw that occur and who were very concerned with the use of force that they saw applied. Even though that individual didn’t suffer serious harm, there are significant public interest issues that surround that type of matter.

G. Begg: The second question is: do you agree with Jus­tice Braidwood’s recommendation for special prosecutors?

R. MacDonald: Personally, I do. I think it enhances the appearance of independence of the entire process. That’s just my personal opinion; I know others may disagree. However, I think it also allows each of our investigations to have available to them additional resources and talent that’s available in the broader legal community.

G. Begg: The final question: an example of an employee of a police agency who would be required or should be required to cooperate in IIO investigations.

R. MacDonald: There could be a variety of persons. It could be an analyst on a file. There could be an ongoing operation that police are doing, and we have a related case that comes out of that.

[12:15 p.m.]

There could be file information that’s important to us and that may make that person relevant. It could be a dis­patcher who has been involved. While normally most of that is captured by recordings, sometimes some radio trans­missions are not recorded. It may well be important there.

These are a couple of examples off the top of my head.

R. Singh: Thank you so much for your presentation. You have touched on it before. We have talked about systemic racism. We have talked about race-based data. With all this talk, and you mentioned about the George Floyd case as well, we see the overrepresentation — we heard from previous presentations as well — of Indigenous populations and also the cases, the number of deaths that have happened, the overrepresentation of that community in that as well.

At this point, we don’t collect any other race-based data. But in your experience, do you think deaths have something to do with systemic discrimination?

R. MacDonald: I think, clearly, the overrepresentation of that community is related to systemic discrimination, in its broadest sense. The impact that historic colonialism…. I’m no expert, but I’ve heard from some very well-spoken members of that community who’ve explained to me the impact that that historical disadvantage has had on them. That does tend to, unfortunately, set them up to be in situations, on occasion, where their interaction with police perhaps occurs more frequently or perhaps occurs in a different way than it might if they weren’t from that community.

That’s perhaps the bigger question: has an individual from a historically disadvantaged community been treated differently than someone from the majority community? It’s hard for us to make those determinations in individual cases. That’s why it’s important for us to gather that data that, hopefully, will help us identify trends that may be there.

R. Singh: Thank you so much.

R. MacDonald: If I could add, there is no question but that we hear from members of Indigenous communities. They have a broader experience than our individual cases. Certainly, it is their view that police treat them differently, for sure. We hear that a lot. That will be in cases that don’t lead to serious harm or death, but just in a much broader sense. I think it’s important for you to understand that. We do hear that from the communities, no question.

R. Singh: That’s really wonderful. The reason I’m trying to gather more information on it is that data is the key. We need the evidence-based data.

We’re also hearing about other communities, especially from Black communities, and their overrepresentation in policing. We need to get this data to find out what is happening with the communities that are more marginalized. But really good, thank you.

R. MacDonald: Absolutely. One of the challenges we have is that we deal with a very, very small subset of interactions with police. There are literally hundreds of thousands of interactions with police in our province. We deal with only a very small subset, so any ability to gather data from that larger group is really important.

H. Sandhu: Ron, thank you so much for your presentation. I was listening to one of the recommendations on the issue of removing non-police hiring. I believe that we should keep it the way it is. What I’m thinking is that we should focus more on having diversity on the investigation team in order to gain public trust and active participation.

As we all know, it’s not a secret that we have a long way to go to restore that trust among several communities and groups, given the history and the deeply embedded systemic racism. Just my thoughts. I wanted to touch upon how much work is being done to focus and include more diverse staff on the team. I think we need to add more.

[12:20 p.m.]

R. MacDonald: Unfortunately, because of our requirement that individuals have investigative experience, that does limit the types of individuals who can apply for our positions. The other side of it, in terms of the diversity of our staff…. I can look at our staff and make assumptions on diversity, but that’s not appropriate, quite frankly. And at this point, we don’t have the ability to specifically gather that data.

What I can say is that we need to do better in terms of improving the diversity of our workforce. There’s no question about that. An important way to do that is to make the ability to work for the IIO more open, and then if there are training needs, we’ll adjust. If we need to create a program to train somebody from scratch, we’ll adjust.

That’s why I’m promoting that at this point in time. It’s something that I think many of us at the IIO are looking forward to — having that type of opportunity to be able to bring someone in from the ground floor and train them to be an investigator. And we’ll adjust to do that. We can adjust our processes to do that. It may come with resource costs, but I think, at the end of the day, you’re right. That will help in assuring the community of our objectivity and the fact that we represent those communities we work in.

H. Sandhu: Great. The reason for my thoughts was that our collective goal is to have a non-biased approach and to restore that public trust and inclusivity. So thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Mr. MacDonald. It was a very interesting presentation. We’ve learned a lot. We’d like to ask that we be able to refer to you any questions for clarification that might come up from committee members, going forward.

R. MacDonald: Absolutely, yes.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. With that, that’s the end of our last presentation.

Members, we have one item left on the agenda. That would be other business, if any members have anything they want to bring to the table.

Other Business

R. Singh: Just one thing. Every meeting that we have — because, I think, there are so many questions and so much interest — we are going over time. I was wondering if maybe we should schedule less…. Like, today we had three presentations. Rather than doing that, having just two in a day and having more dates for the meetings.

D. Routley (Chair): Perhaps. We can certainly look at that. We just have a lot of presentations to get through in total. Definitely, as Chair, I am entertaining that. But I’m hoping that members can also be as concise as possible, going forward, so that we can…. And our presenters, in their answers, hopefully, will be as well. First, let’s try to manage ourselves, and I’ll definitely have a conversation with Karan and the Deputy Chair about that. Thank you for bringing it forward.

Any other contributions from this fantastic committee?

H. Sandhu: I think I hear right. We need to stay precise. But at the same time, I think we have to take as many questions as possible to have all the views from all the members in order to…. Some questions, I realize, enlighten me as well. They give me another point of view to look at.

D. Routley (Chair): Absolutely. That’s our job. I think the committee is gaining a lot of attention, and the work is important. So exactly as you say, it’s important for us to hear as much as we can from people, for sure. So we’ll look at that and be back in touch with members between now and the next meeting.

If there’s nothing else, I’d entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting.

Moved by Garry and seconded by Rick.

Thank you so much, Members. It was really interesting. Great questions. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. I look forward to meeting with you all again very soon.

The committee adjourned at 12:25 p.m.