The committee met at 9:32 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Doug Routley. I’m the MLA for Nanaimo–North Cowichan and the Chair of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly.

I would like to acknowledge that I am joining today’s meeting from the traditional territories of the Malahat First Nation and give my thanks and consideration to them.

I would like to welcome all those who are listening and participating to this meeting. Our committee is undertaking a broad consultation with respect to policing and public safety in B.C. We are taking a phased approach to this work and have been meeting with subject-matter experts, community advocacy organizations, Indigenous communities and others.

We also invite British Columbians to provide written, audio or video submissions. We will review those submissions with a view to inviting individuals and organizations to present to the committee at a later date. Further details on how to participate are available on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/rpa. The deadline for submissions for this phase of the consultation is one week from today. So Friday, April 30 at 5 p.m.

In terms of the format for today’s meeting, we will be starting with a panel of presenters who will be speaking about police training: the RCMP Depot division, the Pacific Region Training Centre and the Justice Institute of B.C. Each presenter has 15 minutes to speak, followed by time for questions from committee members to the entire panel.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will be posted.

Further introductions are due by the other members of our committee. I will begin with MLA Kirkpatrick.

K. Kirkpatrick: Good morning, everybody. Looking forward to hearing this. I’m Karin Kirkpatrick. I’m the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

We are located on the traditional territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish First Nations.

[9:35 a.m.]

T. Halford: Hi. Trevor Halford, the MLA for Surrey–​White Rock.

I am here in the traditional territory of the Semiahmoo.

G. Begg: Good morning, everyone. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m coming to you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, including the Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Katzie First Nations.

H. Sandhu: Good morning, everyone. I am Harwinder Sandhu, the MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

I’m joining you from the unceded territory of the Oka­nagan Indian Nation.

Thank you for joining us. I look forward to hearing your presentations.

D. Routley (Chair): And the Deputy Chair of our committee, MLA Davies. I believe he may be joining us in a moment.

R. Glumac: Hi. This is MLA Rick Glumac. I’m the MLA for Port Moody–Coquitlam.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

D. Routley (Chair): Assisting our committee today are Karan Riarh from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services. We thank them for their continued excellent service.

Now I’ll introduce our first presenter. That is Chief Supt. Sylvie Bourassa-Muise, commanding officer of the RCMP Depot division.

Go ahead.

Presentations on Police Act

RCMP DEPOT DIVISION

S. Bourassa-Muise: Good morning. First of all, I oversee the Depot training academy and the police dog service training centre in Alberta. I also am part of the RCMP Heritage Centre here in Regina.

Depot offers induction training of cadets as well as induction training of other peace officer programs for the federal government, such as Fisheries and Oceans and Parks Canada. Our concept of operations, which means how Depot operates, and our instructional programs have been modelled by other countries such as Australia and in the Ukraine.

Depot is grounded in nearly 150 years of training. It’s also grounded in the history of Canada and has ties to the royal monarchy and is part of western settlements. Depot was also part of the tragic history of our First Nations and, for many decades, has been engaged in reconciliation efforts.

Depot is not a policy centre and is not engaged in recruitment. Rather, basic induction training or the cadet training program. Nonetheless, Depot has active research and development ongoing in the areas of simulation and gamify as well as a very unique study in PTSD.

Allow me to make a few comments about our appli­cants’ eligibility. First of all, these haven’t changed in quite a while. They have to be Canadian citizens or have permanent residency status in Canada and have lived three out of five years in Canada. They must be at least 18 years old, but they must be 19 by the time they graduate. Be proficient in English or French but preferably bilingual. Possess a valid, unrestricted driver’s licence. Possess a Canadian secondary school diploma or the equivalent. Be willing to relocate anywhere in Canada.

I’ll speak about the cadet training program components. It’s applied police science; police defensive tactics; firearms; police driving; operational conditioning, which is physical conditioning; and drill and deportment. These haven’t changed in a long time. However, the components and the contents of them are ever-evolving.

The cadet training program is 26 weeks. The majority of the over 800 hours of training are done in the applied police science. Cadets acquire the knowledge and the skills identified as being necessary for front-line general duty and regularly remember by solving problems which are representative of the situations that they will face in the field. They progress towards solving increasingly complex problems, which provide them with the opportunity to review and apply their previously acquired knowledge and skills to new situations and give them more advanced knowledge and skills as they progress.

As far as the training standards, the curriculum is designed and developed using integrated problem-solving learning methodology. It’s set through either needs assessment or evaluation processes, which are carried out as part of the instructional design of the curriculum.

[9:40 a.m.]

It’s also aligned with the next phase of training, phase 2 training, which is the field-coached training and professional development provided at a national level. Currently there are no national standards in Canada for basic police training.

RCMP cadets are trained at a national standard, as they need to be prepared for posting anywhere in Canada. However, we do keep the British Columbia policing standards in mind. Materials related to British Columbia policing standards have been added to the curriculum that has been deemed critical for new members to have upon arrival in E division. At this time, this involves the emergency vehicle operation training that E division members are required, in order that they operate a police vehicle.

As far as the CTP management…. The cadet training program management is created by the training program support and evaluations unit. The cadet training program is the first phase of training and, as I said, is followed by field coach training. Most facilitators who teach in the cadet training programs are what we call regular members, or police officers. We have in excess of 245 police officers working at the academy. I have over 600 members on staff. Almost like a cruise ship, there’s a 2-to-1 factor for cadet training.

Civilian experts in education work in collaboration with regular members’ subject-matter resources, using academically validated instructional design processes to design and develop the curriculum. The Dick and Carey systems approach to instructional design is utilized. This is a common model that’s used in academia.

The civilian experts require a minimum of a master’s degree in education and recent and significant experience in instructional design to be considered for a position in the unit. The curriculum is consistently monitored, evaluated and updated by this team to respond to today’s needs in community policing. I’ll have further comments on that.

All of our facilitators — that means most of them being police officers, and a few civilians — are required to successfully complete a two-week instructional facilities and techniques course in order to be considered for a position at Depot. They may be transferred to Depot but are not given a promotion, if they’re promoted here, until they acquire this course. There’s further mentoring and coaching as they go along. Furthermore, our coaching program is also evolving as our leadership skills are being de­veloped, as we progress through.

The traditional components to the training include trauma-informed practices. This is a relatively new term in policing. By new, I mean in the last seven years or so. Cadets learn the principles of trauma-informed practices and subsequently apply these principles throughout training. For example, in one of our modules in applied police science, the full module for sexual assault investigations is being rewritten in order to integrate trauma-informed practices.

The other component is mental health emergencies. Crisis intervention and de-escalation training is tied into risk assessment training and the CAPRA decision-making model. I’ll get into that in a moment.

Cadets review the relevant operational policy and are introduced to provincial mental health legislation. Cadets participate in a set of scenarios in which they are required to apply their crisis intervention and de-escalation knowledge and skills to a situation in which an actor, who has been specifically trained, is showing signs of having a mental health crisis. They also attend a presentation from the Schizophrenia Society and learn about excited delirium syndrome.

CAPRA is an acronym. C is for clients, A for acquire and analyze, P for partnership, R for response and A for assess. This decision-making model is throughout the organization, not just here at Depot division. I was in the field in the 1990s when this principle was launched in the field, and it’s still pertinent today.

It helps members identify the subject’s behaviour and then select the best options to control the situation quickly with the least harm to both the public and our members. Other provincial-specific mandatory training is provided to new members posted to E division, meaning British Columbia, as part of the field coach training program. New members in E division then also complete the British Columbia–specific crisis intervention and de-escalation training upon arrival.

[9:45 a.m.]

I will speak about the cultural competencies. It’s one of the key themes that’s presented in the entirety of the cadet training program. All employees are required to complete a cultural, humility and antiracism course, and I mean the 600 members that we have, or employees that we have, here at Depot, from anyone who works in our grounds to those who work in the tailor shop to those who are facilitators.

This course is interwoven with the specific following concepts: human rights, harassment, discrimination, ethics, and bias in policing. The cadets learn also about systemic racism in module 1 of applied police science, and even starting with hour one, when I speak to them. This is an area of training, however, that is currently under review for further enhancement nationally, and follows national strategic initiatives that are being undertaken. Revisions will be made to the cadet training program as these evolve.

I’ll speak a little more about cultural competency curriculum, because it’s one that is very [audio interrupted] at Depot. At the onset of training, cadets will learn that in order to provide effective policing services, they must become familiar with the communities that they serve, which include being aware of and sensitive to the cultural elements of those communities.

Cadets also are introduced to values early in training. They explore their personal values, prior to examining the RCMP’s core values. Cadets examine the definitions of what each of the core values of the RCMP are. Through this discussion, they gain a broad understanding of what is meant by such concepts as treating others with respect and professionalism. Those are two of our core values. It speaks directly to providing policing services in a bias-free manner.

Cadets also examine scenarios in which their personal values and core values may come into conflict. Cadets are also introduced to bias-free policing in training and are taught to apply it continuously throughout their training at Depot division. The Bennett model of intercultural sensitivity allows a cadet to explore their personal biases prior to discussing areas of influence that deal with biases. There is a complete module for the concept of community profile.

To reinforce the concept of cultural competency and diversity, there are two modules in the applied police sciences which present situations that are impacted by cultural characteristics of the community in which they occur. One is set in an Indo-Canadian community and the other in an Indigenous community. To successfully investigate and resolve the incidents, cadets have to consider the cultures of these communities. Further awareness and sensitivity to Indigenous culture is explored.

Cadets learn how to conduct a missing-persons investigation, taking into consideration the cultural Indigenous background of missing persons and the Indigenous community to which the young person belongs. It concentrates on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. In addition, it includes the KAIROS blanket exercise. This exercise is done in collaboration with a local Elder from an Indigenous community and enables cadets to learn about the historical and contemporary relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of Canada.

Our consultation and collaboration with our community — and this means our political community and our cultural community — is key to our program. The evaluation unit identifies resources that also contribute to all-encompassing curriculum. They work in partnership with First Nations University of Canada. I, from my perspective and from my office, also have consultative groups. I have an Indigenous consultative group and also have a diversity consultative group which work with the cadets. They engage not only in speaking but also in various initiatives, such as the engagement of our Indigenous community here and also the Métis community in Manitoba.

Some of our initiatives here at Depot…. We practice what we preach. We have a Red River cart. We have a Louis Riel monument initiative that is being initiated at this point. We are reconstructing a reflection room to include all the diverse Indigenous communities across our land — and this I’m very proud of.

[9:50 a.m.]

How we assess cadets. The cadet performance and behaviours are informally and formally assessed 24-7. They reside on base here, and they are accountable for their actions all the time. We have a 26-week training program, as I said earlier. Most testing is scenario-based. However, in skills, of course, they test firearms, and there are skills in PDT and driving.

Currently there are 51 formal assessments. The formal and informal assessments procedures used in the cadet training program are designed and developed by the evaluation team as part of the academically validated instructional design processes. The cadet training program uses an authentic assessment model, which means that cadets are, for the most part, required to demonstrate what they can do instead of just reiterating what they know.

Should cadets be unsuccessful at any of these points and demonstrate gaps in other competencies according to the assessment procedure, then the training agreement is terminated. However, there will be a reinsertion in a troop earlier in training when certain conditions are met. By that, I mean analysis of a cadet training file is completed to see if they can be given a second opportunity.

I’ll just make a few comments about our field coach training program. It is a six-month formalized training at Depot, which is formalized at Depot and provided in the field by members who are specifically trained for this. The program I say is “about” six months because it can be less if the cadet has advanced in the program very quickly, or it can be more if the cadet shows gaps in learning.

As I said earlier, right now we are looking at our coaching program and coaching for all members of the RCMP with integrated leadership skills. By that, I don’t mean that our members don’t have leadership skills, but, certainly, modern leadership concepts and characteristics are being developed as we speak.

The assessment of the CTP is ongoing. This is based on directed reviews such as the Bastarache reports or the McNeil reports. It’s also done in-house. So our evaluation team is constantly looking at our cadet training program to see if it’s in line with our laws, our precedent laws, our sensitivities in our culture and our societies as well.

The following evaluation processes will provide an evidence-based framework required to make future improvements to our cadet training program. Those include the Kirkpatrick level three evaluation. That’s to see if our cadet training program is actually…. There’s value added in the field, and if it’s been successful in the field or if there are gaps in our teaching processes or learning or observing processes.

Our public prosecution services of Canada are also looking at the legal articulation in all of our material to ensure that it is in line with precedent laws. A GBA+ review is also ongoing, and the RCMP national program evaluation services is looking at one of the components from the Vastagash reports, as this pertains to paramilitary in Depot here and all of our training, and also how our day-to-day training and living conditions apply.

When designing and developing curriculum, it is critical that all changes, whether they involve removing materials that are no longer relevant, adding materials that have become relevant or revising existing media, be evidence-based.

I’ll speak a bit about diversity here and make just a few comments. Basically, I cannot really offer you any worthwhile statistics, as when it comes to diversity, the cadets voluntarily provide information. It’s an option for cadets to provide information on gender or on visible minority enrolment. So I do have information, but I must caution that upon review, caution must be used abundantly to review these statistics, as they are….

I’ll stop there. I wish to thank you for requesting that the RCMP training academy Depot division be part of this most important research. Thank you.

D. Routley (Chair): We’ve had a little bit of technical difficulty. At least, our vice-Chair has.

Can you introduce yourself now, Dan?

Okay. I don’t think he can. In any case, I will. MLA Dan Davies, Peace River North and Deputy Chair of the committee, is with us. I think MLA Olsen has managed to log on.

Can you introduce yourself, Adam?

[9:55 a.m.]

A. Olsen: Sure can. Sorry I was late. To my colleagues and to our presenters, my apologies.

I’m Adam Olsen. I’m the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

I am happy to be working from my home territory here in the W̱JOȽEȽP village in W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks, Adam.

Okay. Our next presenter is….

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Hello, Chair.

Sorry about that. I’m having technical difficulties.

My name is Dan Davies. I’m the MLA for Peace River North.

Today I’m actually in Vancouver, coming to you from the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

Thanks again. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks, Dan.

Our next presenter is Supt. Larry Montgomery from the Pacific Region Training Centre.

Please go ahead, Mr. Montgomery.

PACIFIC REGION TRAINING CENTRE

L. Montgomery: Well, thank you. As mentioned, my name is Supt. Larry Montgomery of the RCMP.

I’d like to start by acknowledging the unceded traditional grounds of the Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe, from where I’m broadcasting.

Thank you to the committee for your hard work on this important, complex topic. I’ve had the benefit of reviewing some of the impactful presentations that have been made to you. With that, I’ll try not to repeat information that is already in front of you. I may clarify or amplify a few points that you have heard already, and I’ll provide some additional information to assist you in your deliberations.

Situated in picturesque Chilliwack, E division training operates the Pacific Region Training Centre, commonly known as PRTC. PRTC is a self-contained site, having specialized training venues, cafeteria services and hotel rooms for candidates. Opening in 2001, PRTC’s mandate is to provide advanced, or commonly known as “in-service,” training to almost 9,000 E division employees, which are also referred to as B.C. RCMP employees.

E division training is the point of authority for all training in the B.C. RCMP. E division training reports to the B.C. RCMP learning investment management board, which makes strategic decisions and provides recommendations, expertise, advice and guidance for the efficient and effective management of the RCMP’s learning investment.

Employees join our organizations with varied formal or informal education. While employed, education comes in many forms to our employees, such as learning moments on actual calls for service, knowledge from colleagues, connecting with community members or formal training, and the list can and does go on and on.

Training, however, is a significant and necessary tool for police organizations to utilize. In addition to providing knowledge and skills to employees, training is measurable and often used to enhance accountability and transparency. In this realm, training is auditable, sets the minimum level of knowledge and is utilized to articulate actions of employees in certain situations. Having sound training programs, along with other important factors, such as independent oversight, for example, does assist with increasing public confidence and what we know as police legitimacy.

The training principle for police in B.C. has advanced past the point where simply designing a training course and implementing it is not the complete answer to addressing the topics of interest of today. Training initiatives in the B.C. RCMP and other policing agencies extend well past the idea of this simple concept, and training today is connected to the day-to-day activities, as well as the learning paths of our employees, demonstrating a greater professionalism and further association to public expectations.

Face-to-face training for B.C. RCMP employees is delivered either in a centralized model at PRTC or in a decentralized fashion at various work locations outside of PRTC. Face-to-face training, delivered by E division training, is extremely vast in scope. The training can regularly span a range of training topics, such as winter survival, police dispatching, firearms, advanced emergency vehicle operations, investigator development and many, many subjects in between.

[10:00 a.m.]

Using a three-year average, outside of states of emergency, of course, PRTC normally trains just over 13,000 employees per year and has 38,000 training days per year. Within the B.C. RCMP, there are many mandatory training courses, and how this comes to be is quite varied. Some of the authorities that create mandatory face-to-face or online training within the B.C. RCMP can be statute-driven — for example, federal or provincial legislation — or maybe it’s specific to a role, such as basic water transport, or by policy, such as completing the using a trauma-informed approach or the cultural awareness and humility courses. These are just a few examples.

There are 61 mandatory training courses in the RCMP in this model. Some mandatory training can be classified as one-time-only, and other mandatory training requires recertification at varied intervals. B.C. RCMP members complete approximately 227 hours of mandatory one-time training and, on average, every three years complete 52 hours in mandatory recertifications. For example, the crisis de-escalation course requires employees to recertify every three years. Out of the training delivered by B.C. RCMP, approximately 79 percent of the training costs relate to mandatory training. The remaining 21 percent is committed to essential training.

The need to develop training can come from a similar framework, as I have just stated. In addition, we develop training and responses to organizationally detected gaps, commissions of inquiry, internal and external reports, and so on. One example of this, as mentioned by one of my colleagues, is the response to the Alphonse MacNeil 2014 report on the Moncton tragedy. The RCMP has put into policy the requirement for immediate action rapid deployment training with refresher training every three years. As well, this initiative includes the requirement for RCMP front-line members to complete the initial critical incident response level 200 training.

Training development has several requirements. It is important to know that all of this training — whether it be tactical, technical, investigative, leadership or other genres — is developed using an instructional system design similar to other educational institutions. This design includes reviews by legal advisers, occupational health and safety, and subject-matter experts, which are internal and external to the RCMP. As an example, the cultural awareness and humility course took 18 months to develop, of which 12 of those months were dedicated to consultations with various advocate groups or interested parties.

Policing is positioned in an area of our society where requirements change regularly, sometimes due to public expectations, law or research. To maintain relevance, curriculum updates are required on a scheduled basis. While collaboration and integration with other institutions and agencies is welcomed, this has not materialized to a great extent, due to many factors such as agency resources, priorities or availability.

Some of the B.C. RCMP advanced training has been granted equivalency with some B.C.-based post-secondary institutions. In order to take further advantage of existing advanced police training and to encourage employees to extend their formal education, opportunities do, however, exist to consider that B.C. publicly funded institutions could consider equivalency through one point of governance versus canvassing individual institutions, which is quite time-consuming and is somewhat of a barrier for us.

Continuous learning is important to enhance in order to maintain and increase confidence. Specific to the RCMP, there are significant online self-paced learning offerings on the Agora learning management system, which has approximately 110 courses. Learners can complete courses on a variety of subjects like leadership, trauma-informed practice, bias-free policing, public and police safety, investigations and much, much more. To encourage continuous learning and broaden the subjects available for our employees, the RCMP now has access to online training offered by the Canadian School of Public Service and the Canadian Police Knowledge Network.

Working with the Canadian School of Public Service, the RCMP is implementing accessibility to the Indigenous learning series, a series of four individual courses to extend learning for our employees. With the size of the employee base in the B.C. RCMP, much planning is required for E division training to capture all of the training needs to achieve its mandate.

[10:05 a.m.]

On an annual basis, PRTC completes a strategic analysis and reports on these needs in order to, amongst other needs, develop its future training deliveries. This analysis is central to ensuring that training gaps are recognized, that irrelevant training is not scheduled and that the stewardship of training resources is maximized.

After multiple years of training data being collected in the strategic analysis, we are well positioned to see trends, gaps and barriers and have confidence to determine the greatest value in selecting training delivery options. For example, we publish our training calendar in December of the preceding fiscal year, which allows employees, supervisors and units to schedule their attendance at training events in the most convenient and efficient manner possible. In the past, this has also allowed for employees to ensure court commitments were clear and that they could make any personal arrangements for things like child care. This also allows detachments or units to plan for employees to be away and have contingencies in place to ensure service delivery.

The police officers of today work within a complex task and decision-making environment that may require them to understand not only basic police operations but also complex social factors, law and their own wellness. Additionally, the professional police officer has training and knowledge on an array of different crime reduction strategies, policing technologies, problem-orientated policing strategies and ethical service delivery. Many of these requirements are reflected in the provincial policing standards. As time advances, the landscape that police operate in advances as well.

Many of the current or developing provincial policing standards have training requirements for the B.C. RCMP. In some cases, the prescribed training curriculum is provided to the police, or in some situations, the police are required to develop the training. The B.C. RCMP supports these training standards. Unfortunately, resourcing of the B.C. RCMP, and perhaps its provincial partners, to support the development of this training and the sustainability of this training is an unplanned pressure. For example, the provincial policing standard associated to major case management required the B.C. RCMP to develop additional major case management training and added significant unfunded costs. Of course, the employees working on this project over the past two years were away from their substantive duties, resulting in a loss to training in other important areas.

In every case where a provincial policing standard mandates training, the B.C. RCMP provides that training at a level higher than the standard requires. An example of this is crisis incident de-escalation. The provincial policing standard requires that every front-line officer requires de-escalation training, and the B.C. RCMP has made it mandatory for every police officer, not just front line, to take this course and remain current. Additionally, while the de-escalation training provided in Depot meets the provincial policing standard, new police officers to E division receive additional face-to-face de-escalation training as part of their field coaching program.

Other training products provided to the police several years ago remain with the same content as when they were originally published. Non-mandatory provincial training requirements are sometimes characterized as strongly recommended, which indicates a desire for police to institute this training but comes without the resources to necessarily be successful. The B.C. RCMP understands that resourcing these initiatives can be difficult but respectfully suggests that when requirements are put in place, a resourcing and sustainability plan be developed to ensure the initiative can be successful.

The B.C. RCMP remain committed to British Columbians to demonstrate their adherence to these provincial requirements. In another example, every year the RCMP requires its employees to recertify on firearms certifications. A corresponding provincial policing standard is unchanged since its coming into force. Based on data collection from the hundreds of internal reports in the RCMP across the nation, on a yearly basis, the RCMP updates the tactics on its firearms training and adjusts this training to maximize the learning and testing of our employees to reflect the current data of the policing landscape.

At this point, the B.C. RCMP is required to train its employees in the RCMP training and then have separate instructions for employees to meet the provincial policing standard. Every three years, operational B.C. RCMP regular members are required by the RCMP national policy and the provincial policing standard to recertify in certain use-of-force topics. This recertification occurs within the operational skills training, which is commonly known as block training.

Although operational skills training has been impacted by the COVID pandemic, it’s normally 40 hours in length. Operational skills training consists of first aid, handcuffing, oleoresin capsicum, carotid control and defensive baton recertifications; immediate action rapid deployment; police defensive techniques; and scenario-based training, inclusive of crisis incident de-escalation scenarios.

[10:10 a.m.]

The RCMP operational research unit, national tactical training section and the national police intervention unit work collaboratively to research and update operational skills regularly. As we speak, the RCMP is introducing a modified incident management intervention model to reflect a greater emphasis on communication, as 99.9 percent of all interactions are resolved without the use of force. In addition, this model includes new training on critical incident stress.

Unique to the B.C. RCMP, PRTC also conducts operational skill evaluations for regular members to complete after their involvement in certain critical incidents. In a dynamic situation, several situational factors are considered, and there are no easy choices for police officers to make.

Many of the intervention decisions can be life-changing. Using scenario-based training modules, which are based upon actual events, the learner is required to apply crisis de-escalation and public and police safety techniques, utilizing all of their abilities. Upon successful completion of this evaluation, the employee is supported for the resumption of operational duties.

Training trends are indicating that there is more training being required by different statutes, equipment, tactics and expectations of the public. While standards typically identify the minimum level of service delivery accepted, PRTC strives for implementing best practices to maximize the learning benefit for the employee.

Current trends indicate that training is becoming more complex. Academic research has shown that police in Canada have a history of establishing very good programs, only to have their value erode due to the lack of resources to keep them current.

In a positive step, training materials are constantly being independently assessed by internal and external oversight processes. It is evolving due to the maximizing of occupational health and safety for candidates and aligning training products with other initiatives and learning paths while necessary.

You’ve also heard from the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission regarding a response from the RCMP commissioner committing to developing culturally sensitive training. In the B.C. RCMP context, this is leading to understanding the cultural issues of Indigenous communities within B.C. This is a significant task and one in which PRTC has created a plan and is just beginning to develop a response.

The RCMP are making substantial advancements in leadership development. This leadership training is founded on character-based leadership principles. The training covers a range of topics related to leadership fundamentals such as self-awareness, ethics, conduct, dealing with conflict and health and wellness.

Current developments of all training reflects the recently released equity, diversity and inclusion program into its program. I am looking forward to the presentation of our commanding officer to touch on this initiative further, as it extends past the topic of training.

In closing, I want to thank you for allowing me to contribute to this very important process. Thank you to my colleagues for sharing their wisdom with me and with the committee as well. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe weekend, and I remain available with my colleagues to respond to any questions or comments that you have.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Montgomery.

We are joined by my friend MLA Singh. If you’d like to introduce yourself, Rachna.

R. Singh: I’m so sorry for joining late today. Rachna Singh, MLA for Surrey–Green Timbers.

I’m joining you from the shared territories of Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem and Semiahmoo First Nations.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks, Rachna.

Next we have Steve Schnitzer, who is the director of the Police Academy at the Justice Institute of B.C.

Please go ahead, Mr. Schnitzer.

JUSTICE INSTITUTE OF B.C.

S. Schnitzer: Good morning, committee members. My name is Steve Schnitzer, and I’m the director of the Police Academy at the Justice Institute of British Columbia, JIBC.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that the JIBC, where I’m presenting from presently, is located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Qayqayt and Musqueam people in beautiful New Westminster.

It is my pleasure to appear before you today, and I welcome the opportunity to explain the training we offer and address any questions the committee may have. I have some prepared remarks which I will now go through.

JIBC was established in 1978 and now has its main campus situated in New Westminster, British Columbia. JIBC is a public post-secondary institute with a mandate for public safety and first responder training, including B.C. sheriffs, B.C. corrections, paramedics, firefighters and police. There is a variety of other education and training programs at JIBC, including pre-employment diploma and degree programs for those wanting careers in public safety.

[10:15 a.m.]

The JIBC Police Academy is essentially British Columbia’s police training academy for police in B.C. other than the RCMP. We provide recruit training for all of the municipal, Stl’atl’imx and Transit Police departments in British Columbia. The total number of police departments that we provide recruit training to is 14, and the newly created Surrey police service will be one of them.

We also offer in-service training through our advanced training courses. Currently, our advanced programs are operating in an extremely limited capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic and budgetary constraints, so this presentation will focus primarily on recruit training. I welcome any questions about advanced programs during the questions section following the presentation.

Some of the questions that were provided by the committee are outside the scope of the Police Academy. I will address the applicable questions before moving onto the recruit training program.

All recruits at the Police Academy are already hired and sworn in as members of their home police department. As such, the Police Academy has no control over the requirements for entrance into the program or diversity amongst these students, who are police recruits. These are completely under the control of the hiring departments. The standards for training are set by the policing and security branch of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and PSB approves the course training standards for the recruit training program.

Recruit training is comprised of four blocks. Block I is currently 13 weeks at the Police Academy, block II is 17 to 22 weeks of field training in the recruits’ home department, and block III is a final eight weeks back at the Police Academy. After block III, recruits graduate as qualified municipal constables and complete an additional year, a long block IV probationary period, at their home departments. Following successful completion of block IV, they become certified municipal constables in British Columbia.

Work is currently underway to increase the lengths of block I and block III by one week per block to address recommendations to enhance the recruit training program. I will speak to those enhancements later in this presentation.

In 2016, the Police Academy implemented a complete overhaul to the method of delivery for recruit training. The previous model was primarily lecture-based, with limited practical application outside of block II field training and with little to no integration of concepts across the program. The new model is a competency-based framework based on the Police Sector Council national framework of police competencies, which focuses on application of concepts. The new delivery model has a spiral design, which means that concepts are introduced early in the program and revisited, built on and increased in complexity as recruits progress through their training.

The general model is that recruits are first exposed to the material through pre-reading and knowledge comprehension quizzes. They test their understanding of the material through case study discussions in small groups under the guidance of instructors, and they practise applying the material through practical scenarios.

This format resulted in an increase in time spent in simulations and practical application in both block I and III training. Block I practical application time went from 42 to 89 hours, and block III practical application time went from 52 to 92 hours.

There is also time spent in the program applying fundamental concepts to case study discussions, which did not exist in the program previously. Recruits learn to write reports based on the calls they have taken during their practical scenarios. Following each practical scenario, recruits debrief the scenario. This debrief consists of receiving immediate feedback on their performance, reviewing video of the scenario and written feedback from the following day and completing a debrief form that asks guiding questions.

The questions on the debrief form prompt recruits to think critically about their performance, identify any bias they had during the scenario and strategies to mitigate that bias, and identifying any strategies they used to maintain composure and to ensure personal wellness. The goal is to build this reflective practice into a recruit’s routine debriefing following all calls. Debrief forms are reviewed by the recruit’s mentors.

[10:20 a.m.]

This brings me to an important part of our recruit training program: our mentorship model. Each recruit is assigned an instructor as their mentor at the start of block I training, and that mentor follows them through blocks I, II and III.

Recruits meet regularly with their mentor to discuss their performance, receive feedback and suggestions for improvement and review their training plans. Each week recruits complete a training plan where they set up their goals for the week. These goals are reviewed by the mentor to ensure that they align with where the instructors see the recruit as needing development.

There is a designated time in the program called directed study time where recruits are able to work under the guidance of a relevant instructor to improve in the areas where they need development. This individualized training plan — directed study time — allows for flexibility, as recruits move toward mastering the competencies at various paces.

Block I of the program is organized into common patrol calls, where each week represents the common type of call. The integrated nature of the program means that recruits learn all the material they need to know to handle that specific type of call during that week, instead of in separate silos such legal, patrol, tactical and other disciplines.

Block III is focused on advanced patrol-level calls, with two weeks that focus on vulnerable populations. The first of these weeks focuses on cultural competence and includes presentations from the recruits’ block II diversity projects, watching and debriefing the film The Spirit Has No Colour and participating in a Circle of Understanding put on by the Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre Society. The second week focuses on vulnerable populations and includes teaching simulations where recruits work through scenarios with specialty unit police subject-matter experts on topics such missing persons, elder abuse, hate crimes, hate-related offences and child abuse.

I mentioned the block II diversity project. While block II is completed in the recruits’ home department and focuses mainly on responding to calls for service with their field training officers, there are still some additional required components that recruits must complete.

One of these components is the block II diversity project, where recruits work in small groups to research an underrepresented group that they do not have previous experience interacting with. They are to meet members of this community or group and discuss their experience with police and what could be done to improve the interactions. Recruits then present back to the whole class when they return to block III. Recruits frequently choose Indigenous communities, sex-trade workers, people without homes and youth as groups to learn about for this project.

There are currently four longitudinal themes woven into our curriculum: fair and impartial policing, professional communication, ethics and officer wellness. Each of these themes is embedded in lessons, case studies, scenarios, debriefs and exams across the duration of the program.

The model we use for articulation in the program is a combination the crisis intervention and de-escalation and the National Use of Force Framework. This model is purposely combined to emphasize the importance of de-escalation techniques through all policing interactions. Use of force is taught through the program as a blended approach with crisis intervention and de-escalation. Recruits learn that their presence and communications are low levels of force that could easily escalate a situation if they are not self-aware of the impact they are having on others, especially those in crisis.

Recruits are introduced to the crisis intervention and de-escalation National Use of Force Framework model in their first week of training and focus on communication skills in the first few weeks. In week 10 of block I, recruits complete both the online B.C. crisis intervention and de-escalation course and the seven-hour classroom component, where persons living with mental illness and their family members share their experiences interacting with police. Crisis intervention and de-escalation scenarios and case studies are woven throughout the program, and recruits are formally evaluated on their performance in scenarios interacting with people facing a mental health crisis. These scenarios often involve professional actors.

[10:25 a.m.]

This brings me to assessment. Recruits are assessed using both written and scenario-based exams over the course of their training. They have two exam days in each of blocks I and III. Each exam day consists of five written exam stations and four practical scenarios. Scenarios are graded with standard rubrics by experienced assessors.

As a final assessment in each block, recruits complete an application for advancement where they outline how they have met the required levels in each of the competencies, using evidence from their scenarios, exams, calls and other experiences during training.

The application for advancement is known as an assessment portfolio in educational terms and is designed to build reflective practice. It also mirrors the promotional processes for many of the police agencies that our recruits belong to.

I mentioned early in the presentation that we are currently implementing some improvements to further enhance the recruit training program. I would now like to take some time to discuss those enhancements. These enhancements stem from a set of 20 recommendations put forward by a JIBC police academy curriculum evaluation steering committee, chaired by the Hon. Wally Oppal.

This steering committee was established in 2018 and consisted of stakeholders from the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, JIBC, B.C. Association of Police Boards, B.C. Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police, Vancouver police, B.C. Police Association, B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner and the independent investigations office.

Some of the recommendations address identification of increased risk of violence for Indigenous women, enhancing concepts for cultural safety, fair and impartial policing and trauma-informed practice. Following these recommendations, an implementation steering committee was set up to review the recommendations and approve enhancements to address the recommendations.

This steering committee included representatives from JIBC, PSB, B.C. Police Association, B.C. Association of Police Boards, B.C. Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police and B.C. Civil Liberties. All of the planned enhancements have been approved by this steering committee. Implementation of the recommendations prioritized a focus on cultural safety.

Some of the enhancements already in place are…. Starting in the fall of 2020, so that was last fall, all recruit classes began to receive the “B.C. Fair and Impartial Policing,” FIP, course in addition to the FIP material that was already embedded into the program. This inclusion strengthens recruits’ background knowledge about the underlying science of bias and serves as a basis for their reflections as they progress through the program, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation.

Starting in January of 2021, all recruit classes complete the B.C. trauma-informed practice course, which is a cross-sector course designed for the justice and public safety community in British Columbia. This course has seven modules and is completed online.

Starting in January of 2021, all recruit classes complete the San’yas Indigenous cultural safety course through the Provincial Health Services Authority, the PHSA. This course has eight modules and is completed online with facilitated discussion exercises.

We are also planning further enhancements to the program that involve trauma-informed practice and Indigenous cultural safety. Starting in May 2021, recruit training will be two weeks longer and will include trauma-informed practice sessions integrated into the curriculum. These sessions will debrief the recruits experience in the online course and discuss practical strategies for front-line patrol officers to police through a trauma-informed lens. These concepts will be embedded throughout the program to ensure recruits have the chance to revisit and develop skills on an ongoing basis.

We will also include face-to-face introduction and de­brief sessions before and after the completion of the San’yas Indigenous cultural safety training course. These sessions are being developed in consultation with the JIBC office of Indigenization and will involve Indigenous guests to open and close the training discussions.

Finally, the next block III will have recruits involved in an advanced FIP session that will build on field training experiences and explore fair and impartial policing concepts in more depth.

I have maybe two more minutes to go, and I should be finished. I know I’m running a bit over time.

[10:30 a.m.]

Further enhancements to the program that are ongoing include integration of two new competencies, which are conflict management and equity, diversity and inclusion, into the program — and also recruit assessment; creating and mapping of a cultural safety longitudinal theme in the program to complement the existing four longitudinal themes; integrating teachings from Indigenous Elders and knowledge-keepers into the program. This project is awaiting grant approval.

Revising curriculum, through consultation and collaboration, will better reflect the experience of Indigenous women with the justice system. Developing an enhanced officer wellness program that focuses on complete health and building resiliencies will ensure that recruits are well prepared for the demands of policing. Finally, incorporating active bystandership training into the recruit program will equip recruits with the tools to speak up when they observe fellow police officers doing something wrong. I just want to note, on this last one, that this project is still pending approval from two advisory committees that the Police Academy reports to.

As concluded by the 2018 curriculum review, the municipal recruit training program in British Columbia is a high-quality training program designed to progressively build the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required of police in British Columbia. With the improvements that are currently underway, the program will continue to be enhanced, resulting in police who are better equipped to work with the diverse communities that they serve.

The Police Academy, along with the policing and security branch, have been monitoring the presentations to this committee that pertain to training, and we will continue to align our curriculum work with feedback from the community. We look forward to receiving recommendations and implementing further enhancements. Our curriculum is intended to be constantly evolving to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of the community and our policing stakeholders.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t also discuss the cost of training municipal police recruits and the ongoing funding issues faced by the JIBC Police Academy. The above noted enhancements are all extremely positive, but they have a cost associated with them. There is a cost for instructional design and for additional instructor resources to teach the added time in the program. Some of the newly incorporated elements, such as San’yas Indigenous cultural safety, have associated fees.

Development of the enhancements from the 2018 curriculum review is currently funded until the end of May, but additional funding will need to be secured to complete work on the existing recommendations. I understand that discussions are currently ongoing to secure funding, but want to acknowledge the pressures of operating with minimal staff and uncertain funding. Additionally, regular funding for the Police Academy is well below levels required to sustain this program. We now rely heavily on retired police officers as instructors because we simply could not afford to hire a full complement of seconded police officers as instructors.

The JIBC continues to work with the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training to develop a sustainable funding model, but one has yet to be reached. It is imperative this committee and all relevant stakeholders understand that building and delivering training that is meaningful and responsive to the current needs of our diverse communities requires a sustainable funding model.

In closing, I would like to thank you for allowing the JIBC to contribute to this very important process. I want to also thank my colleagues from PRTC and RCMP Depot division for their past and ongoing collaboration with me and for sharing with us on police-related training. I remain available to respond to any questions and comments you have.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you.

Thanks to all our presenters.

Now we have time for questions from members.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you for that. I hadn’t realized the different levels of training between the three different groups. That was helpful.

I’m not sure who to address this to. It’s more about the pedagogy of actual training, and it might be different in the different groups. Is this training that builds on previous training, as opposed to these stand-alones? That’s one of the questions. The second is that I’m curious about the background and experience of the people that are doing the training — are they mental health professionals, or are they all police officers? — particularly with the Indigenous cultural components. Those are big questions, and I’m not sure about who to direct them to.

[10:35 a.m.]

S. Bourassa-Muise: That is a complicated question, but I’ll try my best here at breaking it down. As far as those who come to the training academy, they are police officers that are currently in the field. They come from all over the country. Certainly, there are components to them. There are competencies that we require.

The job here has a competency profile attached to it, and for the most part, people come here on a promotional matter. They have to write towards their competencies and show their worth here as far as all the competencies listed and the sort. For those coming on the lateral, those are assessed individually. It’s a file review to make sure that they are a good fit.

They’re coming here for a skill. To be a firearms in­structor, you need to be able to shoot properly. Those in the skills area are more tailored for what they are going to be involved in, such as self-defence — police defensive tactics. They will have had some competencies in the past that show that they have levels of skills that are required.

For those coming in that teach our applied police sciences, they’re generalists, for the most part. Many of them have backgrounds in teaching or have been instructors out in the field in one thing or another and have a genuine will to be here. That means that they have had experience in coaching and mentoring out in the field. Some of them have been coaches. Certainly, as I mentioned earlier, they have to have the facilitator-instructor’s course. If they don’t pass that, then we don’t put them out in front of a class. That’s the last segment, but we’re hoping that a recruiting or staffing segment, as such, will resolve that.

I’m sorry. I forget the last portion of your question.

K. Kirkpatrick: Well, in particular, if you’re doing trauma-informed, is it a mental health professional? When you’re designing and teaching the Indigenous cultural component, who are you working with, I guess, in order to design and teach those? I’m sorry that’s still…. That was a lot of information.

S. Bourassa-Muise: No, that’s fine. So teaching and designing are two different things, two different groups entirely. On the design side, this is where we have many of our civilian members that have a master’s degree in instructional design. They are in charge of looking at exactly what kinds of resources we would require to teach that component — mental health, for example. Keep in mind that when we’re devising a course curriculum, it’s mechanical. We start with the end on those, assessing, and then figuring out what components we need.

A. Olsen: I have a few questions, just around…. In either the Justice Institute or the RCMP training programs, is the historical context of the relationships and the historical context of policing in the country taught, in any comprehensive way, to new recruits?

S. Bourassa-Muise: I’ll take a crack at it here. Yes, it is. We learn from our past mistakes. That’s something that certainly we don’t want to repeat, and we’ll be quite frank when we have discussions during the class. As far as the content, as such, no, it’s not part of the content. It’s part of the speaking points as we progress through.

[10:40 a.m.]

As far as the historical components or cultural components, the history of the force is a course that’s given. Then there are varied components as far as when we teach about Indigenous studies — some of the historical, cultural practices that exist and why they exist, and so on.

I hope I’m answering your question.

A. Olsen: Yeah, thank you for that. That is essentially….

We’ve heard from a lot of Indigenous leaders, for example, that information is passed from one generation to another with respect to the relationship. It’s inherited, almost. I’ve noticed from my own experience that we talk about the relationship with policing. I’m just wanting to understand whether or not that relationship is also being discussed within police training, so I appreciate that.

Just a question to the Justice Institute, Mr. Schnitzer. In terms of the curriculum review steering committee that you were talking about, it sounded like…. You listed off names of the groups that were involved in that, but the B.C. Civil Liberties Association was the only civilian group. It sounded like a lot of police reviewing the curriculum and making recommendations. Can you provide a little bit of insight as to what the civilian complement in that review committee was?

S. Schnitzer: Yes. The steering committee that was overseeing the 20 recommendations that we finally are now implementing into our curriculum was just the oversight committee that would approve the work that we’re doing. We reached out to several diverse groups through the Vancouver police department and lower Vancouver Island police departments, such as Victoria and Saanich, that had diversity committees that put us in touch with their diverse communities.

We had two cross-sections of people or groups that we were working with, whether they are from the Indigenous community or…. They helped inform our curriculum, and the steering committee ultimately approved the work that we created in consultation with those communities.

A. Olsen: Thank you for that. Can you…?

D. Routley (Chair): Actually, Adam, I just want to say we have five more questioners, more questioners than we have time for questions, I think. So if members could keep themselves to one for now. And I do think we’re going to have to schedule more time because I know that members have a lot more questions than we have time for here. We’ve got about 20 minutes left. So, Members, if we could proceed that way. Thank you.

The next person on the list is MLA Begg.

G. Begg: Thanks, Chair, and thanks to the presenters. I think my question is for the chief. You may not have this information at your disposal, and I understand if you don’t.

My question relates to the number of recruits that you train every year. I understand that that would be a changing number, but I’m interested in the specifics of where they’re recruited from in the country and if they’re reflective of society at large. In other words, are there 40 percent women? Are there 38 percent persons of colour? That kind of issue.

S. Bourassa-Muise: Not to avoid the question, but as I mentioned earlier, I am not part of recruiting, so I don’t have that information. But if you want that, a great friend of mine is the person in charge, Nadim Lakhani, and I can certainly get those for you.

Going by my personal observations as a professional, I can tell you that the recruitment is more diverse than ever. And this is from being here at Depot division. I meet every single troop that comes in, and I speak about their background. We have people who have walked the earth to get to Canada. We have new Canadians, more than ever, that are entering Depot division. As I mentioned earlier, we have permanent residents that are accepted as applicants. You no longer need to have Canadian citizenship.

[10:45 a.m.]

I can tell you — and this is a simple observation; it’s not by numbers here — that it’s really a mosaic that we have here, more than ever. Even so, our kitchen staff here is actually respecting Ramadan as we speak, and ensuring that the cultural needs of our members, our cadets, are met here. It’s changed dramatically: from seeing a true picture where it was all white to seeing a true picture, visibly, of a mosaic of representation from across the world. It’s no longer across the country — from across the world.

As far as troops are concerned, how many we train: in the past years we have trained 40 troops of 32 members. In the COVID year, 2020, we trained 16 troops. This year we’re slated to train 34 troops, which is equal to about 1,100 members.

G. Begg: Thank you for that. Could you please follow up with the empirical data about the specific question that I asked?

S. Bourassa-Muise: I will, and shall I direct that to the secretariat?

G. Begg: Yes.

S. Bourassa-Muise: Will do.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you for that. I should, at this time, ask if the presenters would be willing to come back for further questions at another date, if we’re able to schedule that.

S. Bourassa-Muise: Certainly.

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

Then the next on the list is MLA Singh.

R. Singh: Thank you to the presenters. I missed part of the presentation. So some things I might have missed.

My question is…. MLA Olsen touched upon it a little bit. What we have heard from the Indigenous stakeholders: over and over, they have repeated about the lack of trust that is existing, even in this age and time, between the Indigenous communities and the police.

A lot of talk has happened around the training. Nobody would know about the Indigenous issues and their circumstances, their culture, their history, more than the Indigenous people themselves. There has been a lot of talk that there is a lack of representation when training is happening. How much involvement do Indigenous communities have in drafting that training, planning that training and then delivering that training? Any one of you, please feel free to answer that.

L. Montgomery: Thank you for your question. Maybe I’ll take a shot at answering this question and filling in some information. I’m just coming from the aspect of the in-service training.

Once a person is an employee…. And it will be different in depot, where you’re taking a civilian and converting them into a police officer. That’s a very complex question in a sense of all the difference topics and all the different groups that are in Canada or in British Columbia that would want representation, for sure.

Some of the things that I can pass along, and perhaps I can just use a couple examples that are quite recent, are…. I think everybody is aware of the police forces in Canada looking at sexual assaults and some of the challenges and reporting that occurred in those areas. In the RCMP, for example, our national learning development and some of our other national units approached a sexual assault training module, essentially — several different course offerings. During that process, there was consultation, and is consultation, with different advisory groups.

I must say this is all happening at the Ottawa level, so there are some very broad groups. I think that some of them are the Indigenous Circle for Change and the advisory council of Elders, just to name a couple. Also, some of these projects included the use of other government department secondments from different departments that have closer connections to some of these communities and some of the social factors that are with these communities.

Some of those products are currently available. Some of those are in an online format. I want to pass along, too, that in the online format, there is regular representation from people external to the police, depending on the topic, that are providing testimonials or providing information on a learning point for the learner to consider.

I hope that that provides a little bit more context to the in-service training opportunities.

[10:50 a.m.]

R. Singh: I know we don’t have much time. Maybe I’ll come back to this again, if we get some time.

H. Sandhu: Thank you to the presenters. MLA Begg asked the first question I had.

The other thing I’ve been thinking. Looking at the Depot building, I see that there is a chapel, that there is an RCMP heritage building. Has there been any discussion, having the Indigenous history room or building or museum, from the point of view so cadets can have the broader and more accessible resource of learning? We’ve heard from multiple presenters, over and over, that those three, four or eight hours of training or couple of days training are not enough because of the depth of Indigenous history, and even the history of racialized immigrants and the RCMP’s history. It will take a longer time.

I’ve been thinking all along: has there been any discussion? What are your thoughts about it if we really want to have this meaningful change and to teach our cadets about cultural sensitivity and Indigenous history?

S. Bourassa-Muise: Absolutely. This is an area that needs improvement at Depot. We do have a strategic plan for embedding our Indigenous culture. As I said earlier, we practise what we preach here. It’s not just in class here; we have our presentation on Depot grounds of artifacts and the sort. We own a large collection in the heritage centre. We don’t own the heritage centre, but we own a large collection, and we’re acquiring more and more from people coming forward from the community.

It’s not only local. We have that challenge that it’s not only localized Indigenous culture that we have to embrace but throughout the land, such as, also, our northern culture. That’s a piece that’s lacking here.

Through our strategic outlook and initiatives, as I mentioned earlier, we’re looking to embed more and more. The artwork here is going to be part of that and is part of that — anything from painted electrical meters and the sort. You’ll see various artwork, lots of history. But as we go forward, certainly we represent and we will be representing the modern look of our Indigenous cultures — more integrated as such.

Throughout the year we have some cultural recognitions of our Indigenous culture, certainly around June, and then regular times, we have a sweat lodge here at the academy. We have Elders that come. Also, we — and I’m sorry; this is pre-COVID — certainly went out to our First Nations. We are also aligned with the university here, who are working on reviewing the whole curriculum as such to ensure that it has a modern outlook on our Indigenous culture.

There’s still loads of work ahead. I am not going to say that we’re doing things perfectly. There’s always room for improvement. I certainly recognize that. I’ve made it a priority of mine.

H. Sandhu: Quickly, the reason I was thinking…. Say, if I came from an Indigenous culture and was going to the RCMP heritage building, I may be thinking twice. So perhaps maybe adding something to the name so they know there are greater resources available about the Indigenous history, stepping into the building. Just a thought.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your answers and presentations.

D. Routley (Chair): Now I’d like to check with MLA Davies. Dan, if you have questions.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I guess I do have one question. It’s maybe a little bit of a follow-up on what was asked by my colleague MLA Kirkpatrick regarding specialist training, bringing in specialists around mental health and addictions. I was just hoping to get a little more of an in-depth look at what that looks like.

Maybe I missed it, being on the phone, but I guess you are bringing people that work in that field and such. I guess I’d ask that to both the presenters.

[10:55 a.m.]

D. Routley (Chair): Who would like to take a stab at that?

Go ahead, Mr. Schnitzer, please.

S. Schnitzer: I’ll just give, from our perspective, the…. We’re just starting to use trauma-informed practice, which is an online course developed in the province of British Columbia. It was developed with subject-matter experts, PhDs, etc. That course was developed.

I can’t give you the list, because it’s not a course that was specifically developed by JIBC, but it was through the province of British Columbia. So was the San’yas Indigenous cultural safety course, which our steering committee ultimately landed on as being the best training online available for our recruits.

D. Routley (Chair): The next question comes from MLA Glumac.

R. Glumac: To build a little bit on that, how many hours of ongoing, in-person training are there for police officers and RCMP related to these areas that Dan mentioned around mental health, trauma-informed practice and cultural sensitivity? How many hours per year of ongoing training do police officers and RCMP get for that?

L. Montgomery: I’ll try to answer that. I don’t have a lot of numbers to throw your way. We can do a detailed breakdown and certainly provide that information back to the special committee.

The reason that it’s hard to nail down is that in many different training courses that an employee will take, there may be elements that relate to that particular topic. For example, whether it be an interviewing course or a sexual assault course, trauma-informed practices and some of these other things that we’re talking about are interwoven into the curriculum. There may not be an actual title that says that, but when you actually look at the learning objectives and the performance outcomes, it is related to the theme of your question.

Specifically when B.C. RCMP employees come to this division, they are provided crisis incident de-escalation training. Then some of the other content is online and will measure four to eight hours in length, usually, in the online environment. However, usually that’s a one-time offering. The employees can go back and redo the courses if they like, but when it’s mandatory, in these particular situations, it’s one time.

I can’t remember the exact number from my presentation, but it’s part of that 255 hours. I’m not going to say it is a huge part of it or what the scale of that is, but we can certainly provide that information back to the committee.

R. Glumac: I would appreciate that information, for sure. Just from what I’m hearing, there isn’t really ongoing training in these areas, regular ongoing training. Correct?

L. Montgomery: I actually don’t agree with that because of how a lot of these concepts are interwoven into other training that employees are taking in their learning path. I’ll just, for the ease of keeping it simple, talk about our investigator development program, for example.

The concepts of managing witnesses and trauma-informed practices, for example, are spoken about in about nine different modules in that program. There’s nothing in the title that suggests that it’s trauma-informed practice. However, when you start looking at the actual learning objectives and looking at the outcomes and what the learner has to demonstrate in scenario-based training, it has a connection to those types of things.

D. Routley (Chair): MLA Halford, go ahead.

T. Halford: Thanks for the presentation.

In terms of the mental health aspects and the training that’s given, I just wanted to clarify if there is either training or mental health supports through that process for the individual recruits. In terms of self-care and identifying mental health issues, whether they’re pre-existing or could be created through their job or their potential job, how do you do that education, if it’s part of the training program to actually identify self-care for the recruits in terms of mental health?

[11:00 a.m.]

S. Schnitzer: I’ll take a stab at that one. Our recruits receive the Working Minds first responder training, which was formerly called the Road to Mental Readiness. I’m sure most police forces across the country are receiving that. That’s very introductory training.

Our challenge, though, at the JIBC is that we train individuals from 14 different police departments that have their own programs. We try to do it as generic as we can, and as I mentioned in my presentation, recruit wellness is something that’s ongoing. We’re going to be developing further enhancements in the program as we move forward in the coming months.

One important thing that I’d like to mention is our mentorship program. We do regular check-ins with our recruits, at least once a week, through our mentors. We have actually found some issues that have come up that we probably wouldn’t have pre-2016, when we did a major revamp of our programs. That continual feedback loop is very important to make sure that recruits can self-identify issues and let us know if they’re having any issues.

Then we will refer them back to their departments and work with the recruit, their hiring department, and through the police academy to address any issues that they may have.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much. It’s very clear to me that members have more questions. I’m cautious to speak on behalf of the committee without first consulting, but I think I’m confident in saying that we’d all like to hear more.

Let’s work on another opportunity to dive deeper into these issues and questions. I appreciate very much the contribution of the panel. You’ve already suggested that you’d be available at some point to do that. So thank you very much.

I think we’ll move on, with anticipation that that will work out, and take a five-minute recess. We have the other presenters in the waiting room. So five minutes. Back at 11:08.

Thank you very much, presenters.

The committee recessed from 11:02 a.m. to 11:11 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Welcome back to this meeting of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act.

For our next presentation, we will be hearing from Hogan’s Alley Society — Mr. Mugabo. They have 15 minutes to speak, followed by questions and discussion from the committee members.

I’ll also remind everybody that audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website. A complete transcript will also be posted there.

Now I would ask members, again, to introduce themselves, starting with MLA Sandhu.

H. Sandhu: Hello. Good morning, presenters. I am Harwinder Sandhu. I’m the MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

I’m joining you from the unceded territory of the Okanagan Indian Nations.

I look forward to your presentations.

R. Singh: Rachna Singh, the MLA for Surrey–Green Timbers.

I am joining you from the shared territories of Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem and Semiahmoo First Nations.

T. Halford: Trevor Halford, the MLA for Surrey–White Rock.

I’m coming to you from the territory of the Semiahmoo.

K. Kirkpatrick: Hi, Mr. Mugabo. I’m Karin Kirkpatrick. I am the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano. I’ve heard of some of the work of your society. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

A. Olsen: Good morning. My name is Adam Olsen. I’m the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I am working today from my home in the W̱JOȽEȽP village here in the W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

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

I’m coming to you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, including the Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Katzie First Nations.

R. Glumac: Hi. I’m Rick Glumac, the MLA for Port Moody–Coquitlam.

I am on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

D. Routley (Chair): On the phone, unable to…. We have technical difficulties almost every time, of one form or another. It’s my friend Deputy Chair MLA Davies.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Hello there. It’s Dan Davies, the MLA for Peace River North, coming to you from Vancouver, on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people. Looking forward to hearing the presentation.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, all. My name is MLA Doug Routley, Nanaimo–North Cowichan.

I’m coming from the traditional territories of the Malahat First Nation.

I’d like to invite Mr. Mugabo to go ahead with his presentation.

[11:15 a.m.]

HOGAN’S ALLEY SOCIETY

L. Mugabo: First of all, thank you for inviting me to speak to you and make a presentation to the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. My name is Lama Mugabo. I’m a community planner and a founding member of Hogan’s Alley Society.

I work in the Downtown Eastside. Currently one of the projects I’m running is a food security project at Nora Hendrix Place, so I work with people who are low income and people who are Black and Indigenous. We know that this demographic is targeted by the police, given the information we’ve received through the Freedom of Information Act. On a daily basis, I’m told that when they’re walking down the street, they’re harassed. The worst thing they say is that when they’re confronted with an African-descent police officer, in their judgment, they probably try to perform well so that they are seen well.

We have four recommendations. The first one looks at the rate of civilian fatalities in police encounters in Canada. We know that piece has doubled since 1990. The rate of civilian deaths in police encounters has almost doubled since ’90. Police agencies don’t collect enough data regarding their interactions with civilians.

Also, provincial oversight bodies — such as the independent investigations office, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner — all lack independence. The data makes this clear.

RCMP, VPD and other police agencies have denied the existence of systemic racism. Even a former Supreme Court of Canada judge, Bastarache, found the RCMP incapable of internal systemic reform.

We’d also like to remind you that this is not new. We need innovative and urgent actions to help cops do the job they’re equipped to do and to let go of duties that they were never suited to perform. The Police Act is a great home for mandates that will inform policing priorities.

Here I would like to draw your attention to municipalities such as Wales and even New Zealand where they prioritize non-lethal alternatives. So what happens is that firearms are kept in the car, and police officers patrol without guns. They only get the guns if necessary. We want to de-escalate. What I find often is that with the presence of a gun, it encourages people to use it. If you don’t have it, you can de-escalate and resort to other tactics.

We also would like to explain the benefits of collecting disaggregated data not to vilify police but instead to help police and lawmakers understand the shortcomings of policing and respond accordingly with evidence-based policies.

[11:20 a.m.]

We’d also like to bring to your attention a provincial police investigator with a large background — not a police background — to investigate long-term systemic issues or respond to inquiries from the public and to work with police agencies to advance reform, like the Office of the Correctional Investigator federally. This is really important for us because we need to work collaboratively. Without data, we can’t do this well.

We also want to incentivize police agencies and their public funders to redirect funding dedicated to mental health calls into clinical institutions. It’s clear that when police show up with guns, responding to a mental health situation or even domestic violence, the tendency is, because they have a gun, that very often someone ends up dead. And it’s not the police officer. So we need to find a way of being innovative, of engaging community while building trust and really find a way to build better, liveable communities. Thank you very much.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. We deeply appreciate that.

Members, it’s the time for your questions. Do I see hands? I see MLA Olsen.

A. Olsen: Thank you very much, Mr. Mugabo. You mentioned that you have four specific recommendations. I’m just wondering if you could provide them for us. I just want to give you an opportunity to repeat them in, like, one, two, three, four, just so that we can have them. I can keep them in my notes, and we can have them on the record in that way.

L. Mugabo: Oh, yes. I did send a copy. I hope you have it.

Quickly, the first recommendation: mandate police agencies to adopt the approach that New Zealand and Wales took to firearms, looking at stringent and minimum use, only held in vehicles, prioritizing non-lethal alternatives. That’s one.

Two is to mandate police agencies to collect and distribute disaggregated data regarding their interactions with civilians.

Three, establish an independent provincial policing investigator with a legal background, as opposed to policing, to address systemic issues regarding accountability.

The fourth and last recommendation is to incentivize police agencies and their public funders to redirect funds dedicated to mental health calls into clinical institutions.

R. Singh: Thank you so much, Mr. Mugabo, for your presentation and the important work that your organization does. Thank you for these recommendations as well.

You talk about…. I know how much work Hogan’s Alley is doing in addressing the systemic racism issues. You spelt it out in your presentation and also the slides that you have sent to us. You have talked about the number of incidents increasing.

How do you see…? Especially, I’m looking at the fourth part. And we have heard from other organizations, as well, about the social issues — police being challenged by the number of social issues that we are dealing with. You mentioned a little bit about the mental health issues, the barriers that people are facing, the intersectionality that comes into play. How do you see…? Would you have any examples of the jurisdictions? You gave the example of New Zealand and Wales, about not having weapons.

[11:25 a.m.]

Would you have any examples of the organizations or the jurisdictions that have adopted different ways to address the social issues?

L. Mugabo: I think that municipalities south of the border…. I’m thinking New Jersey. I’m thinking about Berkeley.

I think what we are looking at now is to imagine policing without police. How do we build trust? How do we alleviate the impact of violence on the people? Really, when we talk about reallocating funds from the police to social services, what we are trying to explain is that very often police are called for things that they are not trained for — mental health. They’re not trained to de-escalate, to deal with mental health patients.

We would appreciate very much if the police were removed from this responsibility and replaced with people who can actually de-escalate. The other thing we find is that overpolicing our communities, like the Downtown Eastside, doesn’t really help. It doesn’t help build the trust. Also, I think that if these communities…. If people had jobs, if people had mental health support, if they had good education, and so on, you wouldn’t need the police.

Look at West Vancouver. You don’t have police 24-7. You don’t have police patrolling the streets. They don’t need to. I want us to really imagine — look at the long term — how we can get to where we want, how we can be responsible citizens.

R. Singh: Thank you so much on that, and especially your work in the Downtown Eastside. We have heard from the organizations there and the broken trust between the organizations, between the residents — especially on the vulnerable, marginalized sidelines — and between the police.

When police have come and talked about…. They talk about the initiatives that they are bringing in to build that trust, which are, practically, not working somehow. What would you like to say on that?

L. Mugabo: Yeah, I think we need better engagement with local communities. I remember when Hogan’s Alley Society met with the police for the first time, and we asked them about the stats that showed, disproportionately, how Black and Indigenous folks were targeted. They said they never read it.

For me, that’s really…. It’s disingenuous. When you come to meet people, you know what the issues are. Do your homework. Don’t hide, and don’t lie. Just be honest, because we need to build trust, and we have a long way to go.

Also, this whole idea of who is investigating the police — definitely don’t use ex-police officers. Don’t use people who are close to the police. Make it independent. Bring someone who knows the law, who can be objective, and let’s move forward. This cover-up, this lack of accountability, is what really drags down our trust. We need to learn from our mistakes.

R. Singh: Thank you so much, Mr. Mugabo. I really appreciate that.

D. Routley (Chair): At this point, I’m going to check with MLA Davies to see if he has a question.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): I’m all good. Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for your presentation.

D. Routley (Chair): Then the next on the list is MLA Halford.

T. Halford: Just a quick question. Maybe if you can speak about your interactions in Vancouver with Car 87 and if that’s….

L. Mugabo: With who?

T. Halford: Car 87. Are you familiar with Car 87?

L. Mugabo: No.

T. Halford: Car 87. I’m not that overly familiar. I’m getting to be a little bit more familiar with it. But it’s a car that is dedicated for mental health services with the police that usually has a mental health nurse in it — mental health support.

I guess that’s probably something that you haven’t come across in your work down there, which is problematic, given your commitment down there. We need to make sure that you are aware of that program.

[11:30 a.m.]

L. Mugabo: Yeah. Basically, my reaction to this is…. When I talk to people about mental health, people who live in the Downtown Eastside who interact with police, the sight of a uniformed police officer with a gun always triggers something negative.

I would prefer that the police don’t show up in this case but instead send social workers. We just need to de-escalate until we build enough trust, because the history tells us that the relationship between the police and people that they’re trying to protect hasn’t been very good. So yeah. I would stay away from the police and prioritize social workers.

K. Kirkpatrick: That was an interesting last comment you made about staying away from the police. There is that kind of stigma. And the Car 87 — we’ve heard that comment, that there will be a hesitation sometimes. Regardless of whether there’s mental health support there, they’re still police.

I just wanted to thank you for the presentation. You’re a very good presenter. It was very succinct. The information was good and the clarity of the recommendations. Just to let you know, these are very similar recommendations. There’s certainly a theme in what you’re talking about. Thank you for that.

I know of the Hogan’s Alley work with PHS, the Portland Hotel Society. You guys do great work. I just have — whether this is relevant or not — a question about your funding. How does Hogan’s Alley get funded? Do you rely solely on donations, or do you get grants?

L. Mugabo: Yeah, we rely on grants — we write grants all the time — and donations. I must admit that last year was very fruitful for us, I think, because of the incidents around racial reckoning. We were very pleased to see a lot of donations coming our way, so we appreciate this support. Yeah, grants and fundraising.

K. Kirkpatrick: Great. Thank you very much for your time — much appreciated.

L. Mugabo: My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. I would ask…. Our last presenters were people who train police officers. They had some interesting comments. Part of what struck me was that it takes a long time to develop the training programs and then implement them and then recruit people who are reflective of the mosaic of our communities and all of that. So cultural change is clearly a very difficult and slow process.

One of the things that I hear from you and others, I think, is that acknowledging things is really important. One of the things that I heard in their presentation — I’d just like your view on it — was that the police officers now are trained to recognize that their mere presence is a soft or mild form of force, use of force. How do you feel about that description?

L. Mugabo: I agree, because I think that the police represent the state. They have authority. In the past, this authority hasn’t been used well, so we have a long way to go to develop that trust and figure out a better way of working together. But I agree with the statement.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. It struck me as a really interesting turn of phrase — that their mere presence is a soft form of force. I think it’s important they recognize that, and I appreciate your view.

Are there any other questions from the members of the committee? I don’t see any.

At this point, I’d like to thank you very much, Mr. Mugabo. I always ask presenters if you’d be willing to be contacted again by the committee should we have further questions. I also invite everyone to contribute any other thoughts they might have that they think are relevant to what we’re doing here. It’s a big task, and we’re very serious about getting it right, so your contribution to that is of very high value to us.

L. Mugabo: Yeah, I’d be interested. Thank you very much.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks so much.

Okay, then, Members. We have a brief moment or two before deliberation time. Maybe we’ll take a five-minute recess and be back at quarter to twelve, if everybody’s okay with that.

The committee recessed from 11:35 a.m. to 11:48 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

Deliberations

D. Routley (Chair): Could I have a motion to move in camera? From MLA Halford, seconded by MLA Begg.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 11:48 a.m. to 12:36 p.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Members, for a really good meeting. I appreciate it very much. That concludes our business.

I would ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting. MLA Sandhu, seconded by MLA Olsen.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12:36 p.m.