The committee met at 8:01 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Good morning, everyone.

I’d like to start by recognizing that we are meeting today on the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

We are continuing today with our spring check-in meetings with the statutory offices, and today we are meeting with the Police Complaint Commissioner.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Clayton Pecknold, the Police Complaint Commissioner.

Over to you.

Financial and Operational Updates
from Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE POLICE
COMPLAINT COMMISSIONER

C. Pecknold: Good morning, Chair, Deputy Chair and committee members.

Our office is located on the unceded, traditional lands of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ people and ancestors, and our work extends across the homelands of the Indigenous peoples within what we now call British Columbia. We honour the many territorial keepers of the lands and the waters where we work.

With me is Deputy Commissioner Andrea Spindler and Mr. Dave Van Swieten, who I know you know, from our shared corporate services.

You have our report before you, and we’ll be referring to some areas in the time that we have to present to you. Of course, I expect you will have questions, which we will do our best to answer.

I thought I might start, though, with a few descriptive points about our work as a bit of a refresher and context-setting. But before I do, would you please allow me to thank you for the investments that you approved in our last year’s submission. I am most mindful that the funding decisions are often difficult to make in light of the many priorities and demands on the public, the public funds, especially now, in light of the quite unprecedented inflationary challenges which we’re facing globally. At this time, I have no supplemental budget request.

In light of that, though, I also acknowledge the committee’s letter of March 10 with respect to our fall budget session and the discussion on performance indicators. Deputy Spindler and I have started to discuss how to best meet your request and to tell the story of our work and the work of the police agencies that we work with in terms of providing our services.

We’d like to work towards explaining this qualitatively and, of course, through metrics and data, which we can produce to support the story.

For example, we are in the final stages of our process to hire a senior research position to expand our data capacity, and we’re looking forward to what we can do, especially given the need for race-based data and to understand how bias and racism present themselves in police misconduct in a more empirical way and to contribute to the broader and collective knowledge and understanding of systemic racism.

Additionally, on some case-specific matters involving gender-based violence and discrimination which are work­ing their way through the various procedural way­points and which may be subject to recommendations from our office or public reporting that we have in past years…. We hope that that will also help tell the story.

[8:05 a.m.]

The legislation under which we presently work has a very strict confidentiality framework, as you may know. On the one hand, that confidentiality is a very necessary requirement of our work, as it can directly or indirectly touch on matters that may relate to, for example, ongoing criminal investigations by the police themselves, prosecutions before the courts or other very sensitive matters where, for example, issues of legal privilege can arise.

Retired judges, acting as adjudicators, may also place restrictions on publication in what are otherwise normally public proceedings for various reasons that are enumerated in the act — for example, to protect the privacy of a victim of relationship violence.

We have an internal classification system for the investigations we oversee, which have been either reported to us by the police or through a complaint from a member of the public. At the top-tier classification, they may relate to the significant use of force, serious injury or death, sexual harassment misconduct, potential criminal investigations or other serious misconduct, such as allegations of racism or discrimination.

On the other end of the spectrum are relatively more minor complaints related to, for example, discourtesy or abuse of authority where other factors, such as a power imbalance or a particular vulnerability, are absent.

Confidentiality, as important as it is, in many cases can also serve to obscure some of our work and create vacuums where, sometimes, incorrect assumptions and narratives can occur. We live in a time of 280 characters and demands for simple answers to complex questions. We, and the professional standards investigators and police officers who we oversee and work with to administer this act, are ultimately in search of a truth, based upon the evidence and facts of the matter, that will meet the evidentiary thresholds of proof — either the criminal threshold or the civil threshold, whatever that may be.

Investigators, police investigators and statutory decision-makers, such as chiefs of police and adjudicators, have to thread through and analyze the facts against very complex Charter and administrative law precedents and determine important issues, such as credibility and reliability, to ultimately, hopefully, arrive at a fair and just outcome in accordance with the applicable law.

Yet the act also mandates that we inform, advise and assist participants and that we work to educate the general public. Complainants have both informational and procedural rights under the Police Act, and some matters are public by virtue of the adjudicative processes. As well, section 95 provides that information may be disclosed if I, as commissioner, consider it in the public interest to do so.

As of late, I’ve been considering those public interest considerations, which gravitate towards more open reporting on matters, albeit in an anonymized fashion that respects personal privacy and that is careful to navigate the principles of procedural fairness.

In this respect, I believe that it’s a very important consideration to give voice to those whom our staff interact with daily. Those who are in crisis are vulnerable to abuses of authority or bias and discrimination. Police, as we know, have very significant powers and have, frankly, access to the halls of power that other institutions and vulnerable persons may not have. Oversight bodies, such as ours and other independent offices, through our independent work, and by upholding the rights accruing to persons affected by misconduct, have a role to play, in my respectful submission, in levelling that imbalance.

We are clearly on the cusp of significant change and reform here in B.C. and across North America. In Canada, policing has been the subject of inquiry and study, either directly or indirectly, across the country over the past 20 years. Issues related to the use of deadly force, corruption, serious investigative failures and wrongful convictions have all been the subject of judicial inquiries.

Police are simultaneously authorized exercisers of coercive state powers, but also, when doing so, we expect them to uphold the democratic and constitutional values enshrined in the Charter. One need only look at the past two years of extraordinary government powers during the pandemic, or at the recent use of the Emergencies Act federally, to know that important checks and balances must be scrupulously maintained.

By way of example, during the protests on the Hill, Vancouver police officers were deployed, presumably with government authorization, but kept us informed and reported on the matters that they were required to do so, notwithstanding the distance and the extraordinary circumstances. Continuity of oversight was maintained.

[8:10 a.m.]

Against this backdrop, the Supreme Court of Canada has clearly affirmed that police are independent of the executive of government in the course of conducting criminal investigations. This is an important principle that underlies the rule of law. Yet the law also clearly places police under civil authority and civil oversight. It goes without saying, of course, that the tension and balance between government direction and police operational independence is not always a bright line. The perception of political interference is always a risk to be navigated carefully.

Some of us recall the APEC Inquiry or the Ipperwash Inquiry in Ontario, where the question of government direction to police were important, live issues. In the 2007 report issued by the Ipperwash Inquiry into the death of Mr. Dudley George of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, the inquiry commissioner observed that there had been, at that time, five prior major Canadian public inquiries in the preceding 25 years to consider police and government relations in detail.

So how does this relate to police discipline? The legislation for the administration of discipline for municipal police, as it presently stands, is just over a decade old. It was created as a result of a deliberate policy choice at the time to maintain a police-led discipline process, albeit with those checks and balances that I referred to above, such as the appointment of independent retired judges and the ongoing oversight of our office but also the added adjudicative procedural processes.

Of course, the act has been interpreted by courts in the past ten years, and that has, perhaps, in my respectful submission, changed the original intent of the Legislature. It has probably added some very significant complexity and cost as well. But the courts are there for a reason, and they’re there to interpret our legislation, and they provide oversight over the decisions that I make.

The late Mr. Justice Josiah Wood conducted his comprehensive study and review of the complaints and discipline system on behalf of government at the time. His conclusion was that the oversight of police misconduct investigations would occur contemporaneously, ideally through a shared electronic system.

That shared system never materialized for various reasons, but the principle remained. Police conduct investigations, and the OPCC, our office, monitors, advises and ensures that the investigations are complete. But we do not decide whether misconduct has occurred. That is left to senior police officers or to adjudicators appointed in consultation by myself in direct consultation with the Associate Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Today each of us, under today’s legislation — the police, our office and retired members of the judiciary…. Each have our various powers and authorities that we are responsible for and must discharge independently — ultimately subject to the supervision of the courts, as I’ve noted — and in the result, checks and balances upon checks and balances, one hopes. This is the present state of the legislation, but both the former commissioner and I have engaged with government and will continue to do so — and now with renewed vigour, as a result of the special committee report — on the need for legislative reforms, always keeping in mind the checks and balances that I just referred to.

Mr. Justice Wood, in his report, which I reread the other day as I was contemplating this appearance, still has a lot of important things to say. What he said is: “I regard freedom from police misconduct as one of the fundamental values that define a free and democratic society, just as surely as I regard freedom from the fear of political interference as a fundamental value that defines the independence of the police who serve and protect our free and democratic society. In that balance, I see no threat to the independence of the police from a vigorous and effective exercise of civilian oversight.”

So on that note, before I pass it onto the deputy for a few remarks, I’d like to highlight a few more business matters to you that are in our report. Within the report, we provided some information on our strategic planning and staff engagement work, which is underway. A foundation for our transformation program is our people. We are also focused on staff engagement and workforce planning to ensure we have the right people in the right place with the right capabilities at the right time to meet our strategic and operational goals and strengthen our organizational health.

[8:15 a.m.]

Our strategic planning process also includes a staff engagement component to help us understand how we are doing and how we can collectively do better to improve our work environment. As I noted in the fall, we engaged the B.C. Public Service Agency to help us with our internal business processes and are working with real property division, Ministry of Citizens’ Services, to examine our space requirements in light of our anticipated needs and our new flexible workforce model.

In addition, leadership development as well as training and development of staff is at the forefront of our organizational learning strategy to ensure investigative analysts and other levels of OPCC staff have the tools and resources needed to do their jobs effectively and to grow their careers. For example, we recently ran two facilitated Indigenous cultural safety days for our staff, led by our Indigenous cultural safety adviser. At our most recent professional development day, we heard presentations from our engaged plain-language adviser, helping us to make our material more accessible and less legalistic. We received a talk from the executive director of the B.C. Aboriginal network on people with disabilities.

Finally, in this time of opportunity, we, like all agencies, are competing for the best of the best, but we are so often pleased to see the response from the excellent people who want to come and challenge themselves to do this very difficult work. I think we can all agree it’s been a tough few years. Over and above the disruptions of the pandemic, the work for our people is very tough.

I note, therefore, that this week is Mental Health Week, and I think it important to emphasize how we are looking for any opportunity to support the well-being of our people. The lessening of COVID-related restrictions has helped many, but it is my observation that the lingering stressful effects remain and will continue to do so for some time.

I am intensely proud of the commitment, intelligence and the passion and fair-mindedness of the public servants I am so privileged to work with on your behalf. Many come to us eager and passionate about public service. Many are at the early stages of their careers, and all come with diverse backgrounds and educations. It is so energizing and refreshing for me, in the late stages of my career, to work with and learn from them. Learning from them and listening is what we do.

We look forward to continuing to listen and to learn and to work with government and work with the Legislature to continue the evolution of the work we do and the accountability structures in which we work.

Now I’ll just turn it over to the deputy for a few further comments.

A. Spindler: Thank you, Commissioner.

I thought I would take a few minutes to speak to you today about some of the work we have been doing in ensuring our processes at the OPCC are safe and accessible for people looking to file police complaints.

In 2019, the Special Committee to Review the Police Complaint Process made several recommendations regarding the need to increase capacity at the OPCC to provide access to the complaints process for Indigenous and newcomer communities. We have committed to increasing our cultural competency, safety and resourcing to better serve these communities.

As mentioned in the materials before you, at this time, we have focused our attention in three main areas to meet the spirit and intent of those recommendations. In the first area, we are focusing on developing an Indigenous accessibility strategy. As you may know, the civilian oversight of police must be responsive to the experiences of those who access the complaints process, and we have to work collaboratively and in partnership with Indigenous communities to improve accessibility and design a service that provides Indigenous peoples a culturally relevant and safe pathway at the OPCC.

Through listening to the submissions made to both special committees, it is clear that there are significant barriers to filing a complaint about police misconduct. This system has been described as not culturally relevant, overly legalistic, and there is a serious lack of trust with the system. Many have fears of retribution and retaliation should they come forward with concerns about police conduct.

Through an upcoming procurement process, we will be seeking the expertise of an Indigenous-led vendor to undertake engagement activities to better understand the current context and challenges experienced by Indigenous peoples accessing the complaints process so we can identify priorities and shape the development of this strategy. It will be important for these engagement sessions to explore how we can improve trust in the complaints process, incorporate Indigenous knowledge and practices, increase transparency and accountability, wherever possible, and ensure the cultural safety of those accessing the complaints process through the OPCC.

[8:20 a.m.]

In the second area, we are focusing on updating a number of our externally facing communication materials, such as our complaint form, the OPCC website and our externally facing brochure materials. The OPCC website is the most frequently used method to file a police complaint. Since our website and the complaint form are often the first step in a complainant’s path, it’s important that they be easily understandable and address the diverse needs of individuals across the province.

We have undertaken a plain-language assessment, which was, in our view, paramount as a first step to ensure that the information provided in these forms and these venues is easy to understand and that we work towards reducing procedural barriers to access.

We’re also working towards translating our materials into multiple languages to meet the needs of diverse populations in B.C., particularly for newcomer communities. An important step in this process has been to seek out the expertise of professionals in the field of diversity and inclusion and to connect with a number of community-based organizations to ensure that we have canvassed their needs and ideas.

The third area. We are focusing on the development of a support agency framework at the OPCC. Support agencies are community-based groups and organizations who have expertise in providing supports to specific clientele, such as language or interpretation services, trauma-informed assistance or legal assistance, at no charge to complainants.

By building stronger working relationships with supporting agencies, complainants are provided an opportunity to be linked with appropriate community-based support, which increases their levels of safety in a process and can be more responsive to their individual needs. These support agencies can provide direct support to complainants in accessing and navigating the complaint system.

Through work of our staff and, in particular, our outreach and accessibility coordinator, we have increased the number of referrals and direct connections to complainants with community law clinics, organizations that are serving women at risk of gendered violence, newcomers, diverse Indigenous community members, people who are facing extreme poverty and those across a spectrum of disabilities. Making these connections has also allowed us to bring better awareness about the OPCC and complaints process and have also created opportunities for our staff to become more aware of these organizations and the very important work that they do in all of our communities.

All of these initiatives that I’ve described will also be relevant in relation to aligning our efforts with the new Accessible B.C. Act, which will come into force September of this year. Part of this process will be establishing a committee and accessibility plan and building a tool to receive feedback about accessibility. All of these steps will further our attempts at becoming a more accessible and safe organization.

I’ll turn it back to the commissioner.

C. Pecknold: Those are our remarks and comments. Of course, any questions, we’re happy to answer to the fullest of our ability.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Clayton. I’ll open it up for questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. Very much appreciated. I did have the opportunity to hear from you when I was on the police reform committee.

Two things. One’s a question, and one’s more a comment. I’m new on this committee, so there is some history and some knowledge here that, probably, people have that I don’t.

You had mentioned, Clayton, about some court decisions which have impacted, maybe, some interpretation of the act, which has actually not been, perhaps, in the spirit that it was initially meant to be. Have there been requests for changes to the act or review of the act in order to be able to resolve those concerns? Can you even, maybe, perhaps, give us an example of what that might be?

C. Pecknold: Yes. Thank you for the question. I almost feel like I would’ve written that question. Thank you for it.

One of the most important cases that, I think, has been a challenge is a decision of the B.C. Court of Appeal called Florkow. That decision of the Court of Appeal interpreted the section of the Police Act that allowed the commissioner, who was then Commissioner Lowe, to call a public hearing into a matter in the public interest.

[8:25 a.m.]

What that court said was essentially that there was a winnowing process in the act so that as a matter made it through the various procedural points, it had to go through all of the steps before the commissioner was allowed to invoke that power of a public hearing. For example, there may be an incident of very much a public concern, very much out there in the public and very concerning. But the reality is that it has to go through the investigative steps. Then it is, I think, frankly….

Well, I’ve said this, so I’ll just say it. I think it needs to be changed. It absolutely needs to be changed. Even though it’s a matter of significant concern publicly, it then is remitted to a senior police officer for a decision on whether or not anybody committed misconduct. There’s no ability to send it immediately to a retired judge.

Then the matter, if it proceeds to a discipline proceeding, proceeds before that senior police officer. That process is under their direction and their control, and we have very limited involvement in that. We are essentially observers. That can go on for a long period of time, and then we have to wait for that senior police officer to make a decision. Now, if there are multiple officers involved, there is an opportunity for there to be bifurcated proceedings, multiple decisions about multiple police officers, even though the public sees this as one single event.

Then that invokes different decision-making processes throughout the pathways so that one police officer may go off on one pathway, and one police officer may go on another pathway, when in fact, the public are looking at this as one continuous event that is of public concern.

In Hansard, when this act was created…. I wasn’t involved on the government side, but I was involved in my other capacities in the way this act was created. It was always understood, in my respectful view, that there would be an overriding authority on the commissioner, in the public interest, to call a public hearing when it was in the public interest to do so. So it could be put immediately before a retired judge, appointed in consultation with the associate chief justice, arm’s length from our office and the police, to put the matters in the public sphere, to have evidence brought forward subject to cross-examination and have affected persons given appropriate participant rights.

The prior commissioner had made requests for legislative reform to change that provision. I have said so. The special committee, in 2019, made that recommendation to change that provision. I have reiterated that — I don’t mean to sound frustrated; I apologize — in my public reports. It is enormously frustrating, I will say, as commissioner, to see an event that is playing out in public that I know the facts on. I referred to that. I alluded to that in my comments. I know very clearly what happened, because I’m watching the investigation, and I have evidence that perhaps isn’t public. I think there are times when it’s in the public interest that that be put in the public domain before an independent judge.

Does that answer your question?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the answer to the question. I used to run at a quasi-judicial role and had asked for multiple changes to legislation where the criticism is probably against you, where your hands are really tied in terms of the legislative framework. So I do appreciate that. That’s very helpful. I’ll defer and maybe come back, if I’ve got another question.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Clayton, for your presentation. Inside of your comments, you had said in….

Since the commission was formed, in the last ten years, the intent has changed so much. Then you mentioned added costs. I appreciate the fact that you’re not here saying that you’ve got some additional costs that have arisen, because your conclusion talks about the growth that’s there. But what were the added costs that weren’t forecast that you believe were there at the beginning, that are there now?

C. Pecknold: I think the legislation has so many points of potential conflict and disagreement, and complexity. For example, the intent of Mr. Josiah Wood was that things would move along relatively quickly. So there are enshrined timelines in the act. Something must be done by this date or must be done on that date. There are plenty of opportunities if there was a missed timeline.

That just doesn’t fall to us. It falls to others. That timeline may be missed, and that would become subject to jurisdictional questions and a judicial review. I think that complexity, then, begets some litigiousness in the act. As a re­sult, there are no applications for judicial review, legal costs associated.

[8:30 a.m.]

In my time, I have only initiated a court proceeding once, and that was to intervene in a case involving the IIO that was before the Court of Appeal on cooperation of police officers. I intervened on that. All of the rest — we have defended those.

Now, that’s not to say that that litigation is without merit. What I’m saying is that there are opportunities, I think, to avoid those types of litigious points in the legislation. For example, as we do not have the ability to set our own processes like other administrative bodies, quasi-judicial bodies do under the…. I think it’s the…. I forget the name of the act. I apologize. I can’t bring it to mind. But in any event, I don’t have the ability to set my own processes. I must follow those processes that are in the legislation as it’s written.

I understood the intent. The intent was to move things through the process. But as a result, there’s a lack of flexibility to avoid those points of contact.

M. Starchuk: Good. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Other questions?

We’ll go back to Karin — she’s got a second one; and then back to Mike.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I have lots highlighted here, so if I can just have a moment here.

Well, I think, to what Andrea said, it’s really good to hear the engagement of the Indigenous-led vendor to really look at how people can navigate through the system. As you know, that was one of the concerns that came out — that kind of, perhaps, colonial-looking process and the inability to move through that.

I do apologize. I did have something else here. Well, just a basic one is that you have had, obviously, a big increase in number of complaints being filed. Again, I apologize. I don’t know if there has been an FTE increase. But how is that impacting your staff caseload and, perhaps, turnover?

C. Pecknold: This committee has been generous in providing us funding. We have had some increase in staff to meet the increased demand but also the expected increased demand as the Surrey municipality increases its work.

Through our work with the B.C. Public Service Agency, we’ve done some PeopleSoft analytics. We have a young workforce. We have a high degree of inexperience. We generally bring people in at the analyst level who maybe are recent graduates from law school or other education components. We give them a good foundation, but we’re still a small organization. We can’t really give them a firm career path, so there is turnover as a result.

It’s also tough work. There are many, many very good, professional police standards investigators, but some officers don’t want to do this work, and they don’t want to be there. Those are tough conversations that happen, and they’re tough on our staff.

You didn’t ask this question, but I am hopeful that as you, as legislators and as government, think about this, you will think about the question of who should be investigating. It’s tough on a vulnerable, marginalized person to come forward and say, “I’m being mistreated,” and then have the very police department that they’re concerned about show up and investigate, albeit under our oversight. There are some power imbalances there.

But that’s not to say and I don’t want to suggest that there aren’t good, professional investigations going on, because there are. There are compassionate, professional police officers out there doing investigations. It just gets to the point where one wonders whether the model works.

A. Spindler: In relation to your question around the increase in files and complaints that our office has seen, we have noticed that over the years, we are continuing to receive further complaints from the public. Last year we did see a 25 increase from the year prior to that in the number of complaints we’ve received from the public.

[8:35 a.m.]

While I don’t have a definitive answer for you in terms of why, some of the matters that are going on in society around a greater conversation around police accountability…. People may be becoming more aware of some of the oversight processes that are in this province around filing a complaint — that they can file a complaint. So we are seeing that.

We’re also seeing greater numbers of complaints coming in about a single incident — something that is receiving greater public attention. So we’re seeing people from across the country filing a complaint about something that they’re seeing because they are outraged or they can’t believe that something is occurring in a community around police conduct. So we are seeing that as well.

I think in terms of impacts to our staff, particularly with our intake staff, they work tirelessly in relation to providing a service to the public, in terms of filing a complaint. These are oftentimes people who are in a period of crisis, who are looking somewhere for someone to hear their experience that they went through. Those can be very difficult and can be very challenging conversations to have. So we have to take care of our staff, as well, and ensure that their mental health needs are being met, to make sure that they’re feeling supported.

There are times when our office will make decisions whether a complaint will move forward to an investigation or not, and they may not be satisfied with that. So taking the time to explain those decisions with someone who may not want to always hear the outcome can be difficult and challenging as well.

I think for us here at the OPCC, really taking care of our staff is number one. We did, through the support of the committee, add additional support to our intake team, from both a supervisory and also a front-end perspective, and then also working in establishing a dedicated position to directly help complainants who have more complex needs, to assist them through the process.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the presentation and for the update.

I have a quick question in regards to page 10 of your report. You talk about that the Surrey Police Service has hired 209 sworn police officers and civilian employees, 66 of which are reported to be part of front-line police working on day-to-day duties. Is there an expectation that as the transition gets closer, that’s when you’re going to see more coming on, and these are just hirings that have taken place?

I was just wondering about the difference between 209 and 66. I understand some of them will be civilian employees. I was just wondering how that hiring process is going?

A. Spindler: In relation to where the Surrey Police Service is at…. Again, I’ve been meeting with Chief Const. Lipinski from Surrey, and he’s been providing me updates in relation to their hiring.

There are a dedicated cadre of sworn police officers who are working alongside Surrey RCMP officers and interacting with the public on a daily basis. Then you will have those officers who are working internally in different areas of the policing agency. It could be in their community-based organization inside; it could be with their investigative division — but working more internally, within the organization, on matters versus being a patrol officer, working alongside an RCMP officer in the public. So that’s where you see the difference.

Over time, you will see more and more officers joining the ranks of those front-line police officers on the street. There will be a point in time when Surrey will then become the police of jurisdiction, compared to the RCMP. Because as you know, the RCMP is still the police of jurisdiction.

M. Dykeman: A follow-up. What’s the expectation…? Is there any forecast of what the final numbers will be for the size or number of employees, once it’s fully transitioned over?

A. Spindler: My understanding is, and I don’t have the exact number in front of me, that it is somewhere in the mid-800s for them, in terms of their size. My understanding is that they will be the second-largest compared to the Vancouver police department.

M. Starchuk: Given the fact that there’s the Police Act reform committee report that’s just came out…. I know it’s very early to say, but is there somebody or some part of your organization that’s going to drill into that to forecast what’s going to happen to your office?

[8:40 a.m.]

C. Pecknold: We’ve been engaging with the Ministry of Public Safety and police services division on the reforms that were recommended in 2019, other reforms that have been recommended.

The Police Act provides that I as commissioner and the prior commissioner can make recommendations for legislative reform. So we’ve had an ongoing relationship with them for some time. I was on the other side of that question when former Commissioner Lowe was there, and he would meet with us. So we’ve continued to do that.

As I understand, the ministry is standing up a secretariat or standing up resources to give effect to the recommendations of the reform committee, the special committee. We will be — like all, I suppose, stakeholders and other parties — engaged in that process. We haven’t had discussion internally about how we will resource it. I’m sure the deputy has some thoughts on that.

There are lots of historical things that we can bring forward, like my impassioned plea for the change as a result of Florkow. But of course, it will depend. It will depend on the model. It will depend on the policy choices the government chooses to make around that. It will depend on all of those things.

But in the final analysis, we were monitoring the committee presentations on an ongoing basis, especially focused on those from community and from community stakeholders. And I would say that it’s a positive opportunity now to really listen, to digest those learnings, to digest what’s heard and evolve the model, keeping in mind the principles that I espoused from Justice Wood — evolve the model to meet what the committee heard. I think that’s an exciting opportunity.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much for your presentation. Just a quick question regarding your annual report, on page 2. It is great to see that the number of ordered investigations declined from 97 to 62, which is a 36 percent decline. I was just curious. What do you think would be the factors that played into that, whether it’s improved behaviour or education or training? I was just curious about that.

The other question is…. I remember from past conversations that there was a backlog and long wait period after the funding approval. Is there a backlog now, or do you have enough employees? How are the files? How is the workload at the office?

C. Pecknold: I think I’ll let the deputy answer most of the questions around the operational, but I will make one comment about the ordered investigations. When I talk about diving into the story, we would hope, through the data analytics capacity we’re getting, to do some deeper dives into the whys of those.

Those are small numbers, but it’s a decline. I would like to say that that’s a positive result. For example, when I became commissioner, I brought a renewed focus on the use of police service dogs and dog bites. I ordered quite a bit, initially, on the use of dogs. I believe that our reportable injuries on dogs may have declined somewhat. I think that’s true. So I would like to believe that that’s what’s happening — that we got some good decisions from judges and that there was some change to policies and training.

But I don’t have a systemic mandate — another pitch. I don’t have a systemic mandate, so I can’t really dig into the whys. But we’d like to learn, because really, the intent of, at least, this act, and hopefully future legislation, is supposed to be preventative, because it’s in the public interest that we prevent harm to people.

Andrea, do you want to answer the other…?

A. Spindler: Sure. In relation to your question around a backlog or a waiting period, we have, through the support of the committee, hired a number of staff, and we are in the process of bringing in a new position to the OPCC. We’re calling it an admissibility analyst.

This is a lower-level position compared to the investigative analyst, and their sole focus will be to assess complaints, to go through that statutory process of: “Is this a complaint that will be investigated?” Through that competitive process we’re going through right now…. We’re in interviews, so we’re planning on hiring two individuals from that competition.

[8:45 a.m.]

There has been a focus at the OPCC to go through that backlog, which we have done a very good job at going through. With the bringing-on of this new position into the organization, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able, then, to set some better performance standards around a reasonable turnaround time so that it won’t be a longer period of time to get a decision.

In addition, we also implemented a triaging system, where if, on the face of it, when we see a complaint, this is something that is clearly admissible, then we fast-track those complaints so that those aren’t waiting and there is the potential for evidence to be lost. We make sure that we fast-track those. So we also undertook a triaging type of approach to deal with the backlog.

C. Pecknold: Let me just add quickly…. You’ll see in our stats…. I can’t put my fingers on it. But during the initial part of the pandemic, we brought in a no-wrong-door policy. You’ll see that those stats have increased. I would like to continue that policy, but of course our core mandate is to do those within our jurisdictional catch basin. So if those are harmed and timelines are harmed because we’re processing and our staff are busy on things that aren’t in our jurisdiction, we may have to make hard choices. I’m not suggesting we will, but those are the types of balances we may have to do.

I really do like the fact that people feel that they can come to us and that we can help them get to the right agency. I hope to continue that.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much. I did find those numbers encouraging. I thought something positive was probably happening there. So thank you for the answer.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for the presentation today. It’s been really interesting. I, too, am new to the committee, so lots of learning. Thank you.

A little bit of a fussy question, but I’m experiencing a mystery, and I think you can help me solve it.

On page 8, we have a pie chart. This is on the interim report. I see that registered complaints is 731, and it goes around. I’m going sort of clockwise. Then 161 is red, and green is 17. Purple is 21, light blue, and so on. But we stop at the orange. Then there is a narrow, dark-blue slice of the pie that’s 42 cases, and I can’t find what those cases are. Can you help me figure that out?

A. Spindler: You know what? That is an excellent question. I myself am looking to fill in the blanks as well. I apologize.

C. Pecknold: Ghost in the machine.

A. Spindler: Yeah. It looks like perhaps it might have been a carryover when we were doing our pie chart that didn’t get deleted, so I apologize for that.

B. Bailey: That’s okay. I just wondered if it was in there and I had missed it, or what it was. It’s a small percentage, but I was curious. Thank you.

C. Pecknold: Well, we pride ourselves on being focused on detail. I’m embarrassed to say that I missed that detail too.

M. Dykeman: On page 16 of the interim report, you’re talking about — we had talked quite a bit about this when we saw you last time — the Auditor General and the possibility of shared space within the Office of the Auditor General. At the end, you discuss continuing the online service delivery model and the rental of public hearing space, going forward, for the immediate future.

I’m just wondering. As things are opening up…. And there has been quite a bit of complaint within the community that it’s actually hard to rent spaces, hard to find spaces. There’s just this rush to get things back and open to the public.

Is this service delivery…? Do you see it being sustainable for the period of time you’re expecting it to? And how are the general conversations going with the shared space? I know you touched a bit on it, but I’m just wondering how that’s going.

C. Pecknold: I’ll start from the end. Where we’ve ended up, I think, and where we will end up, going forward, is a hybrid model — resident workers, shared space, collaborative workers and fully remote workers. The positive side of the fully remote is that we’ve been able to hire people who are not in Victoria, and they’re working at home. Through the help of Mr. Van Swieten, we’ve increased our capacity through MS Teams and other things. I must admit that it was a long journey for myself to try to do that, but most of our staff are much younger than me, and they’ve adapted very well.

[8:50 a.m.]

I think that’s where we’ve ended up. We did, the year before last, a comprehensive study over in Vancouver, thinking that we would need full space there. We kind of backed away from that with the committee a little bit because of all of the variations of real estate space.

For now, finding rental space for adjudications is probably going to be a sustainable model, if the courts don’t let us back in. But I think, a few years down the road — assuming Surrey becomes a fully functioning police force — the numbers and metrics won’t allow us. We will need dedicated hearing space, much like the coroner has, for example.

With respect to the Auditor General, we are collaborating with them — the OAG. We think there is an opportunity to, perhaps, if the numbers make sense and if the committee approves — that that could work. It would also free up some space in our building. But we’re locked into a lease, as Mr. Van Swieten keeps reminding me, so the other officers will have to decide whether they want to absorb our space, and you, of course, will decide whether you’re going to fund them for that.

Our strategic transformation person is working on all of those issues with real property division. And we’re also thinking about the work environment. Does everybody need an office? Probably not. Can we have shared space? Can we have…? I think they call it quiet space — those sorts of things.

M. Dykeman: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

Okay. It looks like you’ve answered everyone’s questions and made everything very clear.

On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you, Clayton, thank your whole team, for the work that you do and for your report today.

As you were making your report and fielding questions, I was thinking about how you’re doing your work in what is an evolving ethos and that people’s expectations and perception of justice is changing and influencing each other, perhaps, through social media and cell phone videos that may not have been available in the past.

Your commitment to staying ahead of social change and expectations of policing is really commendable, and we really thank you for that — and your attention to your staff, in terms of what they’re going through and how this affects them. And your sensitivity to potential complainants is admirable.

So thank you so much for that.

C. Pecknold: Thank you, Madam Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): We will take a quick recess.

The committee recessed from 8:52 a.m. to 9 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll entertain a motion to move in camera.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 9 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 9:15 a.m.