Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act - Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Hansard — Reforming the Police Act Blues — Wednesday, July 28, 2021, p.m.

Hansard Blues

Special Committee on

Reforming the Police Act

Draft Report of Proceedings

2nd Session, 42nd Parliament
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Victoria

The committee met at 1:04 p.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

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

[1:05 p.m.]

I would like to acknowledge that I'm joining today's meeting from the traditional territories of the Malahat First Nation. I would like to welcome all those who are listening and participating to our meeting.

Our committee is undertaking a broad consultation with respect to policing and related systemic issues in B.C. We are taking a phased approach to this work, and are meeting with a number of organizations and individuals to discuss ideas and experiences they put forward in written submissions earlier this year.

We're also hoping to learn more about British Columbians' perspectives on policing, including hearing from those working on the front line of several fields, including policing, public safety, health care and social services.

Interested individuals can fill out a survey to share their views with the committee. Further details are available on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/rpa. The deadline to complete the survey is 5 p.m., Friday, September 3.

In terms of the format for today's meeting, we have a mix of individual and panel presentations. To assist presenters, we have a timer available, which can be seen when you're in gallery view. All the audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted.

I'll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, and I will begin with my friend Deputy Chair MLA Davies.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Look forward to the presentations today. My name is Dan Davies. I'm the MLA for Peace River North.

I'm coming to you from the Dane-zaa territory.

G. Begg: Hi, 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 peoples, including the Kwantlen, the Semiahmoo and the Katzie First Nations.

A. Olsen: Hi, I'm Adam Olsen. I'm the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands

I'm working from my home office here in W̱JOȽEȽP, in the W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

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

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

K. Kirkpatrick: Good afternoon. I'm Karin Kirkpatrick. I'm the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

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

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, all. Assisting the committee today are Karan Riarh and Mai Nguyen from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services, and we thank them for their support.

I'd like to now introduce the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Richard Fyfe, and the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Peter Juk, for their presentation. If you could take it away. Thank you.

Presentations on Police Act

MINISTRY OF ATTORNEY GENERAL,
CRIMINAL JUSTICE BRANCH

P. Juk: Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to speak to you. Before beginning, I want to acknowledge that I'm speaking to you from the traditional territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ people, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, who have been stewards of this land for thousands of years.

I'm Peter Juk. I'm the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, or ADAG. I'm appointed under the Crown Counsel Act and charged with the administration of the criminal justice branch and with carrying out the functions and responsibilities assigned to the branch under the act.

I did submit a PowerPoint presentation. I don't know if that is available to be loaded. Thank you.

The criminal justice branch is also known as the branch for the B.C. prosecution service, and I may use any one of those names. I also want to point out that in the presentation that I've provided, there are a number of additional items in the supplementary material pages at the end. If there is anything I say that needs following up, the materials are there for you.

The criminal justice branch's statutory mandate includes approving and conducting all criminal and provincial offence prosecutions, initiating and conducting criminal and offence appeals, advising government on all criminal law matters, developing policies for the administration of justice in the province and liaising with media on these matters.

[1:10 p.m.]

I've emphasized the word "approve" in the first bullet, because B.C. is different from most jurisdictions in the country. Our statute makes clear that the Crown counsel, not police, decide whether charges should be laid.

The Crown Counsel Act came into force 30 years ago. It grew out of a political scandal in which concerns were raised about possible political interference in the prosecution process. A public inquiry headed by Stephen Owen, QC, made a number of recommendations to protect the integrity and independence of the prosecution process. The Crown Counsel Act, which incorporated those recommendations, was cutting-edge legislation in Canada at the time.

In the years since then, the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly confirmed the importance of protecting prosecutorial decision-making from outside influence, particularly political interference. Prosecutorial independence protects individual rights as well as the integrity of the justice system, which is why the Supreme Court has recognized it as a principle of fundamental justice that is protected by the Charter of Rights.

The Crown Counsel Act helps to ensure prosecutorial independence. Among other things, it gives the criminal justice branch full authority over all prosecution matters in the province. This is subject only to a residual authority of the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General to give directions to the ADAG in writing about a specific prosecution or criminal justice policy. Such written directions must be published in the Gazette to ensure transparency, and they are rarely given.

The other very significant facet of prosecutorial independence which is, I think, probably of primary concern to this committee is the independence that prosecutors and police have from each other in carrying out their roles. The police decide whether, what and how to investigate, and Crown counsel decide whether a prosecution is in the public interest, and if so, they conduct it in accordance with their legal and constitutional duties.

The relationship between police and Crown counsel is not hierarchical. It is cooperative, but each has discretion that must be exercised independently of any outside influence. This mutual independence helps to ensure that investigations and prosecutions are conducted more thoroughly and more fairly, as the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed earlier this year.

The Crown Counsel Act makes clear that the decision about whether to approve charges is for Crown counsel to make. Our charge assessment policy contains a great deal of detailed information for the public and guidance for Crown counsel about the charge assessment process. Reading it in its entirety will give you a fuller picture of how we do that work.

The charge approval test is well known — whether there is a substantial likelihood of conviction and, if so, whether the public interest requires a prosecution. The first part of that test has been criticized from time to time, including by police. Most of those criticisms, though, fail to consider that our policy includes a lower threshold as well, a reasonable prospect instead of a substantial likelihood of conviction. This lower threshold may be resorted to when the public interest very strongly favours a prosecution on a particular set of facts, but because of the higher risk of wrongful conviction, we only resort to that lower threshold in exceptional cases.

Criticisms of the system of charge approval in the province have led the government, in the past, to undertake reviews, and one of those was conducted by Mr. Cowper, when he looked at the criminal justice system a few years ago. Geoff Cowper's review of the system engaged an external expert to look at the approval process, and that review recommended maintaining the current Crown-led charge approval system, indicating that going to approval of charges by police would be unhelpful.

Our charge assessment policy provides a review process if the police disagree with Crown counsel's decision not to approve charges. If it cannot be resolved at the local or regional level, the ADAG ultimately becomes involved. Although we hear sometimes about police unhappiness with charge assessment decisions, the fact is that the police resort to the review process very rarely. In the almost five years that I've been doing this job, I can think of only one case in which the police sought my formal review of a no-charge decision.

[1:15 p.m.]

Another topic which has been the subject of discussion before this committee is the issue of allegations of crimes committed by police and how we, the prosecutors, handle them. Again, we have a detailed policy to guide Crown counsel and inform the public about our work in this area. The policy includes some exceptional steps, summarized in this slide, that we can take in deciding whether and how to conduct prosecutions of police officers.

In addition, since the creation of the independent investigations office, we have taken steps to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest or the appearance of it. We have a small provincial unit within our special prosecutions unit in Vancouver. They handle all police-related files coming from the IIO and some of the police-related files that come from other agencies.

The lawyers in that unit have very limited contacts with front-line police across the province. Because they are not regularly dealing or working with front-line police officers, the risk of potential conflict is very remote. If it arises, it can be addressed under our policy by, among other methods, appointing outside counsel.

We also issue a detailed clear statement in every IIO case where we do not approve charges and on some of the police-related cases that do not come from the IIO. Public concerns about lack of objectivity in our handling of police cases have declined almost completely since we have moved to this more transparent process.

There has been some suggestion, I understand, that special prosecutors should be appointed in every IIO case. I respectfully disagree with that suggestion. The Crown Counsel Act already gives the ADAG discretion to appoint a special prosecutor whenever the ADAG considers it in the public interest to do so. We have a detailed policy to guide and explain decision-making about this topic. Mandating special prosecutors in every IIO case would require an amendment to the Crown Counsel Act.

In 2010, the government asked Stephen Owen, who was the author, the person who really led to the original Crown Counsel Act, to undertake a follow-up review of the special prosecutor process. In his report, Mr. Owen makes the strong point that special prosecutor appointments should be reserved for special cases.

Regular Crown counsel are criminal law experts with a wide and deep understanding of criminal law and policy. Their independence, as guaranteed by the Crown Counsel Act and the constitution, helps to ensure their professionalism. Special prosecutors are outside lawyers, often defense counsel, who generally have less direct experience conducting prosecutions, so resorting to special prosecutors in every case would unfairly and unjustifiably reduce public confidence in the great work that our regular prosecutors do.

The final topic for my presentation is the work that we've been doing on our Indigenous justice framework, a topic much bigger than I can reasonably cover in the time today. The overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in all parts of the criminal justice system is beyond dispute. For almost 25 years, parliament and the Supreme Court of Canada have been demanding that everyone who plays a part in the criminal justice system — judges, prosecutors, police, government and social agencies — must do better. Many of the numbers regarding overrepresentation have only gotten worse over that time. Some of that data is summarized on this slide, and I won't go into detail.

We also know that other racialized communities and those who suffer from mental health and addiction issues are also significantly overrepresented in the system. While our framework focuses on the Indigenous population, some of the themes and approaches inevitably affect the way we deal with files involving other equity groups as well.

In 2009, acknowledging some of the undeniable truths about colonialism, racism and systemic discrimination in Canada, we committed to trying to do better by providing cultural competency training and education to all our personnel, by changing our policies and practices and by working directly with Indigenous communities and their representatives to change the status quo, working towards reconciliation and trying to tackle overrepresentation head-on. We've made some very significant progress on all those goals.

[1:20 p.m.]

One in particular I wanted to talk to you about is the policy changes we made. We implemented significant changes to criminal justice policy in April of 2019 and then again in January of this year. A key message of these policies and the changes is principled restraint — restraint in charging, restraint in seeking pretrial detention of accused persons and restraint in seeking incarceration as a sanction after conviction. The principle of restraint lines up completely with recent amendments to the Criminal Code and recent Supreme Court of Canada judgments.

This is the last substantive slide in my presentation. It simply acknowledges that we, the prosecution service, are only one player in a complex system. We can't change it by ourselves. While carrying out our independent roles, we and the police and others, obviously, must work cooperatively to address systemic discrimination and overrepresentation of Indigenous People and others in the criminal justice system.

As I said at the beginning, there are a number of slides that follow that include links to various supplementary materials, including all of the policies, case law, reports and other material that I've referred to during this presentation.

Thank you very much for your attention today.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Juk. That brings us to questions from our members. I would open the floor if anybody wants to put their Zoom hand up.

K. Kirkpatrick: I always seem like such the keener when I'm first here. I'm just going to ask one question. I'm sure my colleagues will have others.

I'm interested in restorative justice and that kind of intersection between police and when there's a charge assessment. What role does restorative justice play, and who makes that determination in terms of whether someone should be streamed out and go through a restorative justice process?

P. Juk: The point, and this follows up on some of the points I've made in the main presentation, is that there is discretion at all stages of the process.

Police have discretion as to whether they will refer someone or engage some form of alternative measures, whether it's restorative justice or another informal process, rather than doing a full investigation and forwarding charges to Crown counsel.

We also, at the Crown counsel stage, have options that we can pursue. We have, as part of the changes that we've made in the last few years, updated our alternatives-to-prosecution policy that talks in a little more detail about things like restorative justice. So that discretion is available at the police stage and throughout the Crown counsel's handling of a file.

Right from when we get a proposed charge, we can make a decision. Even after a charge is laid, if the reasons for it are apparent, and even as part of the sentencing process, restorative justice can be an option.

I should point out, though, that part of what we've continued to have problems with in rolling out our changes is that the programming available for restorative justice, for alternative programming, for, particularly, people in equity groups or discriminated minorities, is not as plentiful as it could be. So our Crown are sometimes struggling with trying to give full impact to the restraint that our policies recommend, because they don’t have other options to which they can direct accused persons or suspects in cases.

But it is an option that is both possibly available, potentially available, and if it were appropriately funded and resourced, would be a very positive forward step at all stages of the process.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that.

G. Begg: A couple of quick questions, Peter. One in relation to the charge approval process, and the "substantial likelihood of conviction" clause. I'm sure you've heard this before, perhaps from me. It almost seems like a quasi-judicial decision, because of the vagaries of any prosecution. It sounds like Crown is making a decision that is best reserved for the judge.

How do you respond to that? I'm sure you've heard that a lot.

P. Juk: I won't repeat what I said in the main submission, which is: we do have a lower threshold we can apply in cases where the public interest predominates and we need to prosecute.

Leaving that aside, part of some of the recent changes we've made to the charge assessment policy…. And again, I would commend it to you. If you read nothing else of the material that I've attached, reading the full policy will give you a better picture of things.

[1:25 p.m.]

Among the things that we say in the charge assessment policy is that Crown have to take into account the presumption of innocence, the prevailing law and the strengths and weaknesses of the case. But they also have to assume…. This comes, in part, based on some recommendations we got from Mr. Oppal's committee when he did some recommendations after the cases at the pig farm in Coquitlam. We have to assume that the trier of fact will be fair and reasonable and apply the appropriate law.

Also, we tell our Crown — and they must take this into account — it is not for them to make findings of credibility. It is not for them to usurp the function of the jury or the judge in a case. So if it comes down to the Crown saying: "I don't believe that person, therefore I'm not going to approve a charge…." Believing the person is really the ultimate duty of the trier of fact — the judge in a trial where it's by judge alone or the jury when it's a jury trial.

Ultimately, we say to our Crown: "That's not a decision for you to make." Is there a factual basis for it? If this witness is believed by the trier of fact, is there a case to be brought forward? That's part of what we would say.

On the other hand, Mr. Begg, as you understand, I know, based on your experience, the Crown job is quasi-judicial, and the Supreme Court of Canada has said that. Because one person or even ten people can't do all of the prosecuting, our Crown have to apply discretion. They have to be able to take all of the facts, all of the evidence and apply it to a particular set of facts in a way that makes sense in that case.

They're entitled to a fair bit of leeway and can't really be second-guessed on that, because if you do that, then ultimately I'm going to be deciding every charge assessment decision in the province. Given that we have about somewhere around 70,000 charges proposed to us every year, I'd be pretty busy doing that.

G. Begg: A quick follow-up. You mentioned the exceptional cases that allow for the appointment of a special prosecutor. There's no need for you to be specific, but give me an example of what would be classed as an exceptional case, other than the public interest.

P. Juk: Perhaps I'm not understanding your question, but I talked about two different things. One is we have the exceptional lower standard of not substantial likelihood but the lower standard. Those cases generally have to do with….

I can give you some examples — some of the cases that have emanated out of some of the frankly troubling ongoing gang disputes that have occurred in the Fraser Valley. I'm reasonably confident that some of those cases have been approved on the basis of a lower threshold, not a substantial likelihood but a reasonable prospect of conviction, because of the very significant danger to public safety and the difficulty, in every case, of successfully prosecuting members of gang organizations because of the code of silence. That's one really clear category of the types of cases where we have applied the lower threshold to particular prosecutions.

As far as special prosecutors, there's an entirely different test that applies. I don't believe that that's what your question was directed at.

G. Begg: Thank you for the answer. I don't often get to ask softball questions of lawyers, so I relish the opportunity.

A. Olsen: The questions that I have are along the same lines as the question that Garry has just asked, because I've had conversations with police officers, and they've expressed a substantive amount of frustration with the charge approval process to me and the impact that that has on them directly in the work that they provide on behalf of British Columbians.

I think that perhaps there's a decision that gets made as to whether or not…. It's never been said directly to me, but I sense that there is a decision that's made as to whether or not someone else is going to decide whether or not there's a substantial likelihood. What is the impact that then has had on whether or not a police officer decides to investigate a situation further, based on their experience that this is not going to be followed up by the prosecution service and that the work that they have done will be expended for nothing, in the end?

[1:30 p.m.]

P. Juk: That's a big question. I'll try to start from this premise. I think I've mentioned we get about roughly 70,000 proposed charges from police agencies across the province a year. Of those, something more than 80 percent — somewhere approaching 82 to 85 percent — are actually approved, in one form or another. That doesn't address your other point which is the sort of…. Let's call it prosecution chill. Maybe the police, because of past experiences, are not putting forward charges that they feel they might have otherwise if the standard were different.

The other point, I guess, that really is worth pointing out: you need to have some standard. In the McCuaig report, from the outside expert who advised Mr. Cowper on his report about criminal justice — I don't usually say this in public, because it doesn't really address the argument very well — Mr. McCuaig said that he looked at our charge assessment standard. He compared it to the other standards.

He was actually a senior prosecutor, a retired prosecutor, from Alberta. He looked at Alberta. He looked at Ontario. The wording of the various standards is not the same, but he said that the net effect is probably about the same, which is that the same number of charges either get approved at the outset or later in the piece, and the ones that wouldn't meet the standard get stayed.

Ultimately, there does need to be a level of quality control. There does need to be a level of independent legal assessment of cases to ensure, as the Supreme Court of Canada has very recently confirmed, that the system is checking where appropriate — only approving appropriate cases and putting them before the court.

I guess the last point I would make — again, referring to data points — is that of the approximately 86 percent or so of the charges that we do approve — maybe it's 82; the numbers switch from time to time; if need be, I can give you the specifics — a significant portion result in guilty pleas or convictions, but certainly not 100 percent.

There are still, even among the many cases that we approve for charges, many, many that actually end up in acquittals or stays of proceedings, because the case isn't met or because the evidence turns out not to justify a charge. Given the opposite possibility of getting convictions on everything and risking miscarriages of justice, our system has always erred on the side of ensuring that we avoid miscarriages at any cost.

A. Olsen: I really appreciate that response. Thank you, Mr. Juk. I have just one question, if I may ask another question here, on a different subject. You caught my attention when you were responding to Karin's question around restorative justice and the appropriate funding and resources for the alternatives and the programs that may be able to help people through those processes.

Where are those resources located? When you say that there needs to be more funding, is it within the AG Ministry, or is it within a different ministry? I'm just trying to source out where those resources are and what the level of funding is that may be required in order for you to be able to give a different response from the one that you gave us today, so that in our recommendation process we can say: "Hey, here's an area that government needs to look at and apply greater resourcing to."

P. Juk: Because of independence and the need to ensure that we're not in charge of where we send people when we ask to send them to some program, that is dealt with, as I understand it, through the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and, mostly, with Corrections. Corrections obviously is formally in charge of formal diversion programs. Alternative measures that fall under the diversion category under the Criminal Code are operated, funded — when they're done internally — by Corrections and have corrections staff, probation officers and others who do that work.

There's also a stream of some funding for restorative justice, which is engaged in or entertained by outside agencies. For example, some First Nations organizations have entities that do that. Some of that funding, I understand, has in the past, in a small sense, come from the provincial government through the PSSG, and some of it is federal.

[1:35 p.m.]

My understanding, also, is that in the Solicitor General Ministry, there is currently work being done on bringing back, to the Legislature, a program for more, let's say, comprehensive, better-funded and -supported restorative justice in a formal sense — supported by the government. My understanding is that that is sort of in the works and hasn't made it into the last budget. It may be on the agenda for a year or two from now, as opposed to readily available to be moved ahead with now, as I understand it. Again, that would be a PSSG issue and not an AG issue.

D. Routley (Chair): At this time, I'd like to thank you for your presentation and your continued willingness to help our committee. Aside from all the other things that you do for our province, we'd like to thank you for this significant contribution to our work.

Members, the committee will be in recess until our next presentation at 1:45.

The committee recessed from 1:36 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Welcome back to this meeting of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. Just a reminder to our next panel, just joining us, that each presenter will have five minutes to speak, followed by about ten minutes for questions and discussion with the entire panel. There is a timer available to assist, which presenters can see when they're in the gallery view.

Now I'd to welcome Aleem Bharmal, second vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch, for their presentation. Go ahead, sir.

CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION,
B.C. BRANCH

A. Bharmal: Thanks, everyone. My name is Aleem Bharmal. As mentioned, I'm the second vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch. I use the pronouns he/him.

I'm speaking to you today from the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish First Nations.

The Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch, represents over 7,300 lawyers, students and judges. Members are dedicated to improving our laws, legal and justice systems and access to justice. We believe in equality, diversity and inclusiveness within our profession and in our legal and justice systems. We are committed to the process of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

In preparing our submissions, we draw on the experience of our lawyers with their clients on the front lines. This includes the perspectives of Crown prosecutors, defence lawyers and those working in poverty law, legal aid and specifically with Indigenous Peoples. Our members contribute to solutions and change within their own workplaces, the courts and the justice system. We know that it takes concerted and continued efforts in many different arenas to achieve actual change.

The CBA B.C. branch thanks this committee for providing this opportunity for us to present a comprehensive written submission, which contains 16 detailed recommendations to improve the legislation and policies that govern policing in B.C.

This summer, the country's attention has been drawn to the experience of Indigenous children at former Indian residential schools. During the operation of these schools, children were systematically subjected to abuse and neglect at the hands of staff. This went unchecked by police, who have taken a vow to serve and protect their members of society. It continued year after year, decade after decade — so many young lives lost, and so many families left broken.

We like to think this could not possibly happen today with all our legal protections in place to guard children from abuse and neglect, and with the police being trained to investigate reports of child abuse. We tell ourselves that we have learned from our past and that something like this could never happen now. Yet B.C. is home to the Highway of Tears, a 750-kilometre stretch of highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, where so many women and children have been murdered or gone missing. Most of them are Indigenous, just as those children in the residential schools were. Many of those crimes remain unsolved today.

Victims are often reluctant or even afraid to come forward to police because they believe they will not be treated fairly, their reports will not be properly investigated and, more often than not, they themselves will be judged for their race, social status or even the fact that they are women. Unfortunately, these are not unfounded fears. These are examples of underpolicing.

[1:50 p.m.]

Further, although we know that police are now being told not to engage in racial profiling, an inequitable practice which often results in the wrongful detention and arrest of people who have done nothing wrong, it still occurs today.

Once again, we like to tell ourselves we're beyond that. Explain that to Maxwell Johnson and his granddaughter, handcuffed and taken into police custody after trying to open a bank account in Vancouver in 2019. He had been a client of the bank since 2014 and had committed no crime. Or to Selwyn Romilly, the 81-year-old retired judge who was detained while out for a walk along the Vancouver seawall in 2021, wrongfully detained solely because he is Black, handcuffed and questioned for no other reason than his skin colour matched that of a criminal suspect who had been described as decades younger.

There can be no doubt that many police in British Columbia continue to engage in racial profiling resulting in wrongful detentions and arrests. These are examples of overpolicing. The theme that runs through our submissions is that the relationship between the police and the communities they have taken an oath to serve and protect need to be rebalanced. The belief and reality are that many residents are unjustly subjected to either under- or overpolicing.

The problems that exist today are systemic and longstanding. You have the opportunity to rebalance the system. Victims of crimes such as sexual assault, domestic violence and hate crimes need to feel confident that when they courageously step forward to report an incident, they will be heard. They need to know they will not be further victimized by a system, or judged by their gender, skin colour, sexual orientation or socioeconomic standing. Everyday citizens going about their daily business also need to feel safe and secure, with the certainty they will not suddenly be detained or handcuffed, for no justifiable reason, as a result of racial profiling.

It is for these reasons the CBABC recommends that data needs to be collected and disclosed, so we can finally shine a bright light on the problem and identify areas most in need of correction. Disaggregated data must be collected. You cannot change what you cannot see. CBABC thus supports the recommendations of the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner and other organizations that you've heard from in recommending the collection and disclosure of relevant disaggregated data.

Our second main point is that there needs to be accountability within the system of contact with the police. People who step forward to make a complaint about under- or overpolicing need to feel supported, and the process of recourse must be simplified. That is why we recommend preservation of evidence by the independent investigations office and the police to help pursue civil remedies where necessary.

We also recommend greater protections and recourse for those who have had their personal property seized by the police. We recommend that the legal aid tariff be expanded to allow those who need to challenge police action have legal advice and representation. These reforms are long overdue, and with proper data collection and disclosure, the need for further change will become apparent.

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to any questions that you may have.

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

Our next presenter is Eden Cheung from the Law Union of British Columbia.

Go ahead, Eden.

LAW UNION OF B.C.

E. Cheung: Hi, everybody. My name is Eden Cheung. I'm currently a law student at Allard Law School at UBC. I'm appearing today on behalf of the Law Union of British Columbia, UBC. If you don't know, it's kind of a group of lawyers, judges, activists, legal scholars and students such as myself. We're all interested in using the law and legal systems as a tool for social change.

I've lived in B.C. for all of my adult life. I'm currently calling in today from the traditional and unceded territories of Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish people.

The LUBC's position on reforming the Police Act is informed kind of by Pivot Legal — Pivot Legal being an organization that hopefully is very near and dear to our current Attorney General, David Eby. They've broken it down into five points for police reform, including: (1) ensuring access to police accountability, (2) investing in access to justice, (3) addressing the broad harms of criminalization, (4) eradicating prohibitionist policing and (5) enable communities to defund the police.

[1:55 p.m.]

That's kind of a mouthful, but you could break that down largely into, one, acknowledging that there is a problem. There is something that should be reformed in policing in British Columbia. Two, ensuring accountability. Then, reducing the capacity for police to do harm.

Does Canada generally have a police violence problem? I'm just going to start this off by saying I think yes. Very often, in Canada, we compare ourselves to the Americans and tell ourselves things aren't so bad. When we look at police murder rates in America, it's roughly three times what it is in Canada.

There is a popular national perception that Canada is doing okay, but the proper comparison shouldn't just be to the Americans. The police violence rate in Canada is three times what it is in Germany, the U.K., France, Japan. So when we look at the American stats in horror, that is what many other countries are seeing the Canadian numbers as. There is a problem. On top of that, not only is police violence a problem in Canada; it's especially a problem in B.C.

B.C. leads Canada in police killing civilians — this is per a CBC investigation. Police violence in Canada is increasing. It has doubled in the past two decades.

We've also seen that police are either unable or unwilling to be self-accountable. We've seen comments from people such as Brenda Lucki of the RCMP, Curtis Zablocki of the RCMP and Adam Palmer of the Vancouver police department, who have all, in various shapes and forms, denied the existence of systemic racism within their own policing bodies.

Of course, we do have some measures for civilian oversight in Canada and in B.C. Civilian oversight, I think, is important to inspire confidence in the Canadian justice system. Not only is it important to dispel actual bias — the idea that police would be biased when investigating themselves…. Whether or not that is true, civilian oversight is also important to dispel the perception of bias, which, as we know, even the perception of bias can undermine confidence in public systems. That is one of the principles of Canadian liberal democracy and something worth being preserved.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the IIO and then also its sister organizations, the OPCC and the CRCC. Anyways, the IIO has a mandate to become civilianized. This was back in 2015. This is per section 38.13(2)(b) of the Police Act. In 2015, there was a report made by the chief civilian director of the IIO. The IIO has a goal to eventually be 100 percent civilianized.

Of course, now we know, in 2017, the stat on the website of the IIO is only 50 percent are civilians. That was before the Police Act was reformed to allow the hiring of former police officers in 2019. For a two-year period, they were allowed to hire more police, so that 50 percent stat is even outdated. We've actually been moving in the wrong direction.

Accountability for police harm. Access to justice is an issue touched upon by the previous presenter. The process is confusing. I am a law student. I'm not at the bottom of my class. I'm doing okay, and even I found the system quite confusing to navigate. There was a recommendation from former Justice Wally Oppal to harmonize the municipal and RCMP complaints. This is in the Pivot Society written submission.

I'm running out of time, but I'll see how much I can get through. I'd like to also talk about the harms of criminalization, specifically police targeting groups such as unsheltered people, sex workers, people participating in civil disobedience. Prohibitionist policing does not work.

Currently in B.C. — especially in Vancouver, my town that I live in — we are undergoing two health crises. Not only COVID, but also the opioid epidemic, which has killed more people and has not seen a proportionate response compared to the response that we've given to COVID.

Finally, in the interests of time, I understand that when people hear the word defund the police, there is sort of a knee-jerk reaction, an ideological reaction, against it. But defunding the police allows us to fund everything else — mental health services, child care, parks, schools, libraries. It's either defund the police or defund everything else.

[2:00 p.m.]

I'll leave you with this story. In America, one of the very first ambulance services came out of the police. It was a modified police vehicle that was repurposed to serve African-American neighbourhoods. They put it together for themselves. They felt underserved by the ongoing police efforts. Over time, that grew and evolved, and now we think of ambulance services as absolutely necessary for any modern city to have. That was only possible through a transferring of funds from the police to ambulance services.

We could easily…. B.C. could be a world leader in creating mental health services and just taking the funding out of the police and sending people who are trained in trauma-informed care and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I thank you for your time and attention, and I await your questions.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you to our presenters. Members, questions?

K. Kirkpatrick: Just a question or a comment for Aleem. There were a lot of recommendations in your submission, but the ones that caught my eye are the recommendations with respect to youth and a recommendation that actually, if I understood correctly, is the modernization of the child protection system — outside of what we're doing here, looking at the Child, Family and Community Act and the timeliness of access to quick review of young people being taken away from families — and talking about the unified family court system.

With respect to that particular recommendation on modernization, do you have anything to add to that, or a reason why that was particularly highlighted?

A. Bharmal: Sorry, I don't have that in my list of recommendations. Perhaps there was an error.

I do know, just from my personal experience working in human rights law, that one issue we have in that particular area is that when there is a report of an issue with children — especially, we found, with Indigenous families — and the police are involved, I think that speaks a little bit to what Eden was talking about: is it always appropriate to send police to an issue raised about child protection? As with mental health issues, you need somebody experienced in the area — a social worker.

I know it costs funds, but I think reports — it should be seriously looked at — can save funds in the long term if you're dealing with it not with a hammer but with somebody who understands the situation, who is not simply always just taking the kids away or using a heavy hand with those suffering mental health distress, and who has the experience to assess the situation and deal with it more appropriately. That's what I'd say with respect to that area of policing.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you. Out of all of the documents I've read here, if I had those recommendations attributed to someone else, I apologize. Thank you very much for the response.

A. Olsen: Thank you for your presentations. I just want to ask a question to you, Mr. Cheung, with respect to some of the last comments you made around defunding and kind of presenting it as an either-or. I'm just wondering. I think there is also a reality in which we reframe the system, rather than trying to address the system that we have right now and allocating the funds.

Perhaps I'm not being entirely clear on this. Is there an acknowledgment or a recognition, in the presentation, with respect to identifying the amount of resources that needed to be allocated, by what the community values are, to policing, and then, as well, allocating the appropriate level of resourcing to the other kind of social service aspect of the job? I mean, this has been one of the biggest areas of recommendations from us.

[2:05 p.m.]

You presented as an either-or, and I think we've been hearing it as, maybe, a both-and. Do you have any comment to that?

E. Cheung: You kind of threw me off at the very end, with the "both-and." I think we can create a both-and. I would say that I believe, in my city, the Vancouver police department budget — they caught a big increase in 2010 for the Vancouver Olympic Games, and then the cost-of-living adjustment hadn't been maintained through the years, but that big leap was maintained for the previous decade.

Then we see that recently, in Vancouver, they erected a series of billboards — they were not well-received — warning people against…. I think the phrasing was, "Warning, a stranger could be a distraction," or something like that. The idea, from my perspective, is that if the police have enough money to be putting up these billboards, then that money could pay for one or two mental health service professionals, guidance counsellors, any other restorative justice alternative streams or any number of alternatives. I perceive that as a both-and.

A. Olsen: Okay.

R. Singh: Thank you to the presenters. What you have presented today we have heard from a number of other stakeholders as well — especially about when the police have to deal with some very complex social issues and the resources being allocated.

People have different terms for those, for how to allocate that funding and all that, but I would be more interested in some examples, if you have any. We have heard of some, in different jurisdictions where such models are working. We have some models right here as well, which are working, which are really good models, but we have heard about them as well, that they need to be properly resourced. Any examples that you might have, like what we should be looking at — I would really appreciate that.

A. Bharmal: I'll jump in just a bit with it. I gave the example in the child welfare situation. That was actually an example from a client who, luckily, had her own social worker — she was Indigenous — who she could call to talk down the police and explain the situation. But they had originally been prepared just to take a very young child away from the mother, just based on an outside report, even though there was no immediate threat.

Similarly, with those suffering mental health distress, there's a great program — I'm forgetting the exact name of it —where you have a car that is called with a police officer who has more experience in that area, dealing with somebody suffering serious mental health issues, and you have a social worker. In my understanding, it is not funded to the level where that car is often available for those types of situations.

We see, around the country, examples where for somebody suffering serious mental health distress, the situation ends in very serious violence, and the person with the mental health issues becomes a victim of police violence. We have to ask ourselves as a society: was there a way to de-escalate that? Was that the best approach? Those are a couple of the examples.

R. Singh: Thank you so much. We have heard about Car 67, Car 66 — great models, but as you said, more resources for them.

One more question, Chair, just for Eden, if we have some time.

D. Routley (Chair): Yup, and I think Eden had his hand up to chime in there as well.

E. Cheung: I was just going to give another example of a success story in Canada. In the town of Medicine Hat, which is in Alberta, they basically ended homelessness by simply giving away housing with no compliance attached. That was six years ago now, so if people are interested, they could follow up on that. I think it was a success. Crime rates went down; other indicators of social unrest went down — Medicine Hat.

[2:10 p.m.]

R. Singh: Thank you so much for those examples. My question would be…. We are hearing about taking the resources from the police and putting into the community social services model, a lot of that. But we have also heard, with the complexity of the mental health issues, how complex it is getting — that even the social workers, the community organizations, are not feeling the safety.

Even if we are looking at resourcing them, giving them the resources…. Like, a social worker should just go if their situation demands that, but somehow they need that protection, that security. They feel that they are not able to handle that situation by themselves. They need some support from the police.

What do you have to say on that, Eden?

E. Cheung: We didn't get to this situation overnight, and we're not going to get out of it immediately. I think, as a transitionary period…. When we send a mental health worker to somebody in distress, that means, as a society, we have failed at several steps already.

We failed to get them help earlier. We failed to provide material assistance that would have prevented the situation from arising in the first place, and now everything has boiled over and there's a violent outburst. Now we need to decide: are we going to send a social worker, or are we going to send somebody with a gun?

Even at this very late stage, I could suggest things like not bringing offensive tools — no gun, no Taser. You can have defensive tools: gloves, body armour, arriving in pairs, sending two social workers, de-escalation training. I could share some personal stories. I have interacted with people in distress, just as a citizen, and calmed people down, with no training — just as something where I saw a problem, and I thought I could try to help.

I think it's possible. I think that it's closer to being achieved than people think. I would just answer it in those two ways: (1) it's a late-stage problem, and (2) there are solutions that still don't involve policing that could still help people feel safe.

R. Glumac: Thank you both for your presentations. Eden, you talk about comparing Europe to Canada and things like that. I'm curious if you have looked at other systems of policing, like the CAHOOTS model or the Memphis model in the States, or if you know of any examples in Europe that you could attribute to why the rates of police violence are less. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

E. Cheung: I would not present myself as any sort of expert on alternative policing models. I think there are better speakers to answer those questions. I will say that in the U.K., police generally don't carry firearms. There's a lot of paperwork if a British police officer wants to have a firearm. It's basically restricted to their version of SWAT.

Very similar in New Zealand. In fact, I was in New Zealand during, I think, a national referendum where they were trying to decide if they were going to arm their police officers, and most of the police came out against it. They were saying that they didn't want the responsibility.

But this is a very big-picture culture shift. I personally would like to see fewer firearms.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you to both our presenters. We really appreciate your contribution to the difficult work that we've undertaken. Every view of British Columbians is a great help to us, and you have been that today. We deeply appreciate it.

E. Cheung: Thank you for listening to us.

D. Routley (Chair): We'll recess, please.

The committee recessed from 2:14 p.m. to 2:32 p.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Welcome back to this meeting of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. I'd now like to welcome our final presenter for the day, Patricia Barnes. Patricia is the executive director of Business Improvement Areas of British Columbia, and we appreciate your presence. Go ahead, Patricia.

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS OF B.C.

P. Barnes: Good afternoon, and thank you for hearing me today. I really appreciate it.

My name is Patricia Barnes, and I'm actually the executive director of the Hastings North Business Improvement Association in East Vancouver, but I am a board member of our provincial organization, the Business Improvement Areas of British Columbia. I'm representing them here today.

I would like to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from the unceded lands of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, at the present time.

So who are we? We represent 70 business improvement associations across B.C., and with all those BIAs, we represent thousands of small businesses in our urban small centres and rural districts. We like to say we represent the main streets across the province, and we are committed to championing strong, vibrant and successful economic centres throughout B.C.

Why is the business voice important in looking at Police Act reform? We are front-lined for the social issues that are being discussed here today within this consultation. Our business owners are compassionate. They're understanding. They want to do what they can to help, but they also need to keep their employees, their customers and themselves safe, so they have to look at all the issues from many different sides.

Many of our issues are related to crime and safety for our members, so it does relate to the reforms of the Police Act. We see those as being both social and economic issues that have to be looked at. We hope that our submission will provide meaningful impact, and I want you to know that we did consult with both our board and our membership from across the province prior to submitting this today.

I am going to highlight a few of the recommendations in the report that I know you've all seen. But first, I'd like to acknowledge the role of systemic racism in our policing institutions and in all of our institutions across the country. I'd like to note that BIAs are committed to working with all to address these issues in our society and doing whatever we can to eliminate the ills of racism that we are experiencing and have experienced for years.

[2:35 p.m.]

When I look at our recommendations, one of the ones I'd like to highlight is recommendation No. 2. We believe that police should not be the lead responders for mental health- and addiction-related calls. We do understand that in some cases, they are going to have to be there, but we believe that it puts additional stress on them as police offers to try and handle this, and they're not necessarily trained as social workers.

We would like to see an alternative response to meeting those needs and an alternative place that we, as business members, can call when we see people in need who are vulnerable but may not necessarily need a policing response. We believe that it is a joint response that is required. Police may need to be there for backup, but it should be a joint response, and we do know that there are examples of that.

Four, we agree with complex care facilities for those who have significant mental health and drug addiction issues. Some people are just not able to live independently. We recognize that, and we believe that as a society, we should be providing care and safety for them across our community. It's really important.

Again, No. (5), harm reduction services supporting housing — we support it all. We welcome it into our districts. But we also note that this is only one pillar, and there are four pillars that we need to look at. So we'd like to see prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement properly implemented and funded with the appropriate programs to help those in need.

And then No. (8). We know there are lots of calls to look at defunding police. I would agree that that's probably not the right term, but we know that there are calls around police budgets. We know they're a lot of money. But we also acknowledge that they are an important part of creating health and safety in our community. They need to be properly funded. They need to be there to provide safety — and not just safety for our businesses, but safety for our residents and for vulnerable people who can be taken advantage of and aren't criminals and aren't the reasons that we have so many issues.

We also think that it's important that we have enhanced reporting and training and accountability and a progressive police response so that we can address systemic racism in all our systems and structures.

I think I did it all within five minutes.

D. Routley (Chair): Wow. Yeah.

P. Barnes: I think I might have spoken a little quickly there, but….

D. Routley (Chair): Well, there are very few of us on the screen who can keep a two-minute statement inside two minutes, so we appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Oh, Adam is protesting.

Members, it's time to open the floor for questions. Anybody who would like to raise their hands electronically…?

A. Olsen: I'm not always waiting for you, Karin, to go first.

I just wanted to thank you, Patricia. Very coherent and very clear on specific areas in terms of the recommendations that you provided. I have no questions. Just thank you for presenting the material the way you have. It was quite clear on what the position of the BIAs are, and I appreciate your contributions.

G. Begg: Thanks, Patricia. I wonder if you could comment, if you feel comfortable doing so, about other layers of security that are not necessarily, for example, paid police personnel.

We quite often see ambassador programs. We see community safety officers. We see other levels of enforcement that are complementary to existing police departments, and whether or not you think that's a helpful way or that's a…. Just give me your feelings about the efficacy of that kind of a program.

P. Barnes: I can talk a little bit about what I do in my own BIA, if that might help. I can tell you that in the past — many, many, many years ago, because I've been here longer than I care to admit to — we looked into private security.

I had a long chat with the private security firm. I took them around and I introduced them to…. Because at the time, in my area, we had a lot of sex work in our area. We had a lot of violence in our area. We had a lot of drug addiction in our area. So I took them around and we met with a number of the sex workers and the women's groups that are out there to help them. We talked about how you could operate in our neighborhood.

[2:40 p.m.]

And it didn't work. For us, it didn't work. We felt that we needed a much more grassroots, community-based approach. So through consultations with our community and with others, we approached our community policing centre, which, I think, is a model that's unique to Vancouver. It has one officer attached, but it's actually run and managed by civilians and by the community.

We do have a liaison team, a safety team that goes out, but they are there not to…. We don't move people along. We're there to provide support. We're there to provide our businesses with information about how they can keep themselves safe.

We look at the environment within which they're operating. We provide them with the phone numbers. They can call the Kettle. They can call the MAP van. There are other alternatives. If it is a policing issue, we advise them to call 911. We've had issues where it has to be a 911 call. But we believe that's a really good approach that assists the community, assists the police in what they do and assists our businesses in more of a progressive way than in a security function.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Patricia, for your presentation as well as your documents that you forwarded to us. Very clear, very forward.

My one question. You guys are not alone, obviously, in this endeavour for downtown Vancouver. I know I've talked to some folks with the Chinatown Foundation, I think it's called, as well as, I think, also their own BIA that they have. My question is: with those other organizations that are out there, specifically in Vancouver, do you guys all collaborate, as well, on some of these points that you brought up?

P. Barnes: Yes, we do. As you may know, we have 22 business improvement areas in the city of Vancouver, and we work together as a partnership in trying to look at the overarching issues that are particularly within the city of Vancouver and trying to look at how we work together.

Obviously, we have the DVBIA, which has a $5 million budget, and then we have the Hastings Crossings BIA, which has a $150,000 budget. Obviously we all have to work differently. We all share. We all agree on the ideas that I put forward here today, and we all know that there has to be change.

The one thing I can tell you is that the BIAs in Vancouver and the BIAs across the province know that there needs to be change. There needs to be change for many reasons. We know that we're facing many, many issues within the city that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, but we also know those issues are being faced across the province in many, many areas now. We'd like to see a way of moving forward again.

As I said, I think we all believe in partnership — the partnership between health, social workers, community workers and police. I personally believe that the police across the province agree. They believe in those partnerships too. We have an officer that works out of our neighbourhood here, and I know that they would like to be able to do the job that they do to the best of their ability, and I know they feel there are certain calls that they should not be first responders on and that those people need supports that policing can't give them.

I think you would find that we're all in agreement on that. I know that we have all supported safe supply. I know we support the city in moving forward around a number of different issues around this. We've been in conversations with the city for years and years around supportive housing, around how we ensure the appropriate supports are in the community for those who are vulnerable and also how we keep our community members safe.

I think that's the one thing that, as business improvement associations, we really want people to understand — that we can be as compassionate as possible, but when I have a 16-year-old clerk in a store being held up at knife point or being threatened or somebody in there overdosing in the washroom, I need police support. I need to ensure that they're safe.

[2:45 p.m.]

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

Thank you very much for your presentation, Patricia. We really appreciate it. We've got a big task in front of us. We all represent people who are affected in the way that you described, and it's really important that we have this view at the table. As we continue our work, please feel that your contribution is much appreciated by all of us.

P. Barnes: Thank you very much for listening to me.

D. Routley (Chair): Okay, Members. We have deliberation time. I personally need a recess for a few minutes.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Do you want to go into closed meeting first, and then we'll break for a quick recess?

D. Routley (Chair): Yeah, we could do that, either way.

Okay, a motion to move in camera from Deputy Chair Davies, seconded by MLA Kirkpatrick.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 2:46 p.m. to 3:39 p.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Members, thank you very much for a great meeting. I'd ask for a motion to adjourn — from Trevor, and seconded by Rick.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3:39 p.m.

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