Cal Corley
Cal Corley spoke 21 times across 2 days of testimony.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, thank you, Michael. And I apologize if I go on mute here periodically, just dealing with a bit of a chest cold. I’d just like to pick up on Bonnie’s comments as pertaining to Indigenous involvement, and I’ll speak to it a bit more concretely later. But I think it’s important for a couple of reasons. One is, the recognition today that our First Nation governments are recognized within the system, are consulted on a number of things; it’s just the right thing to do. On a very pragmatic level, in terms of dealing with conflict at public order events, I think there’s also a perspective that’s brought from Indigenous communities and Indigenous leaders, in terms of ways and means regarding -- excuse me -- the resolution of conflict, that I think it’s an important perspective that could be brought to bear. And as I’ll speak later, the involvement of Indigenous leadership from the -- from the planning through to implementation, developing the strategies, tactics and operations and the implementation thereof, I think it’s an important perspective that is, for both those reasons, very important. Thank you.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, very much so. So first of all, thank you, Commissioner and team, for the invitation to participate in today’s panel. I’m Cal Corley; I’m the CEO, as mentioned earlier, of the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance. We’re a small non-profit that supports police agencies and governments in developing, implementing, and assessing new approaches to improving community safety outcomes. I’m calling today from the National Capital Region, and of course, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation. I’m also a former Assistant Commissioner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. My policing career includes time in the National Capital Region, in both Protective Operations and also a couple of years heading up the National Security Investigations function in the NCR back in the 1990s. Today I’ll focus my initial remarks on a couple of areas, but they really centre around improving both structural and institutional capacities and capabilities across the public safety system as it pertains to public order policing. More particularly, I’ll argue -- or, rather, my arguments will centre on, first, the importance of national standards, national protocols in support of effective policing of public order events. Secondly, importance of considering the full scope of, as to use the nomenclature that Michael just used, policing assemblages, with particular emphasis on the involvement of private sector security at all levels, as Michael Kempa just mentioned, from planning and organizing through to the implementation strategies and tactics at the front line. I’ll speak as well to how we hold those two first points together from concept to practice to support positive community safety outcomes, and I’ll talk there in terms of multi and bilateral agreements, and the vital importance of joint learning on the part of all of the actors. And finally, I’ll offer a few observations as it pertains to thresholds for leadership, responsibility, and accountability at major public order events and public order emergencies. Institutional failures in either public order policing or other emergency or national security situations are nothing new in our country. I can think of some of my own experiences and some of the lessons I learned, including here in the National Capital Region during protests, and violent protests in fact, during the first Gulf War back in 1990/1991 at Parliament Hill, at the Embassy of Iraq, and at a number of other locations in the City of Ottawa. We can also think back, for more of a national security context, April 1986, the hostage taking at the Bahamian High Commission in Ottawa that featured or that had two senior police officers from two organizations on the street in front of the event engaged in a yelling match over who had jurisdiction. I could go on with examples, but I really want to have a future focus here. Notwithstanding those instances, we generally have a history in Canada of trying to learn from these situations and improving our individual and collective efforts and responses. I’m confident that this Commission is sure to contribute to further improvements across that ecosystem. So let me begin with national standards and protocols. Major public order events are typically complex and multi-faceted. They often cross multiple jurisdictions, as we saw in January and February of 2022, and involve more than one police agency. As we saw in that instance, they may also involve a combination of multiple causes and multiple groups. Sometimes these coalesce, but often they don’t. There’s often no single leadership structure within the protest group or groups. These can be -- these groups can be incredibly nimble. They leverage technologies very well, as Bonnie mentioned a couple of minutes ago, as they adapt to changing circumstances in real time. In terms of preparation for these events, some of them, such as the 2010 G8 and G20 conferences, were preceded by months of in-depth planning, coordination of governance, of strategies, tactics, capabilities, and capacities. Others, such as the events last year, or earlier this year, particularly those in Ottawa, which have the initial thrust of events, offered considerably less time for authorities to plan, prepare, and coordinate their efforts. A third category are those that are quite spontaneous, at least in terms of the authorities being aware and being ably prepared. Regardless of which category a public order event falls into and whether authorities had months or days to prepare themselves, situations on the ground can evolve or devolve quickly. I’ve experienced this myself. It requires the public safety apparatus, and particularly the police, to be able to respond and adapt with nimbleness and acuity. This is clearly, in my view, an area of policing that warrants national standards and protocols. We’ve benefited in Canada for many years at the provincial and national levels from standards in other areas of policing. The two that come right to mind to me are in relation to Critical Incident Command, which you heard a little bit about a couple of minutes ago, and Major Case Management. Just as with major complex criminal investigations, responding effectively to major public order events requires skillful leadership and structured coordination. The importance of common tools, of common terminology, and methods cannot be overstated. The Province of Ontario developed its regulation and its Major Case Management manual in the wake of the Paul Bernardo investigation all those years ago. British Columbia has its own framework, which evolved from the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. There’s a common thread there. These emerged from an external lens looking in at policing. Major Case Management is a proven methodology. There is a national standard that’s overseen by an advisory group of very senior police experts. It meets regularly, looks at recent cases, makes adjustments as and when required. The Canadian Police College’s Major Case Management Course is the Canadian standard for training in that domain. The MCM model emphasizes accountability and a multi-disciplinary approach to complex and serious investigations. Importantly, the approach provides for sound structure for these investigations, it establishes clear lines of responsibility and decision making, and creates rigorous approaches and infrastructure to record, document, and share information. The bottom line, in my view, is that interagency coordination and cooperation can be difficult. Personalities and egos sometimes get in the way of formal -- get in the way and trump formal arrangements. And on top of -- so on top of clear national standards, we would also benefit from equally clear agreements, both multilateral and bilateral, that support effective responses and operations at the cold phase. I’ll move on now to speak a little bit about joint multi-jurisdictional agency exercises. This is the glue that holds all of this together. So assuming that formal standards are in place, supported by appropriate agreements between levels of government and between police agencies, et cetera, it’s crucial that these standards and the elements of such agreements be practiced and stress tested. At minimum, it strikes me that today’s policy makers, police leaders, and public order response practitioners must share a common lexicon, a common base line of knowledge of the relevant law, federal and provincial and local policies, including but not limited to the relevant legislation, such as emergency acts, both provincial and federal, the Security Offences Act, those critical elements of the Criminal Code, as well as private property law. And I’ll come back on that one in a moment. During my years in operational policing in the National Capital Region, then Solicitor General, now Public Safety Canada, coordinated and hosted major multi-agency and multi-jurisdiction training exercises for precisely this purpose. While these had a central emphasis on national security, they’re certainly applicable in instances such as we witnessed in Ottawa. These exercises were typically two or so days in duration. They involved multiple agencies in the National Capital Region, including the OPS, the RCMP, the OPP, Sûreté du Québec, Gatineau Police, CSIS, Solicitor General, PCO, and relevant agencies within the Province of Ontario and the City of Ottawa. These exercises serve to, as I mentioned, to stress test all aspects of the enterprise, from governance, information sharing, and other protocols, leadership, tactics, and operations. Not only did these improve individual and collective capacities and capabilities, they also helped iron out a number of kinks within the system. It’s one thing to have these written in formal agreements, et cetera, et cetera. Where it really matters is how they play out on the ground. We’ve developed a good understanding of grade two procedures and a better understanding of one another’s agency capabilities, equipment, technologies, et cetera. It improved, ultimately, information flows and responsiveness in often very dynamic environments. And equally important, these experiences allowed for certainly my experience was it allowed to working over a couple days with my colleagues from these other organizations, to start to develop relationships with them that really carried forward when you needed it when the rubber hit the ground. I’ve recently learned that these extensive and in-depth exercises have not been undertaken in the National Capital Region for several years, and it strikes me that in the absence of such exercises, the risk is that formal standards, protocols, and agreements often, you know, don’t survive “first contact with the enemy.” And so those -- exercising this is highly important. I’ll move on quickly just to cover two other areas. Private security. If I refer today to private sector, I’m inferring by that, private security, which has long been a key actor providing for safe and security communities across Canada. There's just a ton of literature on that. It offers in a policing context lower-cost alternatives often to fully trained and equipped public police officers in attending to certain lower risk to harm duties. But they also bring perspective, know-how and capabilities that the public sector often don't have, and I'm thinking there particularly but not exclusively as it pertains to private property laws, et cetera. At the 2010 G2, the private sector was intimately involved right from the get-go in terms of planning, strategic, tactical as well as certain operational aspects of the security response. I'm not aware of any such arrangement in terms of the events in Ottawa in 2022. There's a couple of potential barriers that I believe warrant examination in that regard in terms of why not. In the G20 circumstances with months to anticipate, there was an agreement between the Toronto Police Service Association and the private actors in terms of what that agreement would look like. Barriers when trying to put these together in shorter order, such as was the case in Ottawa, I'd be looking at Ontario's adequacy standards under the Police Act, particularly around sections 11 to 14 or so, that limit what non-police officers can do. For example, under -- and related to that under Ontario's Highway Traffic Act, only sworn police officers can direct traffic at an intersection. Collective bargaining agreements also have some stipulations typically that can get in the way of these. So developing national agreements, national protocols, certainly in the national capital region that sees so many of these events over the course of the year, dealing with the police associations and developing appropriate protocols to enable more effective cost-effective responses certainly would benefit. Finally, the last area that I have, and I'll only take another moment here, has to do with thresholds of leadership responsibility and accountability. And the question that I've been pondering a bit lately is whether there are or could be unique circumstances together with a corresponding threshold at which the federal government, as in the case of the Security Offences Act, could or should exert federal primacy in the carriage of a response into part 2 of the Emergencies Act. I'm thinking about particularly situations that could involve, on one hand, a major public order event that gets out of control and a related simultaneous national security incident, whether it's a hostage taking of an IPP, or otherwise, but something that falls under the Security Offences Act. We have federal primacy in the case of the invocation of the Security Offences Act but not on the other. And where they're directly related, and I don't think it's a stretch to envision the potential for a situation like that, it could be very advantageous I think to be thinking this through in terms of whether there could be a threshold at the very highest level that could warrant that. And the final point in terms of thresholds that I'd like to make, and it's not related to that, is the present situation we're predominantly dealing with major cities, Ottawa, Windsor, et cetera, together with some locations like Coutts, Alberta that are policed by the RCMP. What if the local police of jurisdiction was a small or medium-sized municipal service that didn't have many of the sophisticated procedures and abilities to exercise those such as many of the larger centres do? And I'm thinking here in terms of the province of Quebec, which has contemplated these issues and have years ago instituted a six-level of policing model. And I won't go into details on that now, but suffice to say that if you're, for example, the City of Gatineau, the threshold they're at as it pertains to public order policing is that they can respond and attend to crowd control issues that could contemplate there being -- getting out of control or turning into a riot. But it takes a level four, five and six, ultimately level six being only the Sûreté du Québec, that can really take over and respond to incidences such that we saw here in Ottawa. And as I say, I won't go into that. If anybody has questions, I'm happy to, but this may be an area that the Commission would see worthy of exploration. So I've spoken about national standards and protocols, a regular regimen of joint exercises, sometimes costly, but the cost benefit analysis on this given the economic and other implications of what happened in Canada certainly need to be factored in there, together with the role of the private sector in all aspects of this and by extension back to the earlier comment, I would include in that the importance of Indigenous governments, and finally, the question of thresholds, which I suggest might warrant some additional exploration. And with that, Michael, I'll cede the floor.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, just very briefly. It strikes me that the beauty with the Quebec model is, and I go back to conversations over the years with the former Chief of the Gatineau Police, Mario Harel, what he really liked about it was that at Level 3 this is precisely the parameters that he had to ensure his police service was prepared for to deliver excellence. He didn't have to think about any of those issues that were at Level 4, 5, or 6, but he knew that when he called upon either the, for example, SPVM or the Sûreté du Québec, that they were prepared at those levels to come in and provide the requisite assistance. So it's a -- it's an interesting model. I know that there's a couple of provinces that have looked at it in terms of their policing structures. No one's taken it up yet, but as it pertains to public order policing an important area to think about. And I would agree with Bonnie in terms of multi- system training, you know, how it's done is less important than a commitment that it be done with appropriate standards to attain.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
So ---
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yes, thank you. So Robert, just to begin, one of the most difficult matters when we're doing these exercise back when it was in that transfer, for example, under the Security Offences Act, that's one of the most difficult and awkward things because -- and from an RCMP perspective, assuming those responsibilities we always felt it important as a matter of practice that you continue to keep the local police actively engaged and involved, but the locus of accountability and responsibility shifted and you tried to keep it workable like that. In terms of when I spoke about the thresholds, and I'm thinking as I say specifically about an absolutely out of control situation where we're just short of, for example, calling in the military, that everything else has been exhausted. But on the other hand, you've got the Security Offences Act, national security investigations taking place. And if, as if by fiat or otherwise, the Attorney General has invoked that and the RCMP assume responsibility, if it was related to a public order of significant magnitude event, is there benefits or -- is there benefit in having a single line of command on the two of these or is it appropriate to keep them separated? And that's what I was speaking of in terms of that threshold. Under the SOA, I believe it's the Attorney General of Canada that exercises that authority and makes that determination. I wouldn't venture -- I don't come from a constitutional or a legal background, so I wouldn't venture to say who in this case would make that decision. But just with the dynamic world we're living today and what we've experienced and the propensity for large-scale civil unrest in the future, it struck me that it's something that's worth thinking about.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Absolutely. Absolutely, and particularly, but not exclusively, but I think about the National Capital Region, which is, you know, I couldn't -- we couldn't -- I can't guess how many protests in a contemporary society we have here in the NCR. Obviously many fewer than that are of a very significant magnitude. But engaging the private sector early in these is very important. We're crossing from private space, public space, back into private spaces. We saw what happened at the Rideau Centre in Ottawa, for example. Most of the police in the Rideau Centre is actually private sector undertaking. But there's tremendous benefits, I think, from that in that the private sector comes well with levels of legal authorities that the public police simply don't have. And so for the greater public good, how can those be used in concert? So absolutely, yes, from planning, involvement in joint exercises, ultimately on many protests that may or may not be required, but can't discount the cost of public policing as it pertains to these. Just a little sidenote, Michael. During the events in January, February, I was crossing the bridge from the Quebec side over to the Ottawa side, and a considerable way from Parliament Hill, but there was roadblocks on the parkway. And I was driving through, and five or six sworn police officers there, and you know, part of the argument is that's relatively low risk to harm manning the barricades that distance away. Could those police officers or at least five of the six or whatever the numbers were, be redeployed to greater purpose and have private security there at much lower cost? Much better effective use of resources than what we saw.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Thank you, Michael. A couple points, and perhaps first on Bonnie’s in terms of where she started off in terms of local police being able to appropriately assess risk. And a couple of points there. And one is -- one has to do with confirmation bias. And so confirmation bias, of coruse, you know, we discount the current intelligence that’s coming in and give greater weight to our past experiences. And, you know, we heard -- at least my reading of some of the testimony we’ve heard of some of that here. So those -- it speaks to me in part to the importance early on of, you know, back to the whole gambit of what I forward earlier, I suppose, in terms of standards and protocols, and one of which is around issues like that, would be locally have a broad-based leadership group that’s helping guide these. It can help counter, it can be certain to ask the right questions, et cetera, to support, ultimately, whoever the decision maker is at an institutional level. I’d also -- while I’ve got the opportunity, Robert, you raised two important points, I thought, that I want to respond to. One, you spoke a few minutes ago, in terms of being able to define, on a national scope event, that single authority that would be responsible and accountable. And again, that speaks to me to the importance of standards and protocols with significant precision. And I’ll come back on that in a moment. And the reason being, even in a center like Ottawa, where the Ottawa Police Services, the police of jurisdiction, I can see circumstances where, for example, under one scenario, if, just by way of example, that single authority you spoke of was the RCMP, I think we’d want to build in very clear, concise, pragmatic, protocol around that transfer of responsibility that tends to the hugely important of local context and local knowledge being maintained. So in that decision making and while most leaders would tend towards that partnership approach, I think it’s really important that, you know, clear, very concise, and practical, pragmatic language we use, we tend sometimes to rely on too much that’s reasonably concise, yet artfully vague, and that just leads us to problems in leadership and ultimate implementation of these strategies. Those are my comments. Thank you.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yes, thank you, Michael. My comment is one we haven’t touched on yet, is just around the self-policing among protest groups. And it’s a concept that has been brought about elsewhere, and maybe one that’s worth exploring by the Commission. It’s basically the idea that the police work right from the get-go with the protest organizers and involve them in policing, regulating their behaviour throughout the course of it. It can tend to work very well, usually with those who are there with honourable intentions to protest peacefully and make their points. Sometimes less so, but it can be a differentiator and reduce the police effort as these groups multiply and such, as Michael mentioned earlier.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Thank you, Michael. Just building on that, and to the question, if it was asked, I think the short answer is yes. but consist with good practice and being proactive about it, these are things we shouldn’t leave to happenstance or in the heat of the moment trying to arrange and determine where those come from, but plan for it. And that’s part and parcel of the purpose of why a national framework or national standards are important and would cover off this very type of thing, based on best practice and prevailing practices. The local practice, for example, in the National Capital Region, the OPS would typically reach out to the RCMP, who have a good size contingent locally, together with the OPP, and in some cases, across the river. I think in addition to that, a framework such as the question posed, one should be thinking about not only public resources, but again, depending on the nature of the event, the nature of the duties required, consider how the private sector can play in that as well. So back to a more comprehensive look at this. I was thinking about when Robert reminded us that, you know, in the other perimeter in Ottawa, there are 100 check points. And if those are manned 24/7, let’s just assume that they had three officers at each of those. And if you could convert even two of those to private sector, in the course of a day, you’re looking at 600 resources, police resources that could be deployed to other functions. So I don’t think it’s a question of just what other police services can we look at for these events, but looking more wholistically across the region, potential contributors, again, depending on the nature of the event.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, thank you. I’d just like to pick up on that, and just what I suggest would be a friendly amendment to what Bonnie suggested, is as much as the CACP developed a national standard, as it were, it seems to me that given the nature and scope and the dynamic times we're in that they would warrant being refreshed by a much broader group that would include the police, that would include those involved in police governance, that would include, and I'm speaking there at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels, Indigenous participation, private sector participation, and of course from the justice and AG side at the federal and provincial levels. The good workings of a national standard like that should be the responsibility of a multi-disciplinary group of experts, and again, crossing some of those various domains, and that's supported by training standards, established with the Canadian Police College, which provides advanced and specialised training to all police services across Canada, and supported by exercises of the type we've spoken of earlier, coordinated nationally by, I'd suggest, Public Safety Canada. And then with a feedback loop that feeds right back up to the top to ensure that those standards are refreshed on a regular basis, as and when required. Thank you.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, very much so. And first and foremost, it provides a mechanism that provides rigour to planning, implementation, supports leadership and sound decision-making across -- typically across multiple agencies. So there's clarity in terms of leadership, there is clarity in terms of the methods by which where it's done, but I must say that it also does not hamstring a leadership team or the investigative teams in any way. They still have plenty of latitude to adapt and respond to local circumstances, it's just within a very well constructed framework. And by way of using that as an analogy, I think, you know, it wouldn't be a difficult thing at all to take a framework like that and convert it, apply it to the current circumstances.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah, I nod well. I was -- no, I was just reflecting, and I agree entirely. I mean, this is -- responses to events such as this involve an ecosystem; multiple agencies, multiple actors, and strategies and tactics that are not practiced, not stress tested are bound to fall short of expectations, to one degree or another. And I think as we’ve heard over the last number of months that we should expect better. One question that resonated as I was listening to Michael was, you know, had there been any after-action reviews to date, for example, involving the parties? An event such as this typically would if it fell under a national standard, that would be a key element of it, and it’s just a question I ask.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yes, indeed. And thank you for that, Jocelyn. Thank you, Commissioner Rouleau and team, for inviting me to participate in today’s panel again. As mentioned, I’m a former Assistant Commissioner at the RCMP with experience some years ago in both protective operations and national security investigations here in the National Capital Region, as well as time spent on secondments at both Public Safety Canada and at the Privy Council Office within the Security Intelligence Secretariat. I’m calling in today. Unfortunately I’ve got a bit of a chest cold. Calling in from the National Capital Region, and I acknowledge being on the traditional homeland of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation. I’ve been asked to pick up on a couple of area of focus today, principally around -- picking up on my comments yesterday at the round table on public protest policing, with particular attention to three areas: how to institute stress testing and multi-day, multi-agency training exercises that support an effective eco system response to public order events and emergencies. Number two, to pick up on -- and it actually picks up nicely on Ryan’s comments a moment ago about how Major Case Management can work to ensure coordination while allowing to address local context. And finally, how the Security Offences Act and the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act operate in practice insofar as police operations and cooperation are concerned. I'll turn first to joint agency exercises. I'll try not to be too repetitive to what I said yesterday, but in my view, it should have been clear yesterday, but I'll be explicit. This type of training, in my judgement, is a critical success factor going forward. And I'll, again, note, Ryan, in his proposed five-point plan. These exercises in the National Capital Region used to be commonplace during the 1990s. Similar ones, of course, were also instituted in advance of events such as the 1997 Apex Conference, G20, and other planned events, but that's a distinction with those in the NCR. These were a standard practice. They were not in preparation for any specific event. These exercises were often two days or so in duration, and they were coordinated at that time by the then Solicitor General Department, now Public Safety Canada. These are not alternatives to other local training or educational efforts, including tabletop exercises, as important as they are. And as we've heard today from Chief Ramer, that often much of that local training can be rather piecemeal in many cases. These exercises typically involve the full range of police agencies in the NCR on both sides of the river, CSIS, Public Safety Canada, PCO, and relevant departments and agencies from the City of Ottawa, City of Gatineau, and the Province of Ontario. In a contemporary context, of course, as I mentioned yesterday, they should also involve Indigenous government representation, as well as the private sector actors. Both of these issues, again, are a matter of record from yesterday. The principal focus on these exercises back when I was involved was largely around the full range of national security issues, and served to stress test all aspects of the enterprise from governance, policymaking, information-sharing, and other protocols, leadership, tactics, and operations. As I mentioned yesterday, assuming that we had national provincial standards in place, supported by appropriate agreements between governments, and as between governments and as between police agencies, it's crucial that these standards and elements of those agreements be stress tested and practiced. Because even the best laid plans typically survive first contact, so this is really around getting around that to ensure the effective application of previous intent. Not only did these improve individual and collective capacities and capabilities, but it really helped iron out kinks in the system, developed a good understanding of agreed-to procedures, improved information flows and responsiveness, nimbleness, and allowed leaders and practitioners from these different agencies to develop closer relationships. Something that's highly important where the rubber hits the ground. As mentioned yesterday, I've learned recently that such in-depth exercises have not been undertaken in the National Capital Region in the manner that I have spoken of for some years. I can't speak to what's happening in other centres across Canada, but it certainly speaks to the NCR. It would seem to me that looking forward, with the realities of start-up limitations, that a training regimen, if it was to be reignited or reinitiated, should first focus on the National Capital Region and then build outwards to other major centres across Canada based on ongoing risk scanning assessments. In the absence of such exercises, the risk that is the formal standards protocols and agreements will fall short when it comes to implementation. So what would be required to initiate such training exercises? I'd obviously defer to legal colleagues, but it strikes me, based on my experience, that initiating such an endeavour should not require legislative or regulatory change. Rather, it would require it in the form of policy decision, supported by a somewhat modest funding envelope to enable Public Safety Canada and/or Emergency Preparedness Canada to consult, develop, and implement appropriate and ongoing sustainable regimen of joint training, and joint learning. A commitment from the agencies and departments to participate in such exercises is also important. Today, certainly within policing with the challenges on finite police resources, it's important that this be seen as something that's important for the collective good and that resources be assigned to these types of exercises. The other area that I should touch on briefly that I didn't touch on yesterday has to do with police/military training, joint training as pertaining to aid the civil powers. This is another opportunity that today, from my understanding, today only a limited number of mid-level and senior police leaders have occasion to undertake jointly with their military counterparts. And the experience I had in that type of joint training with the military was invaluable, again, in understanding their capacities, their capabilities. And logistic superiority in many cases is of tremendous value and probably should be explored. Just closing off on this section. If it was fully implemented I am confident, based on my experience, that such a regimen of ongoing joint learning would serve the security and community safety ecosystem and/or communities well for years to come. I'll turn now to Major Case Management. I was asked to pick up on comments yesterday in terms of the MCM model as an exemplar, I suppose, for lack of a better term. And I think picking up on Ryan's comments a few moments ago, really what he described in his proposed five-point plan really is what Major Case Management model is about. Like public -- like major public order events and emergencies, major criminal investigations are typically complex and multi-faceted. Those investigations often cross multiple jurisdictions, and involve more than one investigative agency, in many cases, many investigative agencies. The stakes are high, the cost of failure of not following proper methods or standards and not respecting evolving jurisprudence can result in breaches of Charter rights, wrongful convictions, and other miscarriages of justice. Major Case Management provides a flexible, yet standardised framework and supporting tools, that enable skillful leadership and structured coordination required of these complex matters. Emphasising accountability in a multi- disciplinary approach, Major Case Management provides sound structures for the investigation, including, importantly, a centralised leadership and coordinating body, similar to Ryan's first point, at the national level as pertaining to the present matter; clear and unambiguous standards; standardised training; and common technologies. It establishes clear lines of responsibility and decision-making. It supports the idea of unified, inter and multi-agency leadership. Rigorous approaches in infrastructure in the case of Ontario, for example, even the technology that's used across police services in Ontario to support Major Case Management is one particular software. I could go on with other benefits or what Major Case Management intended to do, but suffice to say it's the centrepiece of effectively undertaking these types of complex endeavours. The Province of Ontario developed its regulation and corresponding Major Case Management manual, which is administered and maintained by the Solicitor General, in the wake of the Paul Bernardo investigation. British Columbia, in its case, its particular framework, it evolved from the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Note in both of those cases, this was an outside- in directive to policing. And the evidence over, you know, big changes to policing tend to come from the outside, the evidence to that is clear. MCM is a proven technology. National standards that are overseen by an advisory group of senior police experts, and the Canadian Police College's Major Case Management course is the standard for training in Canada. How might a comparable methodology support more effective responses to Public Order Emergencies? Well, I could walk through that -- an adapted list that's based on the Major Case Management mode that I just referred to, but I think it's pretty clear to anyone listening that that transference, and in the spirit of time, I won't go through it, but it's pretty clear to me that there's a really good example there of how this can be done much more effectively. Finally, I'll turn to the Security Offences Act and Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act that I was asked to speak to. The issues here are how relevant aspects of these pieces of legislation operate in practice, and what rules do other police agencies, that being non-RCMP agencies, what roles do they have when these Acts are invoked. Excuse me. The implication under each Act is quite similar, but for the purposes of brevity, I'll speak only to the Security Offences Act. Of course, this Act deals with the enforcement investigation of certain national security related offences as currently set out in section 2 of the CSIS Act. When the SOA is invoked by the Attorney General of Canada on the belief that an offence under the Act has been committed or likely to occur, section 6(1) stipulates that the RCMP will assume lead responsibility for an investigation. Importantly though, subsection 6(2) deals with the practical reality of the conduct of these investigations. In essence, that subsection states that to facilitate consultation and coordination in relation to the undertaking of related duties, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness can enter into agreements with the provincial governments affected. Experience has largely been, in practice, that the RCMP recognized that they cannot successfully undertake these types of investigations on their own. At a minimum, they often lack all forms of local knowledge. But local agencies also, beyond just specific local contextual knowledge, they also bring tremendous value in terms of complementary capabilities and know-how that can be beneficial to the investigation, hence, the greater good. Now in practice, this is part of why the regimental stress testing standards, protocols and such bilateral and multilateral agreements that we spoke about become highly important. The transitioning of leadership in such instances, and I'd suggest here and I think Ryan touched on it as well, whether we're speaking about the implication or the application of the Security Offences Act or the Emergencies Act, these tend to be investigations that evolve, and that transfer of leadership or transference of responsibility and accountability often occur at times when tensions are often already stressed, by virtue -- by the very nature of the incident that's at play, and the overall situ at hand. So these can be awkward at the best of times. Beyond that, personalities and egos, both institutional and individual cannot be discounted. So having arrangements formalized and in place that are tested, exercised earlier as a matter of course can pay huge dividends in terms of that seamless transition. The example -- one example yesterday was in relation to back in 1986, a hostage taking at the Bohemian High Commission in Ottawa. And, of course, this predates these types of exercises, but it really featured two senior police leaders from two of our organizations on the sidewalk engaged in a heated debate over who had jurisdiction. We don't need -- that doesn't endure trust or confidence in policing and something that can be avoided through mechanisms such as have been mentioned. And now finally just would like to come back on a comment yesterday as well. In Quebec, the province of Quebec, of course with its six-level model of policing, has largely overcome these issues. And by -- and it was referred to earlier today I think by Christian Leuprecht, but I recall a conversation with the former chief of the Gatineau police, Mario Harel, and in speaking in this example it was about murder investigations. So if his team is at a murder scene and they're the police of jurisdiction, but once they realize, perhaps because of the amount of drugs, money, weaponry that's there, that this involves organized crime, they no longer have jurisdiction on organized crime investigations. And they are now protecting a crime scene and the Sureté du Quebec become the police of jurisdiction on that investigation. The six-level model in Quebec has been in place for years. It took a bit of time early for this to become normalized within police culture. But today, if I listen to leaders in -- police leaders in Quebec, they like it. They don't have to prepare for events or investigations that are beyond their reasonable capacities based on the size of the police agency, and they can prepare and do very well within the scope of things that they can do. So clear, unambiguous models and protocols have become just part of the way business is done in that regard in Quebec. Thank you for the opportunity to share these views, and, Jocelyn, I look forward to the rest of today's conversation.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Well I suppose, picking up on yesterday’s conversation, it seems to me that in a contemporary context, the private sector and private sector security are an essential and core part of the community safety eco-system, in terms of provision of services. If we think in terms of the spaces that we cover in the course of a day, whether in a mall, private business, property of private businesses, often the first line of security support comes from the private sector. This is well established. The 2014 Council of Canadian Academies Report on 21st century policing spent a lot of time speaking about the eco system of providers, of which they’re a central component. There’s lots written on that. In very practical terms, the private sector bring with them know-how knowledge and legislative tools that the public police typically don’t have. In terms of the legislation, of course, they often bring with them private property owner rights in terms of trespass and other things like that. Secondly, they’re a lower cost provider. So I think the example yesterday, and I won’t go through the math, but if you think of the non-central functions that the police perform, particularly in the Ottawa case, where we had over, at least based on other testimony yesterday, over 100 barricades around the external perimeter of the red zone in Ottawa, and you can imagine the number of police officers manning each of those. And if those were, at least in part, supported by private sector, it not only comes at a lower price point, but it also allows the fully trained, fully sworn, fully equipped police officers to be deployed to greater purpose. So the private sector can be a tremendous asset here. As we saw in the G20, in that case, of course we have three types of events, generally. Those types of events, which allow for months and months of preplanning, and in the case of G20, the private sector was intimately involved at all levels of governance, joint leadership, and in terms of tactics and operations, but that was on the basis of months and months of planning, and as I understand it, an agreement between those private sector groups and the Toronto Police Association. So in the second type, which is more along the lines of what we experienced here in Ottawa, in the events of -- in the absence of having pre-established protocols, et cetera, in place, that in this case, for these purposes, would involve the private sector, there may not, often, be time to establish those sort of protocols when one considers provincial police legislation, Police Services Act, where the adequacy standards often stipulate that what the sworn police will do and that others can do where there’s agreement. So in the type of protest we saw in Ottawa, the limited time, if these aren’t arranged and planned for in advance, they’re unlikely to happen in the course of the third type of incident is those that are unanticipated and don’t allow for planning. So they’re more spontaneous, at least as it pertains to police and other security apparatus. So it’s important, these are two potential barriers that need to be addressed and would form part of that overall approach we’ve spoken extensively about over the last two days around national standards, prearranged agreements, and such. And Judith Sayer’s addressed it nicely in her comments as well, in terms of the time it takes to get these things in place and when time’s short, these are often overlooked, and as we saw, I would propose, in the cases here in the National Capital Region, not engaging the private sector and not having these arrangements in place in advance and tested and exercised, we saw tremendous pressure on finite police resources. And of course, in Canada, my final comment is the private sector security outnumber police in Canada by a considerable factor.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yeah. And perhaps I’m coming at this from a bit different angle, and we seem to be talking, which is important, talking about consultations prior to invoking the Emergencies Act, any of the parts of it. As it pertains to part two specifically, I would like to encourage us to, you know, think about this more upstream from that. In essence, if at the federal -- at the FPT, Indigenous, and municipal levels, there’s intentional proactive measures that support the development of a highly functional and effective national framework that addresses public order protests and emergencies, that is properly executed and properly implemented, it should, in most cases and circumstances, establish conditions that negate the need for governments to even consider invoking the Federal Emergency Act part 2, as it is today. The same we see in Major Case Management, Major Case Management, applied with the kind of order that we see in Ontario and several other provinces, has had a huge impact on the quality of the investigations that are brought forward for prosecution, et cetera. And one needs only to reach out to different Crown prosecutors that are operating in those areas and talking about pre- and post-implementation of Major Case Management and how it’s matured. It’s a significant difference. So I think that proactivity and all of the issues we talked about earlier in terms of national framework could go a long way to preventing or even needing, in many circumstances, taking and considering this. Thank you.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Thank you. Just picking up again on the conversation or the inputs that Ryan and I had with respect to the private sector, private security, principally. And Ontario's new comprehensive Police Services Act yet to come into force lays out in very nice fashion how when the private sector security are engaged, they fall under the umbrella of the Police Services Board, and that the requirements in terms of adequacy standards in that is well established. I don't know, Ryan, if you wanted to pick up on that, because I think there's an important element of local governance here that really applies.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Yes, thank you. There's other examples within community safety realm that issues of information sharing have -- the barriers to information sharing have come up, and one that comes to mind is the risk driven community safety wellbeing interventions in Ontario. They'd be known as situation tables, that pull together, you know, 15 or 16 different agencies from across the public health, criminal justice, and social and human services sectors, to look at individuals at acute and elevated risk. When these first got off the ground in Saskatchewan in about 2010, it was fraught with issues of concerns around information sharing and privacy. But what we found was working with the provinces and with the federal Privacy Commissioner, largely -- these were largely overcomable and appropriate processes put in place in terms of the handling and the control over such exchanges. And I'd also just comment on the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. It too evolved out of concerns with the sharing of information even within the federal realm. So I think a starting point moving forward is to recognize that there are potential inhibitors, but likeminded and thoughtful people, fully respecting privacy legislation, the rights of individuals can find appropriate solutions to break through some of this. Thank you.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
To your question in terms of whether meaningful consultation should involve a very limited and narrow interpretation or more fulsome, I'd reflect back on discussions yesterday afternoon as well as today, and I'd suggest that implementing a national framework such as a few of us have suggested would establish the foundation for trust and understanding across various levels as pertaining to this subject matter, and a common understanding of goals and objectives, et cetera. In other words, setting a foundation for meaningful consultation when events come, such as have been described by Judith, which may be much constrained time frames that allow themselves to allow for appropriate consultation. It strikes me that key stakeholder groups will expect, and should be consulted with, even in the shortest of time frames, but that by instituting and implementing a framework such has been described, and I think the particular five-point model that Ryan suggested is quite appropriate as a starting point, would really lay the foundation for trustful relationships as pertaining to emergencies and public order protests. So when we get to the time where there is a very short order, that sets the foundation for even in a very short order of time that’s available for consultation to be more meaningful.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Great questions.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
First and foremost, and I’d have to take a look at the legislation across jurisdictions across Canada, but just using Ontario’s legislation, it already allows for that. The challenge, as we’ve heard earlier, is -- has to do with time scales. So in the face of the PanAm games is one I mentioned, or the G20/G8, where there was months of planning enabled, the private sector security were engaged because it allowed time to develop and implement those agreements under the appropriate legislation and, as I understand it, together with an agreement with the Toronto Police Association, for example. So the legislation, at least in Ontario, is there. The inhibitors, in my mind, come into play on the two different -- the short order types, the spontaneous issue that arises, or those with very short time scales that allow for appropriate planning. And it’s just a matter of the time it takes to get these in place, or go -- and back to our suggestion in terms of national framework protocols and arrangements that are there in advance so these can be mobilized. In terms of the types of duties that private sector security agents could provide, I’d suggest that they’re - - they fall in a couple of different buckets, but typically they’d all be lower risk to harm endeavours or duties than the public police are prepared, trained, et cetera, to undertake. So manning of barricades, other back office, middle office roles that support front line policing. I mean, today the private sector security is so far advanced from what we typically, or many people often think of, you know, the security guard that’s sitting outside a store monitoring and providing a modicum of security there. They’re very advanced, very well trained, I won’t get into naming different companies, but they bring a lot of capacity at lower cost, and can be a very meaningful complement to the public police with its more finite and high-cost resources.
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Cal Corley, CEO (Community Safety Knowledge Alliance)
Thank you. I apologise, Commissioner. I was just reflecting on the last question asked in terms of some of the specific duties that private security could attend to, and I thought it might be useful to whoever the questioner was to give a bit of a sense of some of those low risk to harm duties, what they might be. And I think they could range from onsite detention processing. So this is something that's common in some jurisdictions in the UK. It allows police officers to be at the frontline, and whether it's taking control and custody of people, either to be taken to hospitals or to detention facilities, that's the role where the private sector can play. Manning barricades has been discussed. Patrolling other parts of a city while the public police are busy with a public emergency. Traffic control, and there I'm speaking about the lower risk ends of traffic control. Crowd control in non-violent aspects of a protest. So we -- there has been discussion, certainly yesterday, in terms of alternative sites where, you know, the -- those with legitimate purposes may wish to go there's an opportunity there to engage the private sector in support of that. Crime scene protection is another very common role that they can take on, as well as supporting the forensic identification side, photography and those types of things onsite. That's not exhaustive, but it gives us a bit of a, you know, a bit of a range of the scope if that helps. Thank you.