Law360 Canada (March 16, 2023, 2:44 PM EDT) --

John L. Hill

A report published March 15, 2023, in Law 360 Canada describes initiatives in British Columbia and Alberta to change the way policing is done in those provinces.

Alberta will be the first province in Canada to mandate body-worn cameras for police according to Alberta’s Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis. The measure is a move to increase “trust, oversight and accountability” and to build trust between the police and the community being served. There was no figure given for the cost of providing and monitoring the new equipment. However, the aim is to strengthen public safety by documenting the behaviour of police in public.

British Columbia is introducing an initiative to achieve safer communities. The province will be spending $25 million over three years in establishing teams of prosecutors, correctional officials and probation officers to have more intense supervision of repeat violent offenders. There is no doubt that giving released offenders greater supervision on probation or parole will result in many being returned to jail and the public being given the illusion that the provincial government is beefing up the resources to ensure public safety.

The proposals, everyone can be assured, will be costly. Is there a crisis in confidence that we are being left at the mercy of violent criminals without such pricey interventions? Statistics Canada reports that Canadians are not distrustful of the protection being given by our various police forces. A 2019 survey showed that nine in 10 Canadians had a great deal or some confidence in the police. More than four in 10 reported having a great deal of confidence in the police (41 per cent) while almost half said they had some confidence in the police. Only seven per cent held not very much confidence in police. The percentages were fairly constant in each province.

It appears that providing costly upgrades to policing has no political downside. In a 2021 report by Ontario provincial auditor Bonnie Lysyk, the auditor reported that for Ontario Provincial Police, there were substantial cost increases when police unions were promised parity with other first responders for PTSD claims prior to the last provincial election. Workplace Safety and Insurance Board claims by OPP led to $42.7 million in costs and 11,037 days of leave in 2020. The understaffing led to millions of dollars in increased overtime costs.

Public safety, despite rising costs, remains a sure-win mantra for politicians. The Ontario County of Northumberland saw the backlash when two county councillors moved to investigate if policing costs could be reduced by amalgamating municipally-funded services into a county-wide force. The chair of Cobourg Police Service Board and the Cobourg police chief sent an open letter to Cobourg Town Council berating the mayor for seconding the review motion at county council. It’s not politically popular to look to reduce services but politicians seeking to increase policing costs are rarely criticized.

Perhaps the Alberta initiative will ease that province’s perception that brutal attacks are not being taken against its citizens such as those televised images from the United States of beatings shown to have happened there. But are the solutions proposed ones for a problem that does not exist? Are Albertans being viciously attacked by police? Will the British Columbia enhanced scrutiny just force released offenders to return to crime if they cannot get a job largely because Big Brother continues his close examination? Will increased incarceration rates prove that the new system is working?

“Get Tough on Crime” is the sure-fire way to get re-elected. After all, nobody ever asks “At what cost?”

John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a J.D. from Queen’s and LL.M. in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books), which was published Sept. 1. Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law 360Canada, LexisNexis Canada, or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice. 

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