Police deal with myriad crimes resulting from the drug trade from trafficking to property
crimes to pay for drug use and responding to overdose and death.
While you might expect that to harden their views and incline them to crack down further that
doesn't seem to be the case.
With us for more in Vancouver, British Columbia deputy chief Fiona Wilson of the Vancouver
police department and in, Waterloo Ontario chief Bryan Larkin head of Waterloo regional
police services and president of the Canadian association of chiefs of police and we are
really grateful to both of the you for joining us on TVO tonight.
I want to start by way of background by put thing this on the record.
In July of 2020 the Canadian association of chiefs of police called on federal law makers to
decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs and here is what they said in
the report.
We must adopt new and innovative approaches if we are going to disrupt the current trend of
drug overdoses impacting communities across Canada.
Merely arresting individuals for simple possession of illicit drugs has proven to be
ineffective.
Research from other countries who have boldly chosen to take a help rather than an enforcement
based approach to drug use have demonstrated positive results.
Let's get into this.
Deputy chief Wilson was there a particular in your case experience or a moment in your
career that changed your mind about the approach to take on this issue?
>> That's a great question.
I would stay that probably the most impactful experience I had in relation to coming to a place
where the VPD and certainly I support the decriminalization of small amounts of personal
possession was my time working in the Downtown East Side.
I did three tours of duty down there and it was really tragic to see the way that we would
have nonaddictled traffickers coming into the Downtown East Side and using addicted members
of that community to sell drugs to protect themselves from any kind of criminal sanctions.
And that's just one small example of many that really highlighted the fact for me over
many, many years ago that we really needed to do things in a different way.
>> Steve: Chief Larkin, how about you?
>> Definitely over the course of 30 years naturally through wisdom and experience you really
look at lenses from a different perspective.
Steve, when you look at the actual challenges we are facing the culture and the evolution of
drugs has changed in Canada.
What we have been doing traditionally has not worked and so as I progress through the
levels of policing and ultimately you know get to being with chief of police you
recognize that our traditional methods our judicial system our correctional system even our own
systems are not set up in fact they set the individual up and you get to know these
individuals you know.
In Waterloo you know a mid-sized community now a large community you got to know many of the
different individuals and if you apply an empathetic and understand that everybody has a
story to tell it starts to change your outlook on addiction but we are trained and we are
actually really need to unlearn that drug use and addiction is so stigmatized in Canada.
So stigmatized in our culture and within our policing profession and I think what we
are calling on is to changed approach a modernized approach.
>> Steve: Chief Wilson, how would you characterize the impact that criminalization that
that approach has had on drug users in your community?
>> Well, chief Larkin makes a great point working in the Downtown East Side you get to
know people and learn about their backgrounds and their stories and what has brought
them there and you know you can't ignore the fact that what we have historically been doing
hasn't worked.
We have seen record number of drug overdoses in our province and [indiscernible] Vancouver
and in 2021 we are set to eclipse the high numbers we experienced letter.
We will have over 500 overdose deaths in the City of Vancouver in 2021 alone and over 2,000 in
the province.
So we really do need to look at a different way of doing business.
And to try and take a compassionate, health approach to assisting people who have
addiction needs.
>> Steve: Chief Larkin, I expect you note chief of police in Kingston, McNeely, who said
cops are hard wired basically to see drug use in a certain way and it's quoted it's a mandatory
change for the front line and the rest of us as well.
>>> How in your judgment do police officers make that hard turn they have been taught to
see things one way and now maybe they are coming to the real station that things are really
another way?
>> A lot of the calls for change around decriminalization are coming from within policing.
Yes, the chiefs of police will be looking at it from a different perspective with a
different lens but I know the organization I lead our community engagement teams are
the ones that are actually challenge to go say we need to do this differently.
Our judicial system, our drug courts are not set up.
Our mental health courts are not funded appropriately to manage and change.
We saw officers want to make change.
They want to make difference.
They want to solve complex issues.
When you are seeing the same individual in this vicious cycle and the challenge, Steve, is the
social disparity is once somebody gets into the correctional system they find
themselves in this cycle and so when they get arrested again for small amounts they maybe have
breached a term so they automatically end up in a show cause or bail hearing
perspective and then we set terms of release that really set up the individual for fail Ure.
I think internally our members are saying we can do better and that's what's driving the policy
change.
Yes, there will be some demographics because our work force.
This is a polarizing and in our communities it's a polarizing issue because we have been
taught-- I am of the era of say no to drug campaign.
You know.
I am dating myself a little bit.
But that was the reality.
That's what we learned.
It takes this opportunity to unlearn some of those perceptions those biases and
quite frankly the stigmatization of it.
>> Steve: You don't look old enough to remember Nancy Regan's just say no to drugs.
Are you really?
>> I am.
Thank you for the kind comment.
I am actually you know that's the era that I grew up in.
Quite frankly to your point when I came into policing I very much had that process that you know
those that use drugs were criminals.
Those that had an addiction issue it was a choice.
Why can't they stop.
I had all of those actual beliefs and deputy chief Wilson's point we have not
solved it in over 150 years.
We have been using the same approach.
Where other countries have advanced and modernized Canada if we pause for a moment in the
last five years, 18,000 Canadians have lost their lifes due to addiction.
18,000.
How is that even acceptable?
I don't want to minimize other deaths as related whether it be traffic collision, homicides.
But would we be having the same dialogue the calls for action and the calls to change be
different.
I cannot accept as a community leader and as a police leader that we continue to see the
amount of deaths in our communities across the coast and this is addiction doesn't
discriminate.
This is happening from Vancouver right through to Halifax right into our northern communities
and I think we can do better as a nation and I think our communities deserve better from
all of us hence why as a police leader I am pushing for change because I have a voice where I
think we can push for change, Steve.
>> Steve: Let's go back to Vancouver and see how things are happening on the ground there.
Deputy chief Wilson, if illicit drugs were more illicit drugs were decriminalized in Canada do
you think going forward the police would simply leave those folks alone?
>> So the reality is in Vancouver we have found ourselves in a place where we
have de facto decriminalization of small amounts of simple possession.
We actually in 2020 only charged five individuals in relation to simple possession of illicit
drugs.
So for many, many years we have been in a position where we really haven't been charging
people On a large scale for simple possession.
So I think for us here on the West Coast it's quite easy for us to imagine legislation that
would support essentially what we are already doing.
>>> There is some debate about whether or not decriminalization of simple possession was
legislated whether or not police would continue to seize drugs when they come across someone
who has a small amount.
In Vancouver I can say we don't do.
That we don't want to drive people back to committing crime or worse women engaging in sex
work to support their addiction.
We want to direct them to pathways of health and that's a really, really important piece
of this is that we would like to see police moving out of this phase and help stepping with up
more resources to support people in need.
>> Steve: Out of curiosity you've clearly made the decision that you are not going to be
harassing people who have small amounts of illicit drugs on them but you did say you laid five
charges.
Out of curiosity what would those five have had to do differently from everybody else
to warrant being charged?
>> So great question.
In those circumstances there would have been extenuating stay, led to those arrests.
For example if our drug unit was trying to build their grounds to apply for a judicial
authorization to enter a home that they believed was trafficking large amounts of
drugs in order to build those grounds they may take somebody from the home who is in small
possession of drugs from that home and charge them for the purposes of building grounds to
support that application.
>>> Another example may be extreme circumstances where we come across an individual whose
clearly being exploited and really does need to get into some resources and needs some
help like for example through the drug treatment court.
We go to 700 calls a day in the City of Vancouver and in 2020 we only charged five individuals
you can imagine how rare that circumstance actually is.
>> Steve: Right.
>>> Chief Larkin, the association of chiefs of police have put out their statement
saying they want to take a more health oriented as opposed to a criminalization approach to this
issue.
I wonder then whether the police and I don't know I am asking you whether the police even ought to
have a role in this anymore at all?
Should we be sending addiction counsellors, social workers instead of police to deal with
these issues going forward?
>> I think that's an excellent piece.
How do we actually when you look at the challenges of policing are facing you look at the call
demand, the complexity of crime, you look at the crime severity index slowly increasing across
the nation, Steve, clearly we need to do business differently.
All police support transformation and reformation in change.
In many communities outreach workers are imbedded and working very closely with the police,
City of Edmonton has outreach workers.
In Waterloo we have outreach workers who are often the first actual response in the City of
Vancouver they don't necessarily respond to overdoses where in Ontario police services are
still responding to overdoses and I think that's a conversation we want to have.
The Canadian chiefs are calling upon safety Canada, the ministry of health and the attorney
general to continue the work of the task force to actually engage in dialogue so what does
it look like how do we create it.
One of the challenges that this is not the magic wand to solving addiction it's not the magic
wand that will get us out of some of the challenges we are facing as a nation, it may work
in Vancouver, Toronto or Waterloo will not work in Iqaluit.
Will not necessarily work perhaps in Newfoundland or in other parts of our country.
We need to take a balanced regional approach to implementation of
decriminalization which may include investment in outreach, in development addiction
workers.
We have still believe snow, reality that police services should be off ramping this work
and getting the citizens the help they require.
Addiction is a health issue.
It's not a criminal issue.
Even if you look at some of the lower threshholds crimes shoplifting theft from vehicles
break and enters, even robberies these are individuals who necessarily it's poor judgment,
bad judgment.
Doesn't mean they are a bad person.
They actually may be committing that crime to sustain a drug or addiction issue or to feed their
family.
The Canadian chiefs we estimate it takes $120 a day, $120 a day for that individual that relies
and has an addiction challenge to make it through the day.
That's how they thrive.
And so if we can go to a safe supply model, if we can go to a medical model, if we can go to
an actual health model think of a larger impact on community safety on crimes severity on the
nuisance crimes.
The neighbourhoods that get disrupted.
I think we need a larger dialogue and discussion and that's where we are challenging
the Canadian chiefs are challenging all levels of government because it will take
the municipal, it will take provincial and it will take federal governments to work in
unison, it will take public health and social services and police services to all work in
unison.
Now is not the time for division.
Now is not the time for arguing who leads and who leads when.
It's actually about thinking about the 18,000 citizens.
They have family members.
Their loved ones who are no longer with us and it doesn't discriminate, Steve.
We need a quicker call to action.
We have seen this.
This really started five or six years ago.
I think what has changed the dialogue on addiction was the impact of fentanyl and opiate
use and we saw a transition from western Canada right across our country towards it obviously
started in British Columbia where they were dealing with it for probably a year before it
really morphed into western Canada into central Canada, Ontario, Quebec and now into
eastern Canada.
This is a nation-wide issue that is not discriminating against any community.
>> Steve: That leads to my final question for deputy chief Wilson which is do you think we
need in this country a legally regulated safe supply in Canada for drug users?
>> Absolutely.
There is no question that safe supply would alleviate many of the concerns around the overdose
deaths that are happening and I truly believe that safe supply is a very large part of the
answer.
It is not the only answer to this crisis.
We really do need to invest in resources in our communities for people to get help when they
need it and when they want it.
One of the things I learned interacting with people who had extreme addiction issues is that
when they are ready to get clean that window is often only open for a very short period of time
and we really do need treatment on demand in those circumstances so that when people are ready
there is a place for them to go that is safe and medically based but certainly safe supply is a
piece of the puzzle I believe that will help us to reduce the number of kets that we are
seeing these days.
>> Steve: This has been a fascinating conversation because I suspect if we had a 10 or 20
years ago whoever had your jobs will be giving very different answers but it's an indication
of how much the ground has changed under our feet on this issue.
Our thanks to deputy chief Fiona Wilson from Vancouver and chief Bryan Larkin from Waterloo for
appearing on the Agenda sharing your views. Many thanks.
>> Thanks so much, Steve.