Well, yes, that’s a different headline.

I would say to call the local union ahead of time. Call that local union, talk to the health and safety folks, know what you’re going to see and go and learn.

So I’m drawing from various personal experiences. I also was very fortunate growing up. Two of my uncles are now retired police officers and have worked in northern and remote areas in various provinces. One of them was very involved in the Torch Run and connecting police with community. I am glad to have learned a bit from them by osmosis. But also, I grew up in a community that was maybe not typical for many folks in Ontario. I grew up in different places, with my dad’s job. I’m not from Oshawa—but I got there as soon as I could—but small-town Ontario, where it was local police that did bike safety things on the weekend, and that was something that I remember doing. Those are good examples of community policing. I was a little girl who grew up and thought if I got in trouble, I would go to the police.

There are a lot of people in this province who do not feel that way. We as a province and we as lawmakers in this room have a lot of work to do, as we’ve talked about, in how people see the police, how the police interact, the tools that they have or that they don’t have and, I will say, the tools and resources that the police have been asking for, for a long time. Since I was first elected until now, we’ve heard from police about the need for specific training as they are recognizing the need themselves.

I remember talking to—it was actually an interim chief in Durham. We were talking about homelessness. We were talking about the challenges faced by folks in our community, and I remember that—and this is not a direct quote, but the spirit of what he said was: As a lot of people are concerned and complaining about the homeless population that are visible, the interim chief had said that we can move them, like we can have them push their shopping cart down the road, but we cannot house them. We cannot give them what they need. And what they were doing—and now this is me—what the folks are doing in downtown Oshawa that are washing their clothes in the fountain, they’re trying to get by. They don’t have a place to live, right? For the people who are constantly interacting with other law enforcement or community agencies, who are struggling maybe with addictions, often with mental health, often with a combination of both, they don’t have a hope in heck if we don’t care about them. If these are underserved folks, we as a province and you as a government need to be investing in the services that people are clamouring for—transitional housing, affordable housing, just the very basics. We’re talking about food bank use increasing. These are people who have needs, but there’s a lot of desperation that goes with that.

What I was starting to say about having served as the critic for community safety and correctional services, as it was named at the time, it was both my responsibility and my privilege to get to know the local police officers, the local police associations, the provincial police association and to have an understanding. Not everybody gets to hear the ugly side of day in and day out. I want to stand here and make it very clear that I respect and appreciate the work done by uniformed officers, by civilian officers, by those folks who work in policing, whether it’s in the nitty-gritty—I’m going to say—nerdy side of the science and forensics who are doing really neat stuff that maybe we see on TV, or the folks who are going into those hotels and are a kind face in Durham region. We have a coalition which I’ll talk about later supporting those who are victims of human trafficking. The police go in as part of a coalition, and they are working directly with people being trafficked. For those who are getting in the car or walking the beat, we’ve got a lot of struggle in Oshawa as many of our communities do, and I want to thank them for their service and I want to thank them for the work that they do.

Some of what I have heard not too long ago when I have met, as we all do, with our local police associations and with officers, there are a lot of staffing problems. I don’t think anyone in this room doesn’t understand that. There are retention problems. There are a lot of officers that are struggling with PTSD. There are a lot of folks who are not getting what they need to return to work, perhaps in a different role, that were needing a more robust plan with earlier interventions.

When it comes to the officers actually out in the community, they’re getting stuck sometimes in hospitals. That ambulance off-load challenge that we all talk about, we know that we run out of ambulances because there isn’t the staffing, there isn’t the space, there isn’t the support that we need in the hospitals. Well, the police officers are finding the same thing. When they are going to a hospital with someone in their care or with them that they have to stay with until that person has been received or admitted at the hospital, until they can leave, they have to sit there, and it can be hours. That is taking officers off the road, and it’s also a struggle for that individual often dealing with mental health to be sitting in that hallway in public basically, right?

There are better ways of doing things. If the government were really looking at strategies to deal with the mess in hospitals, that’s also a piece of this. I hope that the government is listening to the experience of the front-line officers and pulling out some other pieces and how it connects more broadly, like I said, with health care in that regard.

Something else that we had heard from police in our community—staffing problems in the 911 centre. These are folks that are behind the scenes literally answering the phone when we call in an emergency. It is traumatizing. I have heard that they drive to work and sit in the parking lot and cry because the weight of going into work is too much.

When folks are struggling in all nooks and crannies of law enforcement, how are we supporting them? What is it that that support looks like? We’ve got a lot of the—I’m going to say veterans—experienced police, who have learned a lot along the way, who have seen a lot, more than I can possibly imagine, and they are leaving. They’re taking commuted value and they’re leaving.

So we do recognize that we’ve got to have strategies for recruiting and retaining, but while we recognize that as a priority, we also have to have a really good plan for what that looks like to ensure that the officers coming in have what they need to be successful and have what they need so that the other officers that they’re working with are able to work with them and everyone is safe.

I went back in time because, like I said, this bill just dropped yesterday and, surprise, we’re debating it today and tonight and done tomorrow—quick as they can get it done, let’s get ’er done. I went back to some older reports; like I said, an oldie but a goodie. This is from Police Encounters with People in Crisis. It was a 2014 report, a Judge Iacobucci report recommendation. This was to the Toronto Police Service. I’m going to read just a few of them because when we’re talking about staffing and the recruiting of officers, we’re talking about what police forces need and can look like.

One of the recommendations, recommendation number 7, selection of police officers—this was about recruit attributes. The recommendation is that “the TPS,” the Toronto Police Service, “give preference or significant weight to applicants who have:

“(a) Community service: engaged in significant community service, to demonstrate community-mindedness and the adoption of a community service mentality. Community service with exposure to people in crisis should be valued;

“(b) Mental health involvement: past involvement related to the mental health community, be it direct personal experience with a family member, work in a hospital, community service or other contributions; and

“(c) Higher education: completed a post-secondary university degree or substantially equivalent education.”

At the time, the TPS said that they concur, that they will “continue to actively recruit the best available applicants who have community service, mental health involvement and higher education. Typically, 80% of recruits hired by the service hold post-secondary school education credentials.”

They go on to talk about “specific educational programs that teach skills which enable a compassionate response to people in crisis, such as nursing, social work and programs related to mental illness.” This is what they were recommending in terms of recruiting and selecting police officers.

Also, it says, “Recommendation” that “TPS direct its employment unit to hire classes of new constables that, on the whole, demonstrate diversity of educational background, specialization, skills and life experience, in addition to other metrics of diversity.”

It was interesting actually, Speaker, to look at the Toronto Police Service and their comments on these recommendations. I wanted both sides of it, and they concur. Interestingly, at this time—this is 2014 so, yes, it goes back a bit, and they said:

“Of the 226 recruits hired in 2014, 86.7% have a post-secondary school education, 55.3% speak a language other than English, and 28.8% speak two or more languages other than English. In the January 2015 graduation class, three members held doctorates, one in the field of health science.

“Selection processes now probe for those characteristics through documentation, credentials, references and interviews.”

It’s been an interesting read to look at the recommendations from various reports. I think we know that they all are sort of saying the same thing, that it matters; when a police officer is interfacing with an unknown situation, when they are interfacing with someone struggling with mental health needs, that you want officers to have the training, life experiences they had pointed out, diversity of background and relatability—all of those things are optimal. So if we’re moving towards not having that, I would really encourage this government to make sure that they are investing in training that stays in this area, that looks at mental health training for officers.

But, also, a big part of the recommendations in this report but in others—and again, this was from Police Encounters with People in Crisis. A lot of the recommendations are about supporting the police and their mental health. An officer who responds to four baby deaths in a career—what does that do to someone? And if we are not supporting those officers or if the psychological pieces don’t fit anymore, and that officer is expected to just keep going, and there isn’t that layered support, early intervention all the way along, a check-in, if they are able to be brought back to serve—because that’s a big part of identity for anyone who puts on a uniform. There’s an identity piece there. Is an officer going to—I’m going to be flippant here—put up their hand and say, “I’m not okay,” when it risks their uniform, when it means that they can’t be a police officer anymore? I don’t know.

So working with police and figuring out what it looks like for that officer, who says, “I need support. I need help. I’m not okay, and I am not safe to go out into the community in the state that I’m in”—or, excuse me, to have someone else assess that. Is there a place for them in policing, and what could that look like? These are things that we hear from the front lines, we hear from police. Nobody in the community wants an officer who is unwell to show up at an emergency.

Speaker, I am going to take a moment in this last second to say that I have here the Durham region’s human trafficking model. I’ve shared this almost entirely in this House before. I’m on the record about human trafficking, and I’m very pleased that I participated in a ride-along with members from the human trafficking coalition as well as the human trafficking division, the officers in Durham region. It’s really a remarkable strategy that they’re implementing. It really is a remarkable set-up in terms of that collaborative approach.

I went on a ride-along with the officers. I got to see behind the ugly, ugly, ugly scenes of human trafficking, to some extent. I got to go into a situation with a worker from a women’s shelter who works together with police. I got to go in with Karly Church, who is just a tremendous resource in this province. She’s a human trafficking crisis intervention counsellor. I think she is, if not the first, one of the originals to really have a huge impact. And we—it was together with the police, but we supported that survivor in a way that made them not only feel safe but has increased the number of times that a human trafficking victim will testify or will give information, because it is working with community agencies that support them.

So, in this bill, it deals with the judiciary in schedule 3. Much of what we have heard is that judges and folks in the judicial system are slow to understand this. When it was first new, it was a mess, and it continues to need work. I’m glad to see that there is specific training that will continue to be developed for those folks, and there’s of course work to be done.

I am pleased to rise in support of this bill, Bill 102, Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act, 2023, on behalf of the residents of Barrie–Innisfil. Over the course of the past few months, the issue of law and order and justice has been a primary focus of the residents of Barrie–Innisfil, and they have told me time and time again it didn’t require striking any sort of round table or consultation, but simply taking their phone calls, listening to their emails. And now this bill is wholeheartedly supporting much of their concerns.

It builds on previous actions of our government, and that is to let the residents of Barrie–Innisfil and all Ontarians know that this government has their backs. We will ensure that they are safe. We will have the backs of those law enforcement officers, whether they’re the Barrie Police, South Simcoe police, OPP officers or police officers throughout this province so that we’re all safe and sound. And those officers who are out and have boots on the ground, they know they have the tools, they have the resources and the next generation of recruits to help them do their jobs.

Speaker, it’s no clearer than the statistics that are in front of us today. That is, in Ontario alone, we’ve seen an increase in serious violent crime and reoffending, especially when it comes to bail compliance. We have an increase in crime of about 9%; violent crime, 20%; the firearm use rate has increased by 129%. Speaker, now more than ever, we do need more boots on the ground. Part of this government’s groundbreaking initiative was to encourage more people to join the police forces by not having them have to have the requirement of post-secondary education.

I spoke to a local police officer in Barrie about this. In fact, he serves on the York Regional Police force. His name is Gary Harvey. He’s also a local Barrie councillor so he understands the full scope of community safety, both working in the heart of it but also being a public servant in many regards. This is a good example of people who really put duty above self, whether it’s serving our council or serving on police forces. He said this is going to provide equal opportunity to so many Ontarians who want to either serve their community or serve their province and be a police officer, but they can’t afford the tuition. So now that door is open for them to serve and do it well.

We have so many examples. I know, growing up, my next-door neighbour, Andy Atkinson rose through the ranks of being a York Regional Police officer, and he didn’t need to go to university or college for policing. He grew through the ranks and ended up being a homicide detective and did really well, and now he’s retired. I really want to thank Andy for all his work. But it’s people like that who we really need to count on to keep us safe. It’s people like our police chiefs and our deputy police chiefs—and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that tonight, as we are debating this bill, the South Simcoe police force is celebrating and swearing in their new deputy police chief today. She has 34 years of policing experience in her career, and that is Inspector Sutton. Congratulations, Inspector Sutton, for your great leadership. She has been a mentor in various roles. She really rose through the ranks as well. In 2021, she was an inspector and she has served in various different divisions, including patrol operations, support services, investigative services divisions.

Speaker, she is really breaking glass ceilings here. Inspector Sutton is the first female officer to join the emergency response unit, also known as ERU. In addition, she worked in the criminal investigations bureau as a sexual assault and child abuse investigator. She is also the first female to hold the rank of inspector at the service. She is a graduate of the Georgian College law and security administration program at the Barrie campus.

Congratulations, Inspector Sutton. We really appreciate you dedicating your career to the South Simcoe police. You, of course, started your policing career in Toronto back in 1988, and now we’re so grateful to have you in Innisfil as deputy chief to our great chief at South Simcoe police. Congratulations.

Speaker, in Barrie–Innisfil we’re very lucky to be surrounded by so many great individuals who dedicate their time to policing. Again, just two notes that I want to make as we also have new police chiefs coming in. We were able to commemorate and celebrate Police Chief Van Dyke who is now the new South Simcoe police chief, and I want to thank him for answering the call of duty. He served as the incoming chief during a very difficult time in the community of Innisfil when we lost Constable Morgan Russell and we lost Constable Devon Northrup—very dedicated police officers—in the line of duty. I want to thank Police Chief Van Dyke for really providing strong leadership during a very difficult time for the whole community, the whole police force. Again, I want to thank you for dedicating so many years of your service to policing and now stepping up to the plate as police chief.

Likewise in the community of Barrie, we also have a new police chief as well, Chief Rich Johnston. I want to welcome him and thank him for everything that he is doing in Barrie to keep our community safe as well and thank him for all his service and for answering the call of duty for the residents of Barrie.

If you look at local newspaper articles these days and over the past few months—and I was talking about things that residents have talked to me about. The most striking is when you hear back-to-back stories of something like, “Police Arrest Suspect After Vehicle ‘Taken at Knifepoint.’” This happened just a few days ago: “A 31-year-old man is in custody after the Barrie police responded to a report of a carjacking on Monday morning.” They were able to apprehend the individual and the car that was stolen. They were lucky at that point, considering what was involved in terms of a violent instrument.

But then again, we had, just in the summer, a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old who are now charged after attempting a carjacking and a shooting in Barrie. So crime is on the rise, and we definitely need more boots on the ground, and we need more of those officers who answer the call of duty to be able to go to these particular scenes. I’m grateful that we have our great police forces locally that are able to do that, but they need our government and they need a responsible government who is willing to step up to the plate to give the tools to do that.

In this legislation, we talk about many things, some of it being things like technology that’s going to help our investigators do things that they need. In fact, this came up a few months ago and also a few days ago, when, despite a search involving a police drone and a canine unit, investigators said that the suspect had fled, and in the case of my local area, the Barrie police said they were able to identify a suspect following a brief investigation by the service’s criminal investigation division, and they were able to use the technology of a drone, but this is again more resources, more boots on the ground and a government that understands that obviously things are advancing. We’ve been able to help police like the Barrie police through different grants through our government so that they are able to buy that particular technology to help with their forces.

It’s stuff like updating our facilities. We talked about justice centres, which are also part of this bill, that are coming across this province, but it complements some of the resources that we already have. In Barrie, we’re very lucky we have a really nice facility where people are able to give their disclosure, where feel a bit more safe, and so that victim doesn’t have to be re-traumatized because they’re in a more sound and respectful setting. That’s another good example for us locally.

And, of course, the mental health supports that are needed: We saw when, unfortunately, South Simcoe police did answer the call that of course ended tragically. The individual involved in that particular case, in that call in Alcona, did have a history of mental health issues. So, in that circumstance, if the police officer had a mental health worker with them, could things have been different? We don’t know. But in this legislation, we are obviously aware of that and the mental health supports that are needed with our policing and how it will help them.

But it’s not only just the resources for policing to make sure all Ontarians feel that they’re safe and know that they are safe because the resources are there, the legislation is there to back them up, and we continue with the recruiting, it’s also thinking of the other side, and that’s the judicial side of the equation. So this bill marries those two very well.

I remember talking to Josephine Fernicola about her issue of being a victim of domestic violence. She’s very grateful to see that Keira’s Law, which was a motion passed by the member from Oakville, is also codified in this bill. So I want to thank the member from Oakville North–Burlington for her work on Keira’s Law, which is built into this bill, which will help many advocates like Josephine. Josephine has become a big advocate because in her personal life, this is something that she experienced.

She sent me her personal statement, and I just wanted to read a few excerpts from it. I met Josephine—actually, I was selling poppies at the local No Frills in Innisfil—and she and her children were selling candies for their local Brownies chapter. At the time, I would have never known she was exposed to domestic violence, and she was going through difficult times. But I saw her a little bit after that, and she came up to me and explained to me what had happened, everything she’s been through and how great the help was from the women’s and children’s shelter in Barrie and how great the resources were to her. But her journey really started back in 2016, when she made a life-changing decision to end a very abusive marriage.

She said to me in her statement that after being together for 12 years and married for nine, she knew she and her five children desperately needed help. She had quite the journey. She said in her statement, “The sad reality is that once you leave, the court system allows the manipulation, control and fear to continue. I was dragged through the court system, leaving me completely depleted ... financially and emotionally.”

Speaker, she ends her statement by saying finally, “On April 19, 2023, ‘Kiera’s Law’ was passed in Ontario. This means that judges will receive education on domestic violence and coercive control in intimate partner and family relationships. Women who have experienced our court system know that changes like these are long overdue.”

Again, Speaker, you see that our government is—as we’re often talking to many Ontarians, many in our community, we have legislation that we’re debating and introducing every day in this Legislature that responds to the needs of everyday Ontarians like Josephine, whose daughter now has a really bright future in front of her, and she has a very strong mom, who was very brave to share her story, to stand up. And now she’s a huge local advocate. She goes to the flag-raisings to raise awareness about intimate partner violence and, of course, on femicide, which one of my colleagues had spoken about earlier today.

I want to go back to thanking the member from Oakville North–Burlington, because it all started thanks to her motion, which was adopted in this particular bill, so I want to thank her for those efforts and her work on that particular issue.

Speaker, it’s not just Josephine. We’ve seen a lot of groups in Barrie, like OAITH, which has done a lot of work with women fleeing these particular situations. For them to see that this is now a law is a huge game-changer, so I definitely want to thank all the advocates for everything they’ve done on this part.

Speaker, this bill touches on a lot of different areas. I’ve only touched on some of them, and certainly there’s more to go over, but I think it comes down to one fundamental point, and that is that we need to use every tool we can as a government to tell Ontarians that we are amending the necessary laws or acts or adding to things that we need to create a stronger and safer community for everyone, whether it’s the great grants that our Solicitor General is sending out to communities, whether it’s faith-based communities—I know a lot of our faith-based communities in Barrie–Innisfil are really grateful to the Solicitor General because they were beneficiaries of those grants, to be able to strengthen up the security efforts. For example, our Chabad in Barrie is very grateful; it’s a growing Jewish community and, of course, they’re very thankful to the minister for this particular grant.

There’s a lot to say about this particular bill, and I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that our community in Barrie–Innisfil has been through quite a lot. I talked about Constable Russell and Constable Northrup. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Constable Greg Pierzchala, who was 28. He also grew up in Barrie; he ended up serving in Haldimand county and worked for the OPP there. He was 28 years old, on his first day of service, and unfortunately the first call he received did not go according to anyone’s plan on the first day of the job. Unfortunately, he was going out in the good service of his heart. He saw a car that was pulled over on the side of the road and, unfortunately, the folks who were near that vehicle had ulterior motives; one of them was out on bail for serious offences, and they killed the constable. Many of us attended that particular funeral, and that’s one life too many lost because of that particular failure in the system.

Again, part of this bill is building on the previous work that our government has done calling on the federal government to strengthen the bail system to stop that revolving door of criminals going out and being able to reoffend and, of course, harm constables like we had with Constable Greg Pierzchala, who obviously died at a very young age and spent his whole young career living up to that moment, whether it was serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, whether it was being a member of the Simcoe-Grey foresters, which is a local regiment in Barrie, in Simcoe county—his dream was to be a police officer, and that dream was cut short. It could have definitely been prevented if we had a strengthened bail system, so one loud and clear message that our government has and I have, too, for the residents of Barrie–Innisfil is, they know that this government stood up very strongly, not only through our own motions in this Legislature—we called for stronger bail provisions—but also talking to our federal counterparts saying that enough is enough, and this revolving door needs to stop. We’re hearing in our area various strong examples of why that needs to happen.

And so, this government doesn’t take those types of issues lightly, which is why we have the bill before us: To do everything we can, not only to strengthen our policing system and recruit more people into the profession, but also simultaneously strengthen our justice system, as well, at the same time.

Speaker, I think that’s a good example of how this government can do many things at once to help the people of Ontario. We can both help them with the ongoing cost of living, and at the same time the rate of crime that is happening on our streets. I think it’s clear to everyone that everyone wants to be able to come home knowing that they have a safe community to live in, whether they’re walking to get their groceries or taking their kids to soccer practice. Everyone deserves to be in a safe community, but that can’t happen without the actual boots on the ground, so I want to commend the leadership of our Premier and, of course, our Solicitor General and our Attorney General for the fact that they had the foresight to make the recent changes that they did, to give more people the opportunity to pursue a great career in policing.

I’ve met a lot of individuals who’ve gone through Georgian College, and they really enjoyed the different police foundations courses which led them to their policing, but of course there are others who would love to enter the profession and have a real passion for it, real community advocates who are out there doing numerous initiatives, but simply maybe—that particular tuition threshold can be sometimes up to $15,000 or more, and they can’t, of course, meet that requirement. Now that will bring a lot of people who have that passion for policing, which will strengthen our communities and make our communities better, because we’ll be having people who serve and answer the call of duty, who are passionate for what they do every single day.

Many of us could just turn to police officers we know in our community. I was chatting with the Barrie Police team, and the fact of how they work in every part of the community to be able to help—they’re not just there to always be the enforcers; they’re also there to be community champions. They’re there whether it’s Kempenfest during the summer months or whether it’s in schools to inspire the next generation of police officers. They’re always out there in the community, not only providing that cover of safety, but also that inspiration for individuals who want to go into, again, the call of duty for their community.

The programming these days is just incredible. With Barrie Police, of course, there’s a lot of focus on mental health, a lot of focus on how they can help with gender-specific violence. They’ve even changed their community service vehicle, so that it’s more inviting and more pleasant. I know when some people drive by Barrie, they’ll see this bright blue and bright green coloured vehicle and they’ll say, “Oh, that’s an eyesore,” but it did its job. It got people’s attention, and when that’s out in the community, they know that the police presence is there and they can go up and talk to police officers. It’s a little more inviting.

And so I want to thank Chief Johnston, because I know we had a discussion about this very recently, and he and his team who obviously came up with that campaign. I’m really excited for everything they have planned this summer in terms of their community involvement, and want to thank them for continuously pushing the envelope in terms of what they’re doing in the community. Not only are they answering these calls when we have serious things like a takedown for an auto theft—which was incredible; I want to thank the officers involved in that—but also being out in the community, going above and beyond the call of duty.

With that, Speaker, I’ll just wrap up my remarks with a quote from Peter Leon on this particular bill. He’s a corporate communications officer with the Barrie Police, and he says, “This bill will provide professional policing in Ontario the resources and the ability to keep our communities safe for years to come and for people considering a career in policing, the opportunity to work in a rewarding, honourable profession that puts community first while assisting and helping those who are victims of crime or in the need of assistance.”