I’m pleased to join in debate on Bill 102.

Supporting education of judges and justices of the peace: The Courts of Justice Act and the Justices of the Peace Act—these amendments would support judicial education related to gender-based violence for provincially appointed judges and justices of the peace. I think we would all agree that professionals in our legal system must be trained to understand all of the signs of abuse, including coercive control, because we know that abuse can be more than physical or sexual. Coercive control is part of the definition of family violence contained in both the federal Divorce Act and in the update our government made to the Children’s Law Reform Act in 2020.

Speaker, I need to interrupt my presentation, because I forgot to say that I’m going to share my time with the member from Mississauga–Erin Mills.

To the aspect that I just referred to in terms of the Children’s Law Reform Act in 2020—the member from Oakville North–Burlington introduced the Keira’s Law motion in the Legislature, aimed at protecting children, supporting women who are fleeing abusive relationships, and those who are victims of intimate partner violence and coercive control.

In courts in Canada and other countries, one of the strategies used by abusers is victimizing themselves or suggesting parental alienation. This is a tactic used by abusers whose interest is not in the best interests of the child or the ex-spouse, but in control. We must ensure that decision-making professionals in our Family Court system receive education and training about intimate partner violence, including emotional violence and coercive control.

The proposed changes to the Courts of Justice Act and Justices of the Peace Act would, if passed, ensure a consistent approach to the way judges are educated about gender-based violence and its impacts on children, families and communities.

For this government, nothing is more important than our community safety, and we understand that our police services across our province are the front line that keep Ontario safe.

I recently met with the president of the Durham Regional Police Association and reminded him that we have the backs of everyone who keeps us safe today and every day, and we will do absolutely everything we need to do to help keep the region of Durham and other parts of Ontario safe. In turn, the membership of that association is supportive of this government as champions of community safety. They’ll continue to work with me and our government on changes that mean the most to those members of the Durham Regional Police Association.

To support recruitment efforts at a time when local police officers have signalled challenges in doing so, Bill 102, if passed, would eliminate the post-secondary education requirement to become a police officer, as set out in the Community Safety and Policing Act, the CSPA. If passed, the act would amend the CSPA to provide that a secondary school diploma or equivalent is sufficient education for the purposes of being appointed as a police officer.

Many of us here in the Legislature will be familiar with Jon Reid. Mr. Reid is president of the Toronto Police Association. Mr. Reid had this to say about the proposed legislation:

“The Toronto Police Association welcomes the Ford government’s investment in community safety and policing.

“The public has lived with the consequences of an inadequate bail system for far too long, and resources recently announced mean our members will be able to refocus their efforts on proactively monitoring violent offenders who wreak havoc on our sense of safety.

“We have long advocated for this support, and we will continue to work with the provincial government on the changes that will keep our communities and our members safe.”

He went on to say that the announcement by the Ford government is another positive show of support for police officers in Toronto and across the province—standing with those men and women who keep our families safe.

“Everywhere, police services are struggling to hire police officers. Whether it’s the years of anti-police rhetoric, the impact of the COVID pandemic or the recent increase in violence against police officers, we’re not getting the numbers we need.”

There is safety in numbers, and we know that a well-resourced police service, like the Durham Regional Police Service, improves public safety and enhances our ability to build positive community relationships.

Speaker, the government is taking action to keep Ontario safe today, tomorrow and for future generations—like my granddaughters, Annette and Sophia. This past weekend, they both walked with me in the Brooklin Spring Fair, but before we went to the fair, I spoke a little bit about what I was planning to do here at the Ontario Legislature. I spoke about this particular bill and why I saw this bill as generational, and the impacts it will have in the months ahead but also in the years ahead, going forward. They’re now 11 and 13, and they understand the impacts in their community. They live in Bowmanville, just east of where I live in Whitby. They understand the impacts of this bill—they understand keeping their community safe also.

At the end of the day, we’re providing those at the forefront of community safety with the legislative and administrative supports they need to deliver the highest-quality services to the province overall.

I quoted Mr. Jon Reid, president of the Toronto Police Association, but we also have a quote from John Cerasuolo, president of the Ontario Provincial Police Association: “The grants will provide the necessary financial resources to support active engagement and monitoring of bail compliance. The ability of police services to utilize these financial resources will be limited by an ongoing staffing shortage and competing organizational priorities. The efficacy of this initiative will be tracked with a view to providing long-term, stable funding to engage in this important program that will enhance public safety, officer safety and confidence in the criminal justice system.”

Going forward, we do have the support of many policing associations, including mine in the Durham region.

Speaker, through you, I’ll now cede my time to the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills.

We don’t have time for further questions.

Further debate?

I really am very delighted to discuss and support this bill. Why are we looking to the Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act? Because we have some issues; we need to address them.

The problem is, crime is on the rise. Since 2014, crime rates in Ontario have risen by 9%. Violent crime rates have risen by 20%. According to data from Peel police, this May there were 304 reported cases of vehicle theft in Mississauga. On average, there have been 12 vehicle thefts per day in Mississauga this year. Less than 2% of those have been solved.

Violence against workers doing their job is on the rise: public transit—we see what’s going on with the TTC—nurses, some violence in hospitals, pharmacy robberies. Every day, I get one of the pharmacists calling me in regard to a pharmacy robbery.

Police officers we lose—I think this is the highest rate maybe in decades, maybe ever; I’m not sure. I don’t have any other statistics—older ones to compare. On average, we are losing one officer almost every month. This is a very high rate of violence. Over the past year, we have seen a tragic number of police officers die in the line of duty.

Violence in schools is on the rise. Schools should be a place for learning and community, not violence. The Minister of Education announced in April that the government is investing $24 million to reduce the risk of violence and promote the safety of students and educators.

We did a motion calling for the federal government to implement bail reform. Earlier this year, the House passed an address calling on the federal government to implement meaningful bail reform. Finally, the government agreed, this May, to start the process of bail reform. We must continue working with the federal government to ensure repeat violent offenders stay off the streets.

This bill will allow meaningful changes to address Ontario’s crime problem. We are implementing the 2019 Community Safety and Policing Act. This new legislation will replace the Police Services Act with a robust framework to advance safety, transparency and effectiveness of the community safety system. Amendments to oversight and governance and labour arbitration provisions will improve accountability for the police sector.

Clearing the backlog in the justice system: Slow justice is injustice; I always say that—if it takes years to get my right, this is injustice as well. So ensuring that claims are heard in the court of appropriate jurisdiction—low-volume claims should be held in Small Claims Court. The bill frees up time and resources for the Superior Court of Justice to address bigger cases.

Improving emergency services such as by implementing next-generation 911: Last year, Ontario announced a $208-million investment towards 911 emergency response system improvements which will make the system faster, more responsive and more efficient. With this bill—some parts of it will allow some information-sharing, which will allow the police to act in a better way in creating co-operation between different areas of the police.

Training judges and justices to address gender-based violence: Again, the new judges need some training. This is similar to recent bipartisan federal legislation to provide training on sexual assault. That’s one item, but our government has gone even further. We need to do training about intimate partner violence and coercive control in intimate partner and family relationships.

Social context, which includes systematic racism and systematic discrimination: The Chief Justice is now required to submit a report to the Attorney General on these topics. We need to monitor the improvement of this area.

Ontario’s government is keeping people safe and secure. We need to work together. Again, the approach of any defunding of police or talking about stopping police violence—this is demoralizing our police forces. Those front-line officers work shifts, nights, weekends to make sure that we are safe. If I am a police officer and I hear this “defund the police” talk—it’s rhetoric, and it’s actually demoralizing police. It doesn’t even get them enthusiastic to do a good job because they don’t feel that anybody feels that they are doing good job. But they are doing a good job.

Another approach of that is—we need to promote neighbourhood watch. We need to get lots more information sources to the police to help them, because they can’t be everywhere every time. As much as they have resources, as much as we put resources, there are still going to be gaps. We need to take the approach that public safety is everybody’s responsibility—not only the police, not only the firemen.

Again, I have to emphasize that when somebody is looking for a house, searching for a house or preparing to get a house, they check the areas, and they seek to have a home in a safe neighbourhood. Business cannot act, cannot grow and cannot prosper when they, all the time, have holdups and guns pointing—and losing their revenues and losing their workers to mental issues or shock issues after an attack. They lose their workers because they can’t function anymore because of the stress of what happened. If, God forbid, something happened—we lost one of the workers—the whole team gets really in a bad shape. Business cannot act and cannot grow unless there is a good safety environment to be able to function and do business.

We hear that some gas stations start closing at an early time of the evening because they don’t want to have anybody inside the gas station overnight, because they cannot guarantee safety. This is alarming.

We need all of us to work together. Maybe this bill only is not the answer. We need more bills. We need to strengthen and modernize our ways of conducting police business to protect the people. We cannot allow the gangs—technology-wise and training-wise—to be beyond the police’s capabilities or more advanced than the police. The police have to be on top of everything.

Yesterday, I heard that a friend of mine’s car got stolen. He asked some people, and they said that a reader that can decrypt the key’s encryption is sold on Amazon for $100. That’s scary. We need to be ready for these kinds of activities.

We need to make sure that legislation is up to speed so we can protect properties, protect businesses, protect the life and safety of Ontarians.

Again, we are providing those at the forefront of community safety with the legislative and administrative support they need to deliver the highest-quality services to the province.

I refuse and reject any talk about violence of the police and defunding police.

The member for Mississauga–Erin Mills.

My question is to the member from Whitby. He sits on the justice policy committee and was part of the hearings leading up to this legislation. My question to the member: We heard from a number of police commissioners and police association leaders that you don’t need a post-secondary degree to apply to the OPP in this province, but also, that they felt that having a university degree could pose a barrier for certain racialized communities that would prevent them from joining the police force. They also talked about how critical it is to make sure that individuals in the community see themselves reflected in their police force for community policing.

I’m wondering if the member could please comment on the importance of making sure that our community police forces reflect the communities they serve, and that a vote for this act is a vote for community safety.

I have members of my extended family who are in policing. I know many people who are in policing, and I have great respect for them. I know that we saw members of the opposition parties give their full-throated support to the defund-the-police movement. I remember hearing from those I know who are in policing about how demoralizing that was when they were putting their lives literally on the line to keep our communities safe and to be the first on scene in so many situations.

I wonder if this legislation, to the member from Whitby, will help us respond to that level of antagonism with support for those who are on the front lines and if this will hearten our brave men and women who serve on the front lines against that philosophy coming from the opposition parties?

Questions?

Thank you to my colleague for the question. Again, yes, I hear—we all hear, together—the talk about defunding police in different versions. Talking about the case in Ottawa—maybe that bill is not to address this specific incident or this specific type of incidents.

I just have to say something: There was always a police officer in every school. Who removed the police from every school? It was the Liberals, with support of the NDP. We had police inside the school to protect students, and you guys asked to remove them. Now we are asking for police to be proactive when they get a call and then move to act on the call. This is just for a reminder.

Either the member from Mississauga–Erin Mills or the member from Whitby can answer this question. I paid attention to what they had to say very seriously because, like everyone, I care about community safety.

I want to bring to the floor of the House a matter we’re dealing with in Ottawa Centre this week. We’ve had notice that people who do not like queer or transgender neighbours are coming to Broadview Avenue, the site of three public schools, and they’re going to protest and attempt to harass children on their way to school. So we have been working proactively with the police in our community and neighbours who are disgusted with this kind of behaviour.

What I don’t see in the bill proposed, and I hope to see it, are proactive resources that can make sure, as the member for Toronto Centre said, that our police are not responding a great deal to situations where mental health workers could help. They could respond to actual incidents of unsafety, and we could have them there in significant numbers.

Can the members enlighten me: How does this bill make sure people in a community like mine will be safe when they need to be safe?

I’d like to thank the members for their presentation. As the members know, the province is responsible for detention centres and for the safety of individuals, both corrections officers as well as inmates, within those centres. These are a part of our community.

At Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre—recently 9,000 inmates, both present and past, were awarded a $33-million settlement by the province to settle out of a class action lawsuit. Many of the inmates were claiming that their charter rights were violated. There have been many stories about this, and this is well-known to this government and the government prior—about the violence, the overcrowding, the lack of supervision, the poor treatment and many other conditions. This building is far too small. It’s not working for officers; it’s not working for inmates.

My question to this government is, when will this government build a new facility in London and care about community safety?

Through the Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act, there are collaborations and partnerships. In my particular riding in the region of Durham, there are collaborations between the Durham Regional Police Service and Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, as an example, to address some of the challenges of policing and mental health, some of the calls that they go on.

Furthermore, there’s a partnership with Victim Services of Durham Region and Luke’s Place, as well, to support the police service in their day-to-day work going forward. This particular bill, yes, is modernizing the justice system, but I think key to effecting the implementation of this legislation, should it be passed, is the continuation of that level of collaboration, particularly in the area of mental health and victim services.

I say that because at the region of Durham, when I was a councillor for seven years, I chaired the partnership on diversity and immigration, and one of the key aspects coming out of our community reports each year—because we had the Durham regional police reflected—

Further debate?

I’m pleased to have my opportunity today to speak to Bill 102, the Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act. I’ve been able to listen to the members who have spoken before me on both sides of this debate today. It takes me back to my community. That’s where I decided where I wanted to go with this and how I wanted to address the changes that are happening within this bill, and to bring forward the concerns and the things that I have learned in my own community, where I see the cracks in the system, where I see the benefits in our system and where I see where the government could do better in our system, to not only protect our communities but to also ensure that our police force has what they need.

I’ve been an MPP for Hamilton Mountain for 12 years and had plenty of opportunity to meet with various chiefs that we’ve had in Hamilton. The number one thing that I always hear from them is, first of all, they need more police on our streets. I wish I would have gathered those numbers for that, but we definitely have a huge shortage of police on our streets.

That’s of great concern, because we have officers who do not get the supports they need when they need it. We have things that happen in the city and police are not able to attend quick enough. I can tell you that when I see police driving on our streets, it’s rare that I actually am driving down the street and see a police car, because our Hamilton area is quite large. They are responsible for the entire amalgamated area—just not enough of them to go around.

But they do the work. They keep their chin up and they keep going. They also, I have to say, under the leadership of our current chief, see the need of being there to support our community members, so showing up for—the Wayside program, for instance, is a rehab centre in the city. Our chief is always there, front and centre, with a message of need, a message of increased funding for mental health, increased funding for addictions, increased funding for housing, increased funding for ODSP, for Ontario Works.

All of those programs that are the social safety net in our communities are at risk. When they’re at risk, it causes people to do things that they typically wouldn’t do. Then what happens is, the police have to be called—we’re already short on police, but they have to attend, and they have to be able to manage the situation that they’re in.

Gratefully, in Hamilton, we have a program called COAST that supports police on mental health calls to be able to de-escalate, to be able to talk to the person in question and see if there’s actually another route than that person being arrested and to be able to support that police officer. Many communities, I’m quite positive, don’t have that COAST program. Their police officers don’t have that mental health support to be able to attend, and as great as that program is, I’m quite sure COAST isn’t able to attend every necessary call that the police may possibly walk into and not know that there’s a mental health crisis happening. So ensuring that police officers have education to be able to de-escalate, to be able to work with someone with mental health issues is critical. It’s absolutely critical to ensure that our police officers have those necessary supports and education.

There’s an amazing program in our city called the social navigator program—

Interjection.

Then we went to the police station—and I think it’s 8:30 every single morning. They gather and they talk about the clients whom they’ve been able to interact with, the people who are living rough on the streets or who need the extra supports. So the paramedics team up with the police. They have housing. They had someone from Interval House, which is a women’s shelter. They had someone from the Indigenous centre. They had a couple of social workers. There must have been 20 of them around the table that morning, which is every morning.

One programmer, Sue, went through the list of people who were on her list for that day to talk about who had a doctor’s appointment, who had court, who needed something done with ODSP, who needed their meds increased, who needed their meds picked up. They had everybody on a database, from the relationships they built, and they knew how to support each and every one of those individuals. They talked about it amongst themselves. It was so inspiring.

This table is led by acting sergeant Pete Wiesner, who the Conservatives, I’m sure, would know well. He was their candidate in the Hamilton Centre by-election. So he’s the acting sergeant of the crisis response unit. He’s been there for 11 years, but I think he became the acting sergeant not so long ago. He leads this table, and it was honestly inspiring to watch the actions and the compassion that went into this. So this is police and paramedics that come together, and it’s funded under the police.

Sol Gen—they need to listen to this. They need to ensure that programs like this are happening across our province, because as we know, we have a housing crisis across our province, we have an addictions problem across our province, and we have a poverty issue across our province, and these police and paramedics have created a program that supports folks. They support the tents. Instead of going in there and ripping down tents, they’re there if they have to move because it’s got to happen, then they’re helping them pack. They’re making sure that they have food and where they are going next. So it was quite something to spend the day with Naomi and to be able to visit the tents, to be able to visit some service providers that are helping.

Naomi knew everyone, and everyone knew Naomi. This is the case for all of the folks who are on the social navigator program. It was really inspiring to watch, and those people are better for it. They’re better for Naomi. They will survive another day because of Naomi and the rest of the group.

They’re out there. They’re providing very little paramedic services, let me tell you that. It’s not being a paramedic anymore; it’s actually getting to them before they need a paramedic. But they’re handing out all of the drug paraphernalia that they need to ensure that it’s safe. They’re handing out naloxone kits to ensure that everyone has something to save their lives or save another one’s life. They’re providing Band-Aids and they’re providing snacks and water and boots and coats and tents and clothing. Whatever they find that their folks need, somehow, they find a way to make that work.

So I wanted to give them a huge shout-out because we certainly can’t talk about police and not talk about the social navigator program that’s happening in the city of Hamilton, because it is top-notch. It should be followed and echoed everywhere across this province, because as long as we’re in crisis, these are the folks who are truly, truly, truly going to make a difference in people’s lives. So, here’s to them.

The other thing that I thought that I wanted to talk about, Speaker, was that folks get in trouble and they need the police when they don’t have the supports that they need. The Banyan program in Hamilton: I was visiting them that constit week, also, and I had the opportunity to hear about a program called SURE. It’s the Self-Understanding and Regulating Emotions program.

And so what this program does is it brings young folks at—shoot, I should have written down the number. I think it was nine years to 11 or 12 or 13 years—right in that critical—they’re not a teenager yet, they’re not little kids anymore. But they’re struggling with their parents, and their parents are having a hard time and the kids are having a hard time. So it brings the parents and the young people together in a group setting to talk about self-regulation, to teach them how to talk to each other to stop the blowouts and to stop the breakdown in the families.

This is something that changes the direction of a young person’s path. Instead of that young person skipping out on school and swearing at their parents and smoking drugs and smoking cigarettes, doing all kinds of stuff that young teenagers can get into and starts that path into possible criminal activity, then they’re learning how to work together as a family network.

They are hoping to have funding from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services soon to be able to continue this program. They have great numbers, they have great success, and they have amazing families that are doing well because of the program that they’re providing to our community. So a huge shout-out to the SURE program and all of the work that they’re doing in Hamilton.

Speaker, I also met last week with VCAO, Victim Crisis Assistance Ontario. They came to meet with us because of the lack of funding that this government is providing and the crisis that they’re finding themselves in. Now, let’s say it again: When victims and people are in crisis, they find themselves sometimes in criminal activity. When people find themselves in criminal activity, we then have police who have to manage that situation. And it’s unnecessary if we’re providing services to people when they need it. Social safety nets are super important to be able to stop the necessary need of police.

So they were able to meet with the minister the same day as they met with us. Unfortunately, the minister only gave them 15 minutes. This is a provincially mandated program that has been enacted since 1987 and is critically underfunded. They’re in complete crisis. They’re not able to retain staff. They’re not able to pay staff what they need. And they’re responsible for any crisis that happens, whether it’s a weather crisis that happens at somebody’s house, a murder, to anything in between. If a family is in crisis, they can contact them and they are mandated to provide services. It’s pretty hard to keep up with those mandates if you do not have the funding to do so. It’s as bad as—they have to pay for someone to go in a hotel room, and because they’re very short on their money within the office, sometimes staff will take out their own credit cards to be able to pay for that, and then they have to hope and pray that the ministry is going to repay it. That’s how that system works—they have to put it out, they submit it to the ministry, and the ministry then pays them back. That’s no way to be able to manage these types of things and to be able to ensure that a mandated service is able to function in a respectable manner.

So when we’re talking about strengthening safety and modernizing justice, we have to ensure that we’re providing the funding and the safety nets right across the board. Our police need it. Our police will tell you they want housing, they want increased ODSP and OW, increased mental health supports. They want increased mental health supports in Hamilton. We continue to lose organizations—organizations that aren’t able to keep up with the funding. So the same thing that police are asking the government for, they continue to cut; they continue to underfund.

Hamilton Mental Health Outreach, the first organization to announce their closure in January—closing June 30, 2023—has been serving people recovering from addiction and supporting those with mental illness for more than 30 years. They’re closing their doors.

Catholic Family Services—I’ve talked about that before in this House—with so many services: They opened in 1949, closed April 30, 2023. Thank goodness some other providers were able to pick up some of their programs, but the continuity, the relationships that were built with so many people in the community have been lost.

Mental health statistics: In any given year, one in five Canadians experience a mental illness. About 4,000 Canadians per year die by suicide, an average of almost 11 suicides a day. It affects people of all ages and backgrounds. Individuals with a mental illness are much less likely to be employed. Unemployment rates are as high as 70% to 90% for people with the most severe illnesses.

I actually wrote a letter to Minister Tibollo not that long ago—I’m still waiting for my response; maybe I’ll hand-deliver him this after I’m done—to talk about the number of constituents who have contacted my office who have adult children—their moms have contacted me—who have schizophrenia, and they’re out on the streets and they don’t have the supports. One was at the Barrett Centre; she tried to be there for a few days. They sent her out and they gave her a tent because they have nothing that they could do for her, so the very least—which I know was a good thing to do, on their behalf—was to make sure she had a roof over her head, even if it’s just a tent. These are the things that are coming down to the organizations that are serving our community.

The last thing that I want to talk about—and I’m running out of time; it’s actually going much faster than I thought it would—is Bill 74. In this bill, you have opened up the Missing Persons Act, so I tried to find details on that; I couldn’t really find much. This would have been an ample opportunity to be able to bring Bill 74 forward, the Missing Persons Amendment Act, to ensure that we had an alert system that could be regional for when a vulnerable person goes missing. Petition numbers are continuing to climb. As of today, the petition on my site has 2,067 signatures—Draven Alert signatures are 91,784; Love’s Law is 6,222. That’s a lot of people who have signed petitions begging for this alert to happen. This doesn’t happen often, but I had a police officer reach out to my Instagram to tell me that he was an officer from Hamilton and to thank me for bringing Bill 74 to the floor and to not give up on it. It’s a tool that the police need. They know they need it. My Hamilton police chief also has been very supportive of Bill 74, knowing that it’s another tool in the tool box. It’s not the be-all and end-all. It’s not the first call. There are lots of things that can happen before the missing persons alert, but it is a tool. It could be the last tool, but it could be the most important tool, when necessary, to bring vulnerable loved ones home.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak today. Boy, that 20 minutes went quick.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and through you to my colleague from the opposition: I don’t think that this bill has anything to do with the correctional facility, the prison. What we need to address here is the continuous violence and protecting our communities from the crime rate, making sure of our Ontario people’s safety. In regard to that, I definitely would encourage the member to address that with the finance minister to make sure that we have more budget for that.

I actually did a police night out, and I had the ability to see COAST in action. It’s a fantastic program. It changes an outcome when someone is trained for mental health and is able to de-escalate or to decide: “Is this someone who’s just lonely”—because that happens—“or is this someone who’s really in danger of killing themselves or harming themselves? Is this person a danger and a threat to community and society?”

We need to ensure that these programs are fundable, but we can’t just count on them either, because if a police officer shows up and doesn’t have COAST with them, then they’re on their own. We need to ensure that police officers have that same education and the ability to be able to perform their duties safely.

If they feel like they’ve got an “I gotcha”—because they’re winking at each other across the hall—that’s fine. You asked for my opinion.

I just finished telling you in my speech that we are short on police. We don’t have the numbers that we should be able to have in Hamilton as per our population. If the government wants to support police, they should also ensure that we have the ability to have enough police on our streets to keep your niece and nephews safe.

We know that we need more police on our streets. We know that the police have to be trained accordingly. We know that the police have been asking for these things, and yet this government refuses to provide—just like they’re refusing to provide the funding necessary for victim services that the government has mandated them to be able to provide.

The police tell us they want training. They need to make sure that their police force is educated. There are incentives. There are ways to encourage more police to join the field to serve and protect—but making sure that they have the right education to be able to perform their duties so they’re safe, their families have them come home to them at the end of every day, and they’re able to serve and protect our communities.

Report continues in volume B.

Questions?

I want to thank the member from Hamilton Mountain for her remarks.

I have the pleasure of working with a great community police officer in the west end of Ottawa Centre. His name is Darren Joseph. He was a running back in the CFL. He’s a fixture in the community. Members from Hamilton know of him because of who he played for. One of the things he tells me all the time is that good policing work is social work with the possibility of an armed response. The many layers of skills you need to try to reach someone in crisis are far more important. The member talked about those eloquently.

You mentioned that people are asking for more training, so I’m going to give you the opportunity to talk about what kind of training you’ve heard people ask for.

I want to thank the member from Hamilton Mountain for her excellent presentation about the COAST program. It is something that has also been implemented in the London area. It’s a partnership of the CMHA, the London Police Service and the Elgin-Middlesex paramedic services. It’s absolutely brilliant. It was something that was brought forward, as well, during the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs 2023 budget consultations. And yet, this government has chosen not to allocate the funding that has been requested for this program. There’s no dedicated funding for this in the budget. Unfortunately, in the London area, this is a program that is not available at all hours of the day. My question to the member is, why is this government not listening to front-line officers who know the incredible value this program provides to our community?

I want to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for her remarks. I want to note a particular piece the member talked about: her own community in Hamilton and the need for more police officers in that community in Hamilton. I’ve shared with the member before that I’ve got family in Hamilton, some on the Hamilton Mountain—two wonderful nephews. I’ve got a niece in Stoney Creek. Personally, but also professionally, I think it’s important that we stand up for the residents of Hamilton and make sure that the community is as safe as possible.

Some members of this House have, in the past, talked about defunding the police or diverting resources away from police and into other places.

I just want to give the member a chance to clarify her position. Does she think we should be defunding the police or putting more police officers on our streets?