Subscribe to our Newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Bill 10 - Security Services and Investigators Act

November 4, 2008 - Committee of the Whole

Ms Blakeman: Okay. Thank you very much. All right. I had the opportunity to spend five hours travelling at the end of last week, and of course, as everyone who knows me would understand, I spent the time reading Hansard of various committees to go back over what the discussions had been around Bill 10.

A couple of issues continue to come up for me that I am not satisfied with. One of them is around the issue of training. The sponsor of the bill, who’s the Member for Airdrie-Chestermere, had answered some of my previous questions by saying: well, no, that had been looked at, and it will be dealt with in the regulations. It was around training issues in particular. But as I go back and look at his responses to the questions that were raised during committee and in response to the issues identification brief that was presented to the committee, I’m not satisfied by the responses from the member because there’s no additional information there. It just says: don’t worry about it; we’ll look after it. I want to get a much clearer idea of what he is anticipating because surely he’s not making those statements without having an idea of exactly what he intended or that he understands the government intended to do around training and the specifics for training.

You know, some of the areas that are giving me concern are that there are sort of back-end things that are mentioned, like that there should be concern that the companies will hire a fit and proper person but nothing up front about actually training and screening employees who are being brought on for this kind of work. I’m looking for information. Firms will be taught to weed out employees with authority issues. This appears in the July 23 policy field committee Hansard on page 24. Well, who’s going to teach them how to do this, and what exactly is anticipated here? Is any firm that is going to be involved in security going to be sent out to Grant MacEwan or any college that is available to teach them how to weed out employees with authority issues? You’ve got to give me much more concrete information than what I’m getting because as I go back and look at your previous comments to see what you meant, I’m getting more questions out of it.

Again, it talks about minimum training on the use of force and that it’s not necessary to have any kind of minimum requirement for school education. Then there’s a discussion about: well, you know, no requirement; no grade 12, no grade 11, no grade 10. “No, no,” they say. For that I say: well, then, what’s your expectation around evidence collection or note taking on evidence that’s obvious at a scene or report writing? That’s not to say that someone without a grade 10 education can’t write a report, but I think that if we’re really looking for a standard or a level of quality that is going to stand up in court, we’d want to have some kind of basic understanding here.

You know, you’re playing both sides against the middle here. You’re telling me: don’t worry about this; the training is all going to be looked after. When I go in and look at what you’ve said in all the conversations we’ve had about this bill, I get more concerned. You’re worrying me that you don’t require any level of school education, yet you have an expectation that these people in these companies will be taking notes on evidence and writing reports and going to court.

This member, I know, has very firm ideas about the relationship between the police and the court system and lawyers and judges and sentencing and prison, yet what we know is happening, part of the frustration of this member, I’m sure, is that people who’ve done bad things don’t necessarily always serve the time the member and others believe they should because things don’t go well in the court. Things like evidence are part of the things that can go wrong. Now you’re telling me in the bill that the member is bringing forward: well, that’s okay. Somehow these people are just supposed to know this stuff without any specifics. I’m not gaining any reassurance here that there is a clear path that is being followed here, a plan that is being followed, that once these regulations all go into place, there is a concerted training program that will be available.

Now, I’ll remind the member that what I had asked for was the licensing of anyone that is working – and every single category in here requires a licence and a fee to be paid – and that particularly those that are working as guards or front-line workers in this particular area would be required to attend a training session at a local college for a period of one or two days. They pay a fee for this, and their licence is granted to them upon successful completion of the course. Now, you want to be able to weed people out. You want to be able to keep an eye out for – what is that wording? – employees with authority issues and fit and proper persons. There’s a way that you’re going to have somebody watching them for two days who’s likely to have a fairly informed opinion that they could put forward on that. I have increasing concerns around the training. In response the last time I raised this, the member warmly nodded at me and said: yeah, and we’re going to look after that under the regs. Well, I’m not seeing the regs. I would truly, honestly, really like to be able to trust the government on regs, but experience, bitter experience, cynical experience, has taught me not to do that because it doesn’t show up, and then two years from now when I’m trying to ask a question in question period as to why this isn’t happening, I’m told that I should have raised it in a different venue and would I please do a written question or bring it up in Public Accounts. You see how these things start to go off. You’ve got to do this stuff right up front. If I’m being hard on the member, too bad. You need to do it right the first time.

Again, on July 23, page 20, they’re talking about the emotional fitness of someone to be working in this field without giving any context for how that emotional fitness would be determined. Now, I want to move on to some of the things that came up as I worked my way through all of this material that doesn’t seem to be included in the bill, nor did it come up in any of the amendments that we are currently anticipating. The amendments are essentially following the recommendations that came out of the committee.

One of the things I’m looking for here is call centres that are outside of the province. I got in trouble the last time because I made up the name of a company, and then I got asked for the spelling. I didn’t get in trouble; I got questioned about it. So I’ll just be clear here. I’m making up the name of a company: Alarm Responder. God, I hope that’s not a real name. Anyway, Alarm Responder Inc. Co. Canada. They have call centres that respond. So you might be hooked up and your alarm goes off, and it’s answered by somebody in Hamilton, Ontario. Now, those people are not bound by the rules that we are putting forward in this legislation. So how am I as a citizen to expect that they will be operating under rules that I understand? How can they be held to account according to what we set out that we want to have happen in this province?

Is the member anticipating some kind of reciprocal agreements with somebody? That’s showing up under section K, and it’s saying that if they want to provide services or work in Alberta, they’re supposed to provide a copy of their licence to Alberta, and they will get a licence to operate in Alberta. But that’s not telling me that a national alarm-answering company that’s got a call centre in Pictou county or Hamilton or Penticton is going to treat my personal information in the way that we expect it will be treated through our privacy legislation in Alberta. That’s the next question I have.

Finally, who has access to – somebody raised this in one of the discussions I was reading. We’re increasingly moving to security systems which are operated off biofiles – an iris imprint or a thumbprint – and the information is travelling or being verified by cellular or satellite. Same problem: who’s got access, and how do we control this? I mean, the short answer to that is that we can’t because they’re operating outside of our jurisdiction. Well, then I start saying: “You’re the government; you have to protect me. What are you doing to protect me so that my iris imprint isn’t scanned and taken up by cellular or satellite transmission and stored in some ABC security company’s private database?” [interjection] Exactly. Then I go to fly on my little holiday somewhere and end up getting picked up because there’s a misunderstanding about something.

I have real concerns about those two particular issues, about how we’re going to be protected from companies that are operating in Alberta but, in fact, are physically located outside of the province. The reciprocal agreements that are talked about in section K do not cover what I’m talking about.

I will take my seat for the time being and try and read my other notes while I listen to the member respond to my questions. Thank you.

Mr. Anderson: Mr. Chair, perhaps we could do this in a little bit different way. The hon. member is jumping over some of the amendments, and other things she’s talking about have nothing to do with the amendments. Are we having a general discussion about the bill here, or are we talking about specific amendments? If we’re talking about amendments, let’s pick some amendments. Let’s talk about the specific amendments and maybe bundle them up. I mean, there are 10, 12, 15 amendments here. I would propose that if there are specific amendments that we need to vote on and discuss and give answers to, we talk about those amendments and not just jump around to the bill in general and talk about that.

Ms Blakeman: Well, I’m happy to. I’ve already raised one very specifically under section K, reciprocal agreements, which is not covering what I was looking for. So where can I expect to find that? It’s not in these amendments. It’s not in the bill. Where can I expect to find it?

Mr. Anderson: Definitely we can address that question. I’m just saying that the other statements that you made had nothing to do with the amendments; they had to do with the bill in general. Again, if there are specific amendments that the hon. member wants to go over and vote on, that sort of thing, let’s go ahead and do that, but if we’re going to have a general discussion about the bill, it doesn’t make sense to go about it this way.

The Chair: The chair has an understanding that there is an agreement or understanding that the discussion is on the amendments all together, and then when we call for a vote, we will vote on each one at a time.

Mr. Anderson: Okay. Specifically going back to the question of the regulations and whether or not training standards should be in regulation or in the bill, the intent of this bill and the intent of the Solicitor General’s office going forward is to make sure that we follow the national standards that are already in place. If you look to B.C. and to Ontario, they have very high national standards in place for very similar legislation. We want to make sure that we have the same or even higher standards here in Alberta. That’s the type of training that we’re going to pursue.

However, to put it into the legislation, I have to disagree with the hon. member. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, training standards change over time. They can change from year to year. They can change from month to month if there was an inquiry that said that, you know, such and such a practice should be changed to be something else. We have to be able to change and be flexible and make sure that we always have the highest standards. If we put all of the standards in the legislation and are unable to change them on a timely basis, then the people of Alberta are going to suffer from that.

I mean, if there are specific regulations that the hon. member has issue with, by all means, let’s bring them forward to the Solicitor General and Public Security office, and we’ll take a look at them and make sure that they’re responded to accordingly. To put them all in the legislation I don’t think is appropriate.

As for K, I think the member was alluding to this reciprocal agreements clause. Yes, that’s right. The point of that clause is very simple. It’s just to make sure that when we have agreements in place that would cover this area with other provincial governments, we’re going to respect those agreements. There’s no way we can put into this legislation all the agreements that would fall under this clause. I mean, there’s just no way to do that. We have to, you know, one agreement at a time, and if it’s appropriate in certain circumstances and the minister feels it’s appropriate, then this clause will apply. So people, say, from B.C., if they have adequate training, can come to Alberta. They still have to be licensed, but they don’t have to go through the training all over again if the training was good enough to satisfy our standards.

Again, I think it goes back to – this is something that’s in here. It recognizes that sometimes there are reciprocal agreements in place, but those reciprocal agreements have to be appropriate, and the minister’s the one that’s going to determine whether that is so or not.

I hope that answers those questions.

Ms Blakeman: Well, with respect, no, it doesn’t. I was raising issues under section K, which is being proposed in this amendment to be put into the bill, and saying: how are you going to deal with the fact that somebody is physically existing outside of the province and offering services inside the province? Clearly they are not covered under section K, which I think you’ve now confirmed. But in listening to what the member is saying, what he’s saying and what’s actually in this amendment are two different things. This amendment doesn’t say anything about meeting the standards in Alberta or doing any additional tests. It says that if an agreement exists between Alberta and another jurisdiction to recognize licences to perform security work, then if that person is licensed somewhere else, they can turn it in and get a copy and get licensed to work in Alberta. It says nothing about meeting standards. It says nothing about meeting training requirements here in Alberta. It says that if you’ve got a licence somewhere else, you can trade it in and get one in Alberta.

This is where I’m having issue with what the member is proposing because there’s a suggestion that things are there that, when you read it, aren’t there. No place am I asking for training to be written into the legislation except for the two-day plan. What I’m saying is that I’m being asked to believe that somehow this is going to turn up in regulation, and there are no regulations for me to look at. I’ve now just heard the member say: we’re going to look and build off of what Ontario has done. Okay, fine. Now I can go look at Ontario and see what it is you’re considering and be able to react to that. But that’s the first time I’ve ever had anything connected with this bill to hang some information on and go and look at so that I can come back and go: “All right. I’ve seen what Ontario does. If you’re going to do the same thing, I agree or I disagree.”

That’s the problem with putting everything in regulations: we don’t get the information. I’m hearing that we’ll just accept across the board anybody that turns up with somebody else’s licence. They provide a copy to us of that licence, and we issue a licence out to them. There are no standards or training required in that.

The last issue that has been raised – and I think there was a minority report about it – was the concerns around striking out the Law Enforcement Review Board and making an appeal to the director. The director will perform a review, which is the intention that that’s as high or as thorough as – that’s where the buck stops: an additional review by the director.

I do have concerns here about striking out “the allegation of use of excessive force.” Later on in a different section you put back in: if there’s an allegation of a criminal offence. So you’re willing to accept the allegation of a criminal offence, but you’re not willing to accept the allegation that someone has used excessive force. Can the member explain that apparent contradiction to me, please?

The Chair: The hon. Member for Airdrie-Chestermere.

Mr. Anderson: Yes. That’s a legitimate question. The thought in the committee when this was discussed was that an allegation of use of excessive force was a very vague term, and what’s excessive to one person may not be so excessive to another. Yeah, it is quite subjective. What we thought we would do instead is create kind of two instances which were a lot more clear. One is where there’s an allegation of criminal use of force. In that case, then, the employer, the licensee, would be required to report that allegation to the registrar so that the registrar could deal with it. That’s very black and white. When someone makes a criminal allegation – everyone knows what that is – you make the report.

The second category was any use of force – the hon. member, I’m sure, will love this – as prescribed in the regulations. The reason for that is so that we can specifically go through the different types of force that could be used in the security services’ and private investigators’ scope of work and define what should be kept internally, on the internal company records, and what doesn’t need to be. For example, if a security guard goes over and escorts somebody out and maybe touches their elbow when he escorts them out, that’s not likely going to be something that they need to keep on their internal records of an event happening. That’s pretty every day. That’s an everyday happening, and it’s not serious. However, if there was a situation where, say, a patron was attacking another person in the store and needed to be removed and put down on the floor by the security guard, that might be considered excessive to some, but it might be very appropriate to others.

Regardless, that sort of thing should be kept on the internal company records so that if an allegation of criminal force ever did come up in the future, they could go back, and they would have a clear record of that use of force. The registrar can make the appropriate determination of whether there was, indeed, criminal force used or whether the force was appropriate or not. That’s the reason we separated those two.

Ms Blakeman: I’m sorry. Where is he referencing the criminal use of force? What I’m seeing is a section that’s been added in this amendment under (d.1), which is about an allegation that an individual has committed a criminal offence. There’s a big difference between criminal use of force and a criminal offence. [interjection]

The member is saying that a criminal offence and criminal use of force are the same thing. Okay.

The rest of this has been around the changes in the review agreements and how the review is held. Okay. Those are my questions on the amendments. Thank you.