Thank you, good afternoon.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee today along with my law enforcement colleagues as you study Canada's bail system.

I am Chief Superintendent Syd Lecky, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and commanding officer of G Division in the Northwest Territories. As a member of the Peskotomuhkati Nation, I would like to acknowledge that I join you today from Chief Drygeese territory of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.

I have been in my current role since October 2022, prior to which I was the officer in charge of the Kamloops RCMP detachment with responsibility for policing services to the city of Kamloops but also a large rural area including three first nations communities.

The RCMP is supportive of a balanced approach to bail reform that considers community and officer safety, overrepresentation of racialized people in prisons and the rights of the accused to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I am here today to share some of the impacts on our communities that highlight the need for bail reform to address not only public but the officer safety risks caused by releasing violent and repeat offenders in our communities on bail while awaiting trial.

The RCMP is all too familiar with the incidents and the risks chronic violent offenders can have to public and officer safety. In the past decade, the RCMP has seen the murder of Constable David Wynn and, more recently, Constable Shaelyn Yang by chronic violent offenders.

Information obtained from one of our 11 divisions that provide frontline policing found that of the 91 homicides in that division in the past three years, 48% of the individuals accused were subject to police- or court-imposed conditions.

Just over a week ago, a member was shot at during a police traffic stop and exchanged gunfire with the suspect. The accused had been released two weeks prior on a $1,500 cash bail with a condition not to possess a weapon. The outstanding charges included violent crime and four firearms offences.

While not to diminish from the focus on violent crime, it is the effect of what is commonly referred to as low level or property crime that has been the most impactful to citizens in many of our communities.

Having met with mayors, first nations councils, business improvement associations and community groups, they express a feeling of lawlessness. They regularly question why offenders are being arrested and released multiple times only to reoffend. The term “catch and release” is often used to describe the cycle. The prevailing message is that what has been considered low-level crime for some is not for many who are victimized repeatedly. This is often at significant expense to the business community, which expresses anger and feels let down.

This repeated cycle of arrest and release has had a significant impact on many involved in the justice system, adding workloads to police, clerical staff and all participants who would handle the volumes of documentation that follow. Many of these policing costs are borne by the community.

I have also observed that the administration of justice charges that accompany repeat offenders are seldom prosecuted when recommended by police. These include breaches of undertaking, breaches of probation and failure to appear charges. These are key grounds allowed for in the Criminal Code to show cause for detention. In one city, 50% of failure to comply with undertaking charges have been stayed, withdrawn or dismissed in the past three years.

As highlighted in recommendations from different police associations, bail reform offers opportunities to consider tightening the rules on the use of sureties, expanding the use of reverse onus conditions for offenders and expanding the use of electronic monitoring where practical.

Under the police service agreements, the RCMP provides frontline policing for about 22% of Canada’s population in about 75% of Canada’s geographic land mass. This includes policing services for many of our indigenous communities. With this in mind, the RCMP would welcome a holistic, trauma-informed approach to bail reform. From experience, it is often our indigenous and marginalized community members who are most at risk from violent offenders, often in remote and isolated communities.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

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