Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris says he wants to find ways to take some of the workload off police as a member of a special all-party committee appointed this month to look at ways to modernize the Police Act.
He said it's time to "separate the criminality part of policing from the social justice part," Morris said. "So addictions and mental illness and all these social issues that police spend 70 per cent of their time on, I think would be better suited with a different kind of response."
Doing so, he said, will give police the time to concentrate on the "technically-correct criminal investigations, because they're expensive and we want to make sure that we have charge approval in every case and that we have convictions in every case as well."
He said police have become the "default" for help with people suffering from mental health trouble. Morris noted that while he was the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General during the previous B.C. Liberal government the so-called Car 60 program in Prince George was approved.
It pairs a mental health worker with an RCMP officer to respond to calls of concern. Morris said there is a need to expand that program across the province but also for more integrated social services.
Even without the allegations of systemic racism that prompted the current Solicitor General, Mike Farnworth, to take the step, Morris said it is time to give the delivery of policing in B.C. a look.
"Society has changed over the past number of decades, with the advent of social media and all the other tools that are available now," Morris said.
The retired Mountie said he was in the early stages of just such an exercise when he was the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General during the previous B.C. Liberal government.
Asked if there is systemic racism in B.C.'s police departments, Morris said he has heard of the term only recently but added there were times when he dealt with acts of racism by members during while in supervisory roles in the RCMP.
"It's all the more reason to be popping the hood open on policing and service delivery because if the public has the perception that something is so, then you have to treat it as being a reality," Morris said.
The nine-member committee has until May 14, 2021 to report to the legislature.
