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A new poll suggests public confidence in local police across Canada remains high, despite a year of controversies over alleged police abuses and use of force.
At the same time, there are signs of growing distrust and skepticism.
In an EKOS Research poll conducted during the week of Dec. 10-14 and released exclusively to CBC News, 1,740 Canadians were questioned about:
* Confidence in local police.
* Police performance.
* Whether trust levels have decreased.
* Whether police respect citizens' rights.
Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they have a moderate or high level of confidence in police — despite such high-profile controversies related to tight security at the G20 summit in Toronto, fatal stun-gun incidents and the recent video of a violent arrest and strip-search of a woman by Ottawa police.
"But there is some evidence of some cracks in that public confidence," cautioned Frank Graves, the president of EKOS, whose firm has been polling the public on the topic for many years.
"We see in post-G20 Toronto that the public trust levels in the police, compared to previous years ... there's a more decisive lean to thinking it's gotten worse." Graves explained.
"There's been an erosion of trust."
In Toronto, 28 per cent of respondents said their trust has decreased.
In Ottawa, despite a smaller sample size of only 86 people surveyed, there were some differences showing higher levels of distrust.
"It really struck a chord in Ottawa — the abuses of the young makeup artist that was detained and really mishandled badly in terms of how things worked when she got to the jail," said Graves.
He was referring to the case of Stacey Bonds, who is suing police for $1.2 million after her violent detention and strip-search was captured on jailhouse video.
"Well, I think some of the events that have taken place in Toronto and Ottawa, and a few other places in the country, do raise questions that require answers," Bill Blair, chief of the Toronto Police Service and head of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said when shown the results of the poll.
Blair said a series of reviews and investigations into both the G20 and the Ottawa incidents should hold police to account.
"We are absolutely committed that our citizens get those answers. That we engage in the appropriate reviews, that we get to the truth," Blair told CBC News.
Watchdog concerns
Some police watchdogs question the accuracy of polls asking about confidence in police.
"The public's always going to say they have confidence in it — because they don't have much choice," said John Sewell, a former mayor of Toronto who now heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and has just published his second book on the subject,Police in Canada, The Real Story.
"So, do you think your doctor's terrific? 'Oh yeah, my doctor's terrific!' Do you like firemen? 'I love firemen.' Do you like police officers? 'Oh yeah!'
"What one needs more than anything is a big and public discussion where you get a sense that the police are getting under control," said Sewell, who argues there are not enough controls over police and seldom proper accountability in cases of police abuses.
"It's very interesting. Elections sort of do that. And so in Toronto recently, or Calgary recently, we've had elections where the public has sort of said a few things.
"We don't have those kinds of mechanisms in respect to the police and that's a problem," Sewell said.
EKOS has been conducting surveys about attitudes toward police and civil rights for many years.
"The last decade could probably be characterized as the security decade — driven by Sept. 11, an aging society and a political marketplace that really put a lot of emphasis on those things," Graves said.
He sees the latest poll results as the swinging of the pendulum, with a returning public concern over citizen rights and personal liberties.
"We see — particularly with the younger portion of the population —some fraying in the belief that the pursuit of security has provided an acceptable balance in terms of how it impacts on individual human rights, privacy and other areas," he said.
The poll of 1,740 people included a margin of error of plus or minus 2.35 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
