00:03:55.700And especially because Durham is now having, there's like a growing culture of control here in Durham region.
00:04:02.920And, you know, this is going to be the very first police drone-launched program of its kind here in Ontario.
00:04:11.520And it just happens to be happening here in Durham, which, you know, we've had a lot of very authoritarian things that have been happening in Pickering and across Durham as of late.
00:04:25.060And, you know, these drones that they're implementing, they're not just like, you know, your normal hobby drones.
00:04:31.640They're police-grade system drones, right?
00:04:54.840Yeah, and unfortunately, we have to trust the police to do the right thing.
00:05:00.220But a lot of people kind of don't trust the police anymore.
00:05:03.640And I think what happened in the GTA, of course, with the arrest of those seven police officers and a retired officer, I believe, you know, the trust factor is starting to sink dramatically.
00:05:17.020Because in the investigation, they found that information was accessed illegally by police officers.
00:05:23.760And so, you have to wonder that if they have access to these high-tech tools, you know, that information could get into the wrong hands if you have unscrupulous officers having access to it.
00:05:39.860We also have our unscrupulous officers here as well.
00:05:43.420Just a couple of months ago, there was a report done from Durham Regional Police Services.
00:05:49.060And we have a group of officers that called themselves the untouchables.
00:05:54.800And they haven't released all the information to the public as of yet.
00:06:00.220A lot of people are requesting, like, you know, throughout Freedom of Information, saying, like, you know, this is really important information.
00:06:06.280When you're seeing stuff like this going on in our police services, that the public is made aware of it, you know.
00:06:12.000But instead, they are protecting the officers.
00:06:15.760It's kind of a shame of what's happening.
00:06:18.840And also, you know, a couple of years ago, with the CCTV cameras that you see going up everywhere in municipalities, on the polls and that.
00:06:27.780But, you know, I called the police to inquire about it as an acting, you know, city councillor.
00:06:35.980And they referred me to the region of Durham.
00:06:38.960So, of course, then I sent my email to the region of Durham.
00:06:41.620And they said they didn't know anything about it.
00:06:43.540So, then they sent me back to Durham Regional Police.
00:06:48.040Durham Regional Police knew what those CCTV cameras were.
00:06:51.800And then there was a little bit of back and forth and questioning.
00:06:55.060And they kept on adding all these other people, like the mayor, onto the email who were never included in the first place.
00:07:01.180But I did see a few discrepancies, let's say, when they said the reason why they were putting cameras in certain locations was because of certain crime.
00:08:07.120You know, when you look at some FOI request, freedom of information that we see, we see like, you know, counselors just calling up, emailing the police department and saying, hey, you know, would you mind sending a patrol car around my place?
00:08:22.120And, you know, all of this stuff is being uncovered here in the region of Durham.
00:08:27.520And so, like, you know, now that we're going to add on this other layer of the drones, and as you know, the other week when we spoke about the, when we spoke about the anti, well, the hate responding line, right, where you can sit there and put in complaints about your neighbors for just saying an offensive joke, you know, it is a growing culture of control here in Durham.
00:08:52.120I mean, there should be stronger, independent oversight of this, I think, you know, and not just sort of friends of the police on the board, you know, where you've got this cronyism probably having built up over the years.
00:09:10.540You need strict control over the use of this because it's an extremely powerful tool that can be easily misused.
00:09:19.160And the temptation there for police to misuse it must be awfully great, you know.
00:09:24.660I mean, as I mentioned, even in the review of this product, you know, they said, well, you can easily spy, you can spy on your neighbors if you want, you know, they've got this amazing zoom capability on these cameras with like, I think it's 4k videos, like super high def or high def.
00:09:43.360I mean, you know, who trusts the police with these drones anymore, you know, that's, that's the real question and what safeguards, you know, are going to be put in place to make sure that they're, that these tools are not misused.
00:10:01.660You know, that's the, that's the question I would have, I know you'll be asking those questions because you, you tend to ask annoying questions in council, that's what's going to trouble.
00:10:13.660No, I'll definitely be asking a lot of these questions tomorrow evening because, you know, they're, because of the growing concern, you know, we've already seen during protests, like, you know, the police have already deployed, you know, drones over top of protests.
00:10:30.260And I could see that happening every single time that there's going to be a protest here in Pickering, they're going to deploy it, and they're going to end up taking that because it's all recorded information, and they will end up putting it into a third party software for facial recognition to say who is at the protest, who was speaking at the protest, because this is all the information that they would want to keep control of.
00:10:53.220And then if you were to go back, just as recent as COVID, you know, if you look at what happened in Quebec, Quebec, they ended up having a curfew.
00:11:03.320I think it was like an eight o'clock, if I can remember correctly, curfew during COVID.
00:11:07.560Now, what is to stop them that if something like that was to happen here in Durham, again, where they had a curfew, and they would have these drones patrolling the streets to make sure everybody is inside their houses.
00:11:22.520And if not, then they'll know exactly who's out on the streets, where to find them, where to go, you know, and who's breaking the law, basically.
00:11:30.300Sure. Imagine there's another pandemic. Remember how crazy everything got last time, with even the premier demanding, you know, people be stopped on the streets, you know, and asked where they were going by police.
00:11:45.940And if you had these drones, you'd know pretty quickly who's on the road, and you could very easily get to those people, you know, based on where they are.
00:11:56.660And so, yeah, I mean, the police are just seem to be doing this in a quiet sort of a way.
00:12:03.280They don't want to make a huge production out of it.
00:12:05.560I mean, they have to talk to you guys, because you're in council.
00:12:09.040But I think they're trying to get this through.
00:13:33.980Are they just going to use this for, like, you know, people that are missing, like, you know, seniors with dementia or whatnot?
00:13:40.120Like, you know, they didn't mention anything about the missing children, which is running rampant here in the city of Durham right now, in the region of Durham.
00:13:48.820Yeah. I mean, they used a benign case where, you know, there was an elderly man who suffered from dementia.
00:14:37.060Have you heard anything more about the snitch line out in Durham County, where people can call police or call the snitch line if they've heard a joke that they find offensive?
00:14:53.960Nothing has been said by any other politician, by the way.
00:14:57.180Like, I'm the only one that's been raising these issues.
00:15:00.300And they didn't even mention it at our council meeting the other night.
00:15:03.700So I'll be sure to raise it in the next council meeting.
00:15:06.380But, you know, you hear a little bit of online chatter.
00:15:10.460But, you know, most people are thinking this is the most ridiculous thing because, you know, what happened in history when they had neighbors reporting on neighbors?
00:15:19.040You know, that was not a good ending to that.
00:15:22.480And a lot of people think that this is exactly history repeating itself, let's say.
00:15:29.300But, I mean, you do get the odd person.
00:15:31.200There's probably like 10 or 12 people that I've seen on Facebook.
00:15:34.000Not that, you know, that's credible at all because half of them are fake Facebook accounts.
00:15:39.620But they're like, rah, rah, you know, this is a great idea.
00:15:43.560And they want, they have already said that they want to target their political opponents.
00:15:51.340But, like, you know, like first, like, for example, myself, who they don't like my political views, my conservative political views.
00:15:58.860And so they're going to, like, you know, they're going to end up going on that snitch line and wasting our resources for, like, you know, the victim services unit that should be, you know, concentrating on domestic violence and trafficking, human trafficking.
00:16:16.440And, you know, sexual violence, sexual assault.
00:16:20.220But now they're going to end up sitting there and have to look at all of the cases because they didn't like what a politician said, for example.
00:16:27.840Or they didn't like that offensive joke.
00:16:30.060Or they didn't like that offside comment that somebody made.
00:16:33.800You know, things that don't even reach the threshold of being a criminal hate, you know, crime.
00:17:19.880So at least that part of concern, the concern has been addressed, you know, because if these things were plugged into what's going on in Beijing,
00:17:30.100then I think there would be a colossal issue with that.
00:17:33.680I think that you have to remember, though, too, is when somebody says something is made somewhere,
00:17:41.060it doesn't mean that all those parts are made in that country.