In this issue:
1. Police budget’s giant increase
2. Criminalizing the unhoused
Toronto Police Accountability Bulletin No. 154, January 2, 2025.
This Bulletin is published by the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition (TPAC), a group of individuals and organizations in Toronto interested in police policies and procedures, and in making police more accountable to the community they are committed to serving. Our website is http://www.tpac.ca .
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In this issue:
1. Police budget’s giant increase
2. Criminalizing the unhoused
3.Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. Police budget’s giant increase
The police chief Myron Demkiw recommended, and the Toronto Police Service Board unanimously adopted, an operating budget increase for 2025 of $48 million, a 3.9 per cent increase over 2024, for a total expenditure of $1.22 billion.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. This budget does not include the salary increase for 2024, which the arbitrator decided will be 5 per cent, adding $50 million to the $48 million. As well, the arbitrator has not yet decided the increase for 2025 and future years. If the decision is for 3 percent – the amount that CUPE416 (the city’s outside workers) agreed to for 2025 – that adds another $30 million to police spending in 2025. But the decision might be the same as awarded to the Ottawa police, which is just over 6 per cent, adding another $60 million.
So the real increase in police spending for 2025 above 2024 will be somewhere between $120 million and $150 million. That’s an increase over 2024 of between 12 per cent and 15 per cent. This is far far more than any other city service will see.
Although there are concerns about increases in youth-involved shootings, Toronto is not facing a serious increase in crime across the board: we remain a city with one of the lowest crime rates in Canada. Virtually every study done on policing in North America shows that hiring more police officers and spending more money on police does not lower the crime rate.
The Police Board and the chief seem oblivious to these thoughts. In November, the Board decided – without public notice and without the chance for any member of the public to express opinions – to increase the police force by 90 new officers each year for the next four years – a total of 360 new officers. (TPAC then asked the Board to hold a public meeting on the issue since the increase in the size of the force is in the nature of a `strategic plan’ and Section 4 of The Community Safety and Policing Act provides that strategic plans require public consultation. The Board never replied to our request.)
The problems our city is facing will not be solved by pouring more funding into policing. Years of underfunding for housing and public services has resulted in a noticeable increase in unhoused people living in public spaces and on transit that housed people and visitors also use. Many unhoused people are ill and in crisis. Their attempts to survive cause discomfort among homeowners and transit users and are criminalized.
Police are ill-equipped to address the problems at the root of these incidents. Too often the person is put into our over-crowded provincial jails with the other 80 per cent of those incarcerated who have never been convicted of anything but await trial, at an horrendous public cost.
Supposing the city put $100 million into the problem of homelessness in 2025. It would cost about $4000 a month to house someone and provide the support services that person would need – a cost of about $50,000 a year per person, a lot of money. (Resolving social problems is very expensive, which is why they should not be allowed to proliferate.)
For $100 million, the city could house and support at least 2000 homeless people in a single year, which goes a long way to ending people living in parks and ravines, and helps to move people out of shelters and into permanent housing. It also helps to deal with mental health issues and addictions, issues faced by many who are homeless.
Surely that’s where all this money should be spent – not on enlarging the police force and ensuring that an officer is paid more than $110,00 plus benefits after five years of service.
But the Board has become fixated on the idea that police can solve the city’s biggest problem, and Mayor Oliva Chow, who has already supported the $48 million increase, looks ready to do so as well.
Carolyn Whitzman, in her powerful new book `Home Truths’ says that no city in Canada has tried to seriously address the problem of homelessness. Toronto City Council has a chance to do this when it deals with its total budget picture in January and early February. One fears it will dodge the issue and give the public’s money to the police rather than addressing the serious problem of homelessness.
2. Criminalizing the unhoused
In mid-December, Premier Doug Ford introduced Bill 242, the Safer Municipalities Act. It criminalizes public drug use (although this is already illegal) and allows police to evict people from tents or makeshift dwellings for “suspected” drug use. It imposes fines of up to $10,000 and up to six months in jail for people who trespass in parks by sleeping there in tents with the `likelihood’ they will continue to live in a tent in a park.
Which raises various questions. Where will these tent-dwellers find $10,000? Why not save public money? It would be less expensive to house tent dwellers for $4000 a month than in a shelter at $7000 a month or in a jail cell at $10,000 a month. And if they can’t live in parks, will they then live in ravines?
Criminalizing the unhoused rather than addressing their housing needs is a costly drain on the public purse, a failure of provincial policy, and a disgusting way to treat our fellow human beings. As the Toronto Star reported, citing the disturbing case of Lorenzo Berardinetti – a former member of the Legislature and of Toronto City Council – anyone can become homeless. See https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/i-may-end-up-in-tears-telling-my-story-how-a-former-mpp-and-toronto/article_eba3406c-b5c7-11ef-a0db-f3304969008b.html
At the same time, the province is shutting down half the supervised consumption sites in Toronto as of March 31, contrary to the advice it received from the two studies it commissioned. The police will be forced to deal with many more overdoses in public spaces, deaths that are now avoided in the consumption sites, which are able to deal quickly and effectively with overdoses. Currently more than 500 people a year die of overdoses in Toronto: that number can expect to double once the sites are closed.
Former mayors David Crombie and John Sewell are calling a public meeting on this issue on Monday January 13, 7.30 pm, Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, one block west of Spadina. More information on this issue can be found at www.sitessavelives.ca .
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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