Toronto police board approves proposed $48M funding increase despite criticism

After a full day of heated debate at a public meeting, the Toronto Police Services Board has approved a $48 million increase to the police budget for 2023. Caryn Ceolin with the arguments for and against a bigger policing budget.

By Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press

Toronto’s police board has unanimously approved a nearly $50-million increase to the force’s budget, despite outcry from critics who said the money would be better invested in underfunded community services.

The vote paves the way for the addition of 200 officers as well as programming aimed at addressing youth violence following recent incidents Toronto Mayor John Tory has called troubling.

Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw said the $48.3 million increase was necessary to improve response times and boost the presence of officers in the downtown core.

Health-care workers, lawyers and community organizers argued that boosting the police force was a flawed and ineffective way to prevent crime that disproportionately targets Black, Indigenous and racialized people in the city.

The budget requires approval by city council at a meeting next month, though Tory can veto council changes — a veto that can only be overridden by a two-thirds majority of city councillors.

The budget increase comes after the city saw several violent incidents — some fatal — in or near high schools as well as on public transit last year.

Chief Demkiw called the budget “an important step in our multi-year plan to create, reform and build.”

But healthcare workers, lawyers and community organizers levelled criticism against the proposal, arguing that the police  force is a flawed and ineffective way to prevent crime that disproportionately targets Black, Indigenous and racialized people in the city.

Dr. Suzanne Shoush, a Black and Indigenous physician, told the board she was “astounded” by a proposal she said lacked evidence and would siphon much-needed dollars away from efforts to address the city’s affordability crisis.

“There is real harm in this proposal. Every dollar that the TPS takes is a dollar drained from our communities, our social supports and our families,” Shoush said.

“As a physician, I see every day that the safest communities are not the communities with the most police. They are the communities with the most resources.”

New police chief defends necessary funding amount

The proposal represents a 4.3 per cent increase over the 2022 police budget and would bring its total to just over $1.1 billion for 2023.

Demkiw defended it as a necessary boost, in part to cover wage increases. About $18.5 million would be allocated towards that, according to the chief’s report to the board.

The money would also be earmarked to hire 162 “priority response” officers, including 25 assigned to the downtown core for a ‘strategic presence” and twenty 911 communication operators.

The budget increase, Demkiw said, was not to boost the police service for the sake of growth but to address services that he said independent reviews and the community identified as priorities.

In his presentation, Demkiw cited a report delivered by the city’s auditor general in June 2022, which found police response time routinely exceeded its targets and statistics that show Toronto trails some other major North American cities in the number of police officers per capita.

“When core delivery metrics tell us that we can’t adequately meet the demand in a growing city, we have a responsibility to ask for the investment in resources.”

Critics say Toronto police funding not needed, especially now

The auditor general found in about 40 per cent of lower priority calls, such as well-being checks or disputes, the circumstances suggested an alternative non-police response may have been able to handle the call.

But Demkiw said those alternative response models “will take time,” and in the meantime, police are “effectively the default service providers.”

Critics, meanwhile, frequently cited recent reports they say point to the devastating consequences of over-policing Black, Indigenous and racialized communities.

They referred to the findings of a 2020 Ontario Human Rights Commission report that found Black people in Toronto were 20 times more likely than white counterparts to be fatally shot by police and a 2022 report from the police service itself that found Black people were more likely to have an officer point a gun at them — whether perceived as an unarmed or not — than white people in the same situation.

“You’re already killing too many people, you’re already harming and ruining, and traumatizing too many people while you ask for more,” said community advocate Desmond Cole. “Forget about an increase. You need to be defunded. You need to be abolished.”

The budget, slated to go before council next month, will be the first presented by Tory under new “strong mayor” powers granted by the provincial government, giving him the authority to present the budget and veto council changes — a veto that can only be overridden by a two-thirds majority of city councillors.

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