Toronto police are not letting go of the city’s proposed budget that is nearly $13 million less than what they wanted.
Instead, the force is fighting harder to prove their point by launching a campaign called Support Your TPS and some Torontonians are not having it.
The campaign is aimed at bringing attention to the negative impacts of having a budget lower than what the Toronto Police Services Board approved last month.
The board approved a 1.7 per cent increase to the police budget, amounting to a total of $1.186 billion. However, Mayor Olivia Chow recently revealed the city would be cutting that budget by over $12 million.
On Wednesday, the mayor set the record straight to reporters when asked about the criticism.
“Your Toronto Police are receiving millions of dollars more on the budget, there’s no cuts,” Chow said during a press conference.
“Their budget is $1.3 billion dollars. One out of five dollars of your property tax goes to the police. It’s a substantial amount of investment,” she continued.
In the video posted by police, TPS Chief Myron Demkiw argues that reducing the approved budget any further would inhibit the force from hiring four classes of 90 police officers and as a result, any gains on the front line will be cancelled out by retirements and turnovers by 2025.
In addition, he goes on to say that there are 40 staff sergeant vacancies that need to be filled and emergency calls for services have increased by 18 per cent.
On average, it currently takes 22 minutes for police to respond to the highest priority call, with the wait time being longer in 18 of 25 municipal wards.
Since posting the video, many users online have shared their reactions with some saying their budget is more than enough, they just don’t know how to manage it.
In response, police told Now Toronto that it is their imperative obligation to let the public know that the $12.6 million cut from their budget will imperil their ability to ensure public safety.
“We have an obligation to let the public know that – whether at City budget meetings, while speaking to media, or by posting on our social media accounts. The budget is crucial and impacts our ability to provide services that are central to what we do as an organization,” the police said in a statement to Now Toronto on Friday.
“Since 2011, we have 600 fewer police officers – in fact, we only have 37 more officers today than we did in 1999, despite a considerably different world in terms of population, crime and complexity. This imperils the Service’s ability to ensure public safety, to offer community policing, and to proactively patrol the city. Currently, our response times to priority one emergency calls is averaging 22 minutes,” the statement said.
