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Pigs at the trough

Last time I spoke with police union head Mike McCormack he was in a right good mood. Too good. He couldn’t stop laughing, even as it was looking like the mayor was taking food out of the mouths of McCormack’s charges, the good men and women of the Toronto Police Service.

The occasion was a few weeks ago. City auditor, Geoffrey Griffiths, the same guy who’d laid waste to the TCHC board with that whopper of a report on spending irregularities at the social housing agency, had just made his presentation to the Police Services Board on the millions being eaten up in the city budget on that tasty police perk, aka paid duty.

It wasn’t looking good for the force’s rank and file then to keep the extra pay – at least, judging by the fire being breathed on the subject by Ford’s appointees on the board.

Turns out, though, that not only will the cops get to keep the paid duty perk, they’ll also be getting a tidy pay raise – 11.5 per cent over four years.

Not bad, considering the current state of the city’s books – and the mayor’s pledge that no city department would be spared the knife to balance the ever-ballooning city deficit. Surprise. Cops win.

Well, no surprise, really. The police have been feasting on the biggest slice of the city’s budget pie forever in this town. There’s a price to pay for keeping the peace with the police union. And it’s usually a hefty one. So, Ford wouldn’t be the first to say uncle on money matters when it comes to policing.

Only, it all seems a bit hypocritical given the hysteria of the Ford administration when it comes to holding the bottom line. It all makes me wonder what the cops got on Ford. He’s just added $100 mil to the city’s bottom line with this deal that he’s going to have to find somewhere. And that’s not counting the millions more the settlement will cost the city when firefighters sit down to negotiate their contract with the city. They’ll be pointing to the fat deal the cops got and asking for the same consideration.

Some of the mayor’s critics on council have suggested the deal signed with police was a rookie mistake by a mayor who didn’t understand the ripple effects. Nice framing, but I’m not so sure the mayor and his merry band haven’t been BSing the public all along on the police file.

It’s really quite simple when it comes to the police budget. The only way it’s going to be cut is to lay off police, period. That’s because 90 per cent of the cop budget goes to salaries and benefits.

On the policing front, though, the Ford administration has been pulling the equivalent of a misdirection play in football since it took over the reins at City Hall.

That’s because there’s more than one agenda at play. One part of that agenda, I believe, is to get rid of the current chief. The other, is to keep the rank and file on side. Hence, the conflicting messages from Ford & Co.

During the campaign Ford promised to hire 100 more cops, presumably understanding the costs involved. Then a few weeks into office, he switched gears on that, calling the chief into a highly-publicized meeting to tell him to suspend new hires to save a few mil.

It all looked very good for the cameras – the mayor taking on the sacred cow that is the police budget. And in the process making it look like it’s the chief who was standing in the way of cleaning up the books.

Then, when the chief announced his own review of police spending, just to show he is on the same page, the mayor’s peeps on the Police Services Board howled their disapproval. They wanted outside consultants hired to conduct a city-wide review of spending to be the ones combing the cops’ books, presumably because the chief couldn’t be trusted to cut where the cutting is necessary. Again, it was the chief who was being made to look like the bad guy.

The fake-out on the fuzz file continues. Was a time when conservative commentators in the media, being law and order types, believed no expense should be spared when it comes to policing. All of a sudden, with this latest pay deal, they’re making cops out to be pigs at the trough.

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