Linking traffic fines to police job funding is a cop-out by city hall

What happens if people suddenly start observing speed limits on city roads?

Directly linking the hiring of more Calgary police officers to the amount of money the service generates in fines is a corruption of the very concept of unbiased policing.

If the people of Calgary believe we need more officers then we should be prepared to pay for them out of general revenues collected in rates and user fees.

That’s not what happened this week. Instead the $7.5 million that will be spent on 50 new positions — at $150,000 a pop, cops aren’t cheap these days — will come from the amount of money that’s recently been collected in traffic fines.

Of course the simplistic first reaction of many Calgarians about such a development is a shrug and a comment of “well, don’t speed, then.”

OK, then, imagine Calgarians did exactly that in large numbers in the year ahead. What will our police do then? That’s the nub of this issue and that’s where the cracks appear in this dangerous public policy. That’s when the reaction of Police Chief Roger Chaffin might not look so wise.

“I can’t imagine any of our officers actually think, ‘This ticket is going to get us another person (as an officer),’” he said.

Really? Well let’s imagine a scenario where ticket revenue drops dramatically — maybe a long, tough winter cuts traffic, more people use transit, or Councillor Druh Farrell finally gets us all to ride bikes to work. So by next July, the fine bucket has a hole in it.

Does that mean these newly hired officers are going to get the boot and face EI like many fellow citizens? Do you imagine such a daunting possibility will still not register on the minds of police officers, as Chaffin would have us believe?

This is a slippery slope council has set us upon, because it effectively makes it appear police need to hand out tickets constantly to keep their own jobs or the jobs of fellow officers.

So citizens can rightly ask whether policing is being done for the greater and collective good of the community or as a cash grab for the men and women carrying a badge and a gun.

Will police set up photo radar in a playground zone at 11 a.m. — when the kids are about and few motorists speed because the presence of those very same kids is a timely reminder to slow down — or will they instead lurk and pounce at 8:45 p.m., when there are no children in danger but more money to be made from drivers who forget the zone restriction is still in effect?

Will police cut back on checkstops, which generally catch only a few drunk yet dangerous drivers, because the manpower involved is large and those nabbed often fight the charge in court resulting in more police time used up?

Might it be better instead to deploy those officers at the “fishing holes” — speed traps at the bottom of hills is a favourite — that the force pretends it’s never heard of?

And with the fine revenue in decline, will ever more officers be needed to hand out tickets for fewer driving infractions, to the point where serious policing in areas such as tracking violent gang activity is curtailed?

Certainly I’d hope none of these scenarios would occur as, for now at least, the Calgary Police Service enjoys a decent rapport with the citizens it is sworn to serve and protect.

But these are legitimate questions and ones that can and should be raised because of the decision to directly link fine revenue with officers’ jobs.

City council, suddenly displaying desperation to not jack up taxes as an upcoming election cycle approaches, took the easy way out.

In doing so they have unwittingly laid a potential minefield for the police officers of our city for years to come.