NON-CONFIDENCE VOTE?
Police union president says many officers have lost faith in their chief,
The Toronto police union is launching a “non-confidence” vote against Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders — something the union president is calling the chief’s “last opportunity” to act on its demands.
The vote, to take place electronically and close Feb. 21, is intended to garner “quantitative” evidence of the membership’s lack of support for the city’s top cop, according to Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack.
“It’s a clear message to the chief that he needs to fix this,” McCormack said Thursday.
“A significant number have told us that they’ve lost confidence on the chief’s ability to address concerns with urgency.”
The vote is a symbolic gesture — the police chief is hired and employed by the Toronto police board. But McCormack said he hopes police board chair Andy Pringle and Mayor John Tory take note and realize the chief may not have the backing of his officers. Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said the service would not be responding the union’s non-confidence vote.
The vote comes amid a monthslong campaign by the association against ongoing cost-cutting changes within Toronto police. That has included a temporary freeze on hiring and promotions — a measure from which the police board last year backed down after pressure from the union.
Nonetheless, the police union has said its complement has reached critically low levels — in part because hiring was not taking place fast enough — and claims short-staffing has resulted in longer wait times when citizens call police.
Last fall, the union encouraged its members to don “Toronto Police Association” baseball hats instead of their standard-issue forage hats to protest “empty promises” from its leadership to fix low staffing levels.
Then last month, the union took out a full-page advertisement in the Star showing a laughing Tory alongside a grinning Saunders and Pringle. “These guys are putting your safety on hold,” the ad said, with a “911” apparently written in blood behind them.
Tory said the advertisement was “propaganda” and called McCormack “professionally angry.”
In January, Saunders told reporters that the service was looking at strategic hiring to address an attrition rate that was higher than expected. Instead of simply hiring more officers, Saunders said the focus is on “putting the right resources in the right places.”
The last time the union took a vote of non-confidence was in 2002 against then-chief Julian Fantino — with damning results.
Almost 90 per cent of the more than 5,000 officers who voted said they had no confidence in their leader, though then-union president Craig Bromell did not call for the chief’s resignation.
Bromell retired later that year, while Fantino stayed as top cop until 2005.