Budget cut could convey a blunt message
Big number: at least 10 per cent. The suggested target for reducing the $1.1 billion Toronto police budget as proposed in a motion by Coun. Josh Matlow and Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam. Mayor John Tory has a competing motion that does not call for a specific budget reduction target. Both motions will be considered at a council meeting that starts today.
After Mayor John Tory and councillors received tens of thousands of emails and calls on the subject, there isn’t much disagreement at Toronto city hall that it’s time to change the way the city’s police service operates. There is, however, a whole lot of disagreement about whether it makes sense to attach a budgetary number to those changes.
That’s the state of play as council is set to debate two duelling motions for police reforms at their meeting that starts today. At a glance, they look pretty darn similar.
The first, by Coun. Josh Matlow with a second from Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam, outlines a plan to identify alternatives to policing and address police violence that disproportionately affects Black, Indigenous and people of colour, while also
king the police to provide line-by-line detail of their budget. The competing motion by Mayor John Tory hits those same notes, calling for a report that lays out “alternative models of community safety response.”
The most important difference: a number. Matlow and Wong-Tam’s motion specifically requests the police provide a budget proposal for 2021 that is “a minimum of 10 per cent” lower than their current budget, a move that would shave about $100 million off the $1.1 billion the cops spend each year. Tory’s motion references “likely reductions to the Toronto Police Services budget” that could arise from reforms, but holds off on setting a reduction target. When he announced his police reform plan last Thursday, Tory defended his decision not to call for a specific budget cut, pointing out a target would be arbitrary and that budgetary considerations should come after figuring out changes to things like emergency response to people in mental health crisis.
“This has to be done carefully and not based on a number that somebody picked, but based on a process where we go about making change for mental health and many other areas and then making the budgetary changes that go with them,” the mayor told reporters.
He’s got a point. Matlow and Wong-Tam’s budgetary target is not really rooted in a clear rationale beyond ten being a round number. And Tory’s right, too, that pushing for a budget reduction is an inelegant way to go about police reform. A budget cut is a blunt instrument.
But blunt instruments exist for a reason. Sometimes a project calls for a sledgehammer instead of a screwdriver.
That’s especially true in situations where previous attempts at more deliberate approaches to deconstruction haven’t worked. It’s not as if the notion of reforming the Toronto police is new — it’s been tried before.
Most recently, Tory pushed for the creation of a Trans-formational Task Force designed to modernize policing and reduce the budget in 2016. He later heralded their initial recommendations, saying they would lead to the “restoration of trust in some places where trust had been eroded between police and the community.” Just a few years later, the most
vious legacy of the task force is that the police are no longer responsible for overseeing lifeguard and crossing guard programs. The trust part remains elusive.
The city’s police have proven adept at dragging their feet on reform efforts and pushing things back toward status quo. Tory is asking Torontonians to believe this new attempt will see a different outcome. It’s a big ask. Matlow and Wong-Tam’s budget-cutting motion doesn’t guarantee change either. Despite some fear-mongering about how it would lead to fewer cops on the streets, it’s merely a request that the police provide a budget proposal for next year with a reduction in spending.
That proposal would still be subject to approval from the Police Services Board and council, and a cut could even face appeal at the provincially-mandated Ontario Civilian Police Commission.
In the end, it may prove that cutting 10 per cent is untenable due to labour contracts and the reduction will need to be revised or spread over a few y
But whatever the outcome, requesting a budget cut now would be a strong signal that the mayor and councillors are serious this time about change to policing — and that they’re willing to use a blunt instrument to achieve results. Given the unsuccessful history of Toronto police reform and real questions about why this attempt will be any different, a signal of seriousness might be a signal worth sending.