The not so monumental police reform
Changes are supposed to deliver savings of $100 million over three years. That is a drop in the bucket
On first blush, the Transformational Task Force on Policing has delivered a significant set of recommendations that will change, if not transform, policing in Toronto.
If the thrust of the report is not thwarted by amendments that blunt its impact, the city will slow the steady growth of the police budget, now a staggering $1 billion a year.
There’d be 300 to 450 fewer officers three years from now — a reduction through attrition as no new officers would be hired.
As many as six divisions could be merged or closed. TAVIS, the controversial anti-violence intervention strategy, is toast after this summer. Management of the parking enforcement unit and crossing guards gets passed on to the city, as it should be.
The changes are supposed to deliver budget savings of $100 million over three years. That is a drop in the bucket on such a massive spending envelope, the largest single draw from property taxes. But Torontonians are used to the police demanding more money, more officers, more, more, more. As such, a hiring freeze — the kind of reasonable pause that most businesses and several government departments see as the norm — seems like a monumental achievement. In reality, this is a modest proposal. The surprise is that it is being contemplated by the leaders of a regime so rooted in the status quo. And if that doesn’t surprise, the calm acceptance by the police chief and the senior officers and the police association is unprecedented.
Maybe that was the deal Mayor John Tory struck with the police brass when he masterminded a favourable new contract for the police union and his political ally Mike McCormack, the union president; when he delivered them the chief they wanted in Mark Saunders; and when he made his political confrere Andy Pringle the chair of the police services board, despite his toothless tenure on the board.
“There will be fewer of you, but we are taking away some of your responsibilities so everything will be fine.” MARK SAUNDERS POLICE CHIEF
Maybe Tory had them promise to play ball with what the reforms critics had said would be inevitable, if policing costs were to be contained.
Maybe, because such a conclusion requires one to believe that Tory had a master plan on policing when evidence suggests the opposite. When he first ran for mayor he proposed more police in a tough-on-crime platform — one that pushed the police union to officially endorse him. Now he’s talking social programs and a reduction in police officers.
A year ago Tory was in crisis over his embrace of carding. Rebuffed and rebuked, he flipped, leaving Chief Saunders defending the indefensible. Now, both men are prepared to disband TAVIS — a source of many complaints for too-aggressive policing that led to less community co-operation when the goal was more co-operation with the everpresent TAVIS cops on bikes.
Changing Pringle’s mind on any of this must have been the easiest. Only Pringle knows what he thinks on most policing policy issues. Tory’s best move on the policing file was to strike a task force of tough-minded people who had a laser focus on achieving some change. Their reputations were on the line. They include David Soknacki, a former Toronto city councillor and budget chief and mayoral candidate. He knows a thing or two about police spending.
Former city auditor Jeff Griffith has been critical of police spending in more than one audit of the police department. And the sleeper might have been Michelle DiEmanuele: president and CEO of Trillium Health Partners, with “expertise in large-scale change and cultural transformation.” She is a former senior provincial servant and deputy minister.
Reports from inside the task force deliberations say DiEmanuele’s experience at downsizing hospitals was crucial in convincing the police brass that change is possible.
But however you slice it, the report is a key step forward for Chief Saunders. Six current members of the police service sit on the task force, chaired by Pringle and Saunders. The chief has had to steer the changes through the force — managing the raised eyebrows, outright skepticism and opposition.
In presenting the changes to his officers, Saunders apparently has told them of a future where Toronto police will have to “do less with less.” Maybe it’s Saunders’ way of getting buy-in. “There will be fewer of you, but we are taking away some of your responsibilities so everything will be fine.”
So, change is coming to Toronto police. But don’t call it a transformation. That would hurt a little. Transformation demands radical change and conjures up something revolutionary or a recasting or major modification. It requires doing the same with less; or doing more with less. Doing “less with less” is tinkering around the edges, despite movement on many fronts.
That said, Saunders is starting down a road his predecessors avoided. That alone earns him credit — his first positive draw after a lukewarm and unspectacular year on the job. Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca