A good first step on guns
Toronto Mayor John Tory and police Chief Mark Saunders are on the right track with their plan to fight the plague of gun violence that has shocked the city this summer.
Part of the plan involves making sure more police officers are deployed where and when shootings most often occur. That means putting 200 more of them on the streets between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m., at a cost of $3 million in additional overtime.
Importantly, Chief Saunders promises this won’t involve “saturating” a few high-crime neighbourhoods with a massive police presence, risking the kind of backlash against overpolicing that has soured relations between some (mainly Black) communities and his force in the past few years. Instead, he says, deployment will be “intelligence-led,” putting officers where they are most needed.
That’s a step forward, and it was worrisome on Thursday to hear the new Ford government at Queen’s Park indicate in its first Throne Speech that it may push for a return to blunter policing methods — perhaps even reviving the discredited practice of carding.
The government promised to free police “from onerous restrictions that treat those in uniform as subjects of suspicion and scorn.” It’s not at all clear what that will mean in practice, but if it means going back to heavy-handed methods of patrolling high-crime areas it will be a historic mistake.
The other part of the plan put forward by Tory and Saunders involves investing in ways to fight the so-called root causes of crime — poverty, lack of opportunity and the lure of gangs for young men in disadvantaged communities.
The city will be asking the federal government for $12 million from its national crime prevention strategy fund, money that will go to bolster employment and social programs with a proven track record of success. City council should endorse that request, and the province should get on board as well.
This is just a first-cut plan, designed to start having an impact within weeks, not months. But it’s a constructive approach, which is a lot more than can be said for the rhetoric thrown around in past weeks by Toronto’s police union and its combative leader, Mike McCormack.
Instead of doing all it can to help the police force respond quickly and creatively to the upsurge in gun violence, the union has spent its time pointing fingers at the mayor and chief. It has blamed efforts to modernize the force and keep costs under control for every increase in crime, a well-worn tactic that amounts to spreading fear that we’ll all be at risk unless police get everything they want.
The latest salvo is a letter by a veteran Toronto police sergeant, Mark Hayward, accusing Tory of being a “direct contributor” to violence in the city and dismissing Saunders as a “puppet on string” manipulated by the mayor.
Naturally, the police union denies any direct connection with the letter, which is now the subject of an internal investigation by the force. But it certainly repeats the talking points pushed over past months by the union and is effectively part of the campaign to scapegoat politicians and top police managers who are trying to reshape the force and make sure resources are deployed most effectively.
It’s time for the police union to get with the program and co-operate with Chief Saunders’ ambitious modernization program rather than trying to throw a spanner in the works at every opportunity. Certainly it should cut out the irresponsible rhetoric that links every attempt at reforming the police force to an increase in crime.
Reversing the troubling uptick in gun crime will take a long time and involve effort from all levels of government, right across the country. But with Thursday’s announcement, the mayor and police chief are taking a solid first step.
They deserve support from city council, the province — and the organization that represents the officers on the front lines.