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TORONTO — A former Ontario police officer has rekindled the debate over how officers are disciplined after he sent an email in which he thanked the force for a three-year paid suspension, which he said allowed him to play golf, travel and take a firefighter course.

“I was able to sit home, take courses, travel, and play lots of golf and get paid a first class pay check, receive full benefits, and a full pension for the last three years,” Craig Markham, a former Waterloo Regional Police constable, wrote in the email.

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Markham, 37, thanked the force for a “dream come true” and closed the email by saying he’s “down south until the end of April playing golf and hanging out on the beach using some of that WRPS sick bank payout.”

The email was released by Waterloo Regional Police Chief Bryan Larkin at a police services board meeting last week, when he called the case an abuse of the system.

On Tuesday, Markham said he sent the email in a moment of frustration.