Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders is defending plans to modernize the service and rejecting police union claims that staff cuts have reached a “crisis point,” putting officers and the public at risk.

“Just hiring more police officers right now is doing a disservice to the organization,” Saunders told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Wednesday.

The service wants and needs to improve the deployment model, so, for example, highly trained officers aren’t sitting around guarding crime scenes for days on end, he said.

“We need to put our officers in the right place and the right time.”

Saunders was also skeptical of the Toronto Police Association assertion that officer morale is rock bottom, suggesting the surveys used by the union might be “skewed.”

And the chief said he can’t answer whether officers are working to rule.

“I know that they’re going to be answering the calls when they’re called to be there.”

The Toronto Police Association launched a website this week, saying the force has nearly 500 fewer officers than it did in 2010 and may cut another 400 by 2019.

“Our members are trying to make a bad situation work by trying to do more with less,” said union president Mike McCormack.

It is causing some concerns around public safety and officer safety, McCormack said.

The Toronto Police Service is currently under a three-year freeze on hiring and promotions. The move was one of a series of recommendations in a report released by the police board’s “Transformational Task Force” in January — a group of civilians and officers that’s part of a larger effort to modernize the force and cut police spending.

On Tuesday, Mayor John Tory, a member of the civilian oversight board, said he would like to see the association help with bringing about change “instead of trying to resist it and protect the status quo.”

“I think it’s time they came to the table and acted as our partner in modernizing policing,” the mayor said.

In two collective agreements, the association agreed to come to the table to talk about shift scheduling and two-officers-per-car at night policy, both identified as cost-saving ways the service can revamp its deployment model, Tory noted.

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“It’s been very difficult to get those discussions going.”

Those changes would allow more effective deployment, Tory said.

“That’s what we need Mr. McCormack and the association on board, helping to bring about those changes in the best way possible, not kind of lobbing in hand grenades from the sidelines.”

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