The Durham Regional Police Services Board is asking the province for far-reaching changes to the legislation governing police in Ontario, including allowing more police work to be outsourced to civilians.

“The public expectations of the police, and the society in which they wield their powers, has changed considerably over the past quarter century,” says the board in a letter sent to Yasir Naqvi, the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

“Quite simply, it is no longer practical for a fully armed and trained police officer to assume many of the roles that we now ask of them. Many roles could be undertaken by other agencies or by civilians within a police agency.”

The letter, dated Feb. 24 and signed by Durham police board chair Roger Anderson, also suggests the emergence of unarmed public safety officers be explored in Ontario. They are currently deployed in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Sudbury.

And it recommends that police forces hire officers only after they’ve completed an accredited training program, rather than waiting to train them until after they’re hired which “is not entirely rational.”

“There is no compelling reason why policing should be different,” than other professions “from engineers to nurses, to teachers and accountants.”

The province is holding public consultations on proposed amendments to the Police Services Act, introduced by David Peterson’s Liberal government in 1990 to increase accountability and public trust in policing.

The government has also asked police boards for their input. The letter is on the Durham board’s Monday meeting agenda and will be discussed at the Toronto police board meeting Thursday.

The Halton Regional Police Services Board has already thrown its “full support” behind the letter.

Anderson said the Durham board sought the “viewpoints” of board member Stindar Lal, a lawyer who was deputy Solicitor General when the Police Services Act was enacted. He played a “central role” in the act’s development and implementation, according to a short bio on the Durham police board website.

In Ontario, the province and municipalities spend more than $4 billion annually on policing, and “taxpayers are saddled with the highest per capital policing costs in Canada,” states the letter.

While cost is an important factor in the development of a new policing model, there are other reasons reforms are needed, including decreases in crime, it says.

The Durham board is also asking the province to amend the act to allow a police officer to be suspended without pay.

“This has been a source of frustration for police chiefs and boards for many years and in many communities has caused significant consternation among the public,” the letter says. When an unnamed officer earns his full salary for eight years after being convicted of a crime, “there is something clearly wrong.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Ontario is the only province that prevents a chief from having this authority.

The letter also calls for mandatory education for board members, provided by the province, while appointees should be “assessed according to a set of competencies and be subject to a background check.”