Embroiled in a drug scandal, the mayor of Canada’s largest city is talking about hiring more police officers.

The talk comes at a time when Toronto police are reporting that the city’s overall major crime rate has plunged by 14 per cent in 2013, compared with 2012.

“Toronto is one of the safest cities in North America,” Chief Bill Blair says in a supplementary agenda containing crime statistics, released in advance of Thursday’s Toronto Police Services Board meeting.

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Mayor Rob Ford, it was revealed last week, has been the subject of a months-long police investigation into his activities and associations following May reports by the Toronto Star and Gawker.com of a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe. On Thursday, Blair revealed the video turned up on a deleted hard drive seized during a drugs-and-gangs raid. Ford, after long denying the video existed, has now demanded that it be released before he comments. He has said he’s not a crack addict.

In a radio interview Monday, Ford was asked about participating in future police budget negotiations in light of the criminal investigation.

“This has nothing to do — these people deserve an increase,” Ford responded. “I’m going to be hiring more police in this budget right now. I said I was going to hire 100 officers; we’re hiring 150 officers.”

After campaigning to hire 100 more officers in the 2010 election, Ford backed away from the promise after the force indicated it didn’t need the additional manpower.

But the service is now in the third year of a hiring freeze and the number of uniformed officers is about 300 below the approved complement of 5,604, so a proposal to boost new hires would be well received in policing circles.

Councillor Doug Ford said Monday that, not only does he “support police having planes” — the Star has reported a Cessna was used to conduct aerial surveillance of the mayor — but police should have their own chopper in the sky.

“I support the police having planes. I’ll go one step further. We should fund a helicopter for the police,” Doug Ford told CP24.

John Sewell, head of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, questioned the timing of the mayor pushing a law-and-order agenda.

“Is he throwing this out there as a distraction?” Sewell said Monday.

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If the tight-fisted Ford is intent on stopping the so-called gravy train, he should be trying to rein in the nearly $1 billion police budget, Sewell said.

“There is an argument we could use fewer police officers,” the former mayor said. “Toronto needs better policing, not more police officers.” It’s estimated 100 additional officers would cost the city about $15 million.

According to the coalition, once paid-duty policing is included, 3,890 Toronto police employees earned more than $100,000 in 2012, almost double the number in 2010. Toronto police are currently in the third year of a four-year contract that gave police an 11.5 per cent pay increase.

In the early stages of 2014 budget negotiations, the chief has submitted a budget for a net spending increase of 3.2 per cent, or $30 million, to a total expenditure of $958.6 million.

With files by Daniel Dale

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