The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is undergoing significant transformational change. The Toronto Police Association supports many of these changes including recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of police service to the community.

We agree with safer communities, responsive front line policing and improved police-community relations. Our concerns with how the TPS is rolling out the change process.

The TPS has reverse engineered itself into a major problem by cutting the workforce before implementing a new service delivery model. According to the report, under the 2019 model, many calls for service currently handled by our officers will be diverted to other city agencies. And that’s great, but it’s 2017, and that diversion has not occurred.

This means the community is dangerously underserved by an ever-decreasing number of officers. Our members understand the importance of transformational change. To ensure sustainability, it is critical that our members buy into the change process. If members don’t buy in, change will be difficult to sustain as evidenced by low morale and the significantly greater member attrition rate we are now seeing.

This year alone, 283 of our members, including 179 officers, have departed or given notice they are leaving the TPS. Ninety-eight members have resigned with almost 40 per cent seeking employment with other police agencies. Just seven months into the year and with five months to go, the number of separations to date has exceeded the total number of separations in 2016. Police Chief Mark Saunders, Mayor John Tory and Police Services Board Chair Andrew Pringle must know that this is an accelerated attrition rate.

We have almost 200 fewer officers than in 2015 before the adoption of the service’s four-year modernization plan. By 2019, we are on track to have less than 4,766 officers, the lowest level since 1999, despite an 11 per cent increase in Toronto’s population.

The cumulative effect of staffing cuts, greater than expected attrition, population growth and increasing community expectations, have contributed to dangerously low uniform staffing levels. This reduction in staffing is contrary to the community-centric theme of the police service’s plan, namely an expansion of engagement between the police and community, as well as an increased officer visibility in the community.

The rhetoric from the chief, the mayor and the board chair, who say cutting officers has not jeopardized public safety, is misleading. On a daily basis, hundreds of radio calls are pending citywide.

Earlier this month at the start of shift, one division had 27 calls to 911 waiting to be dispatched. Fifty per cent of the calls were Priority 2, which the TPS defines as “an event requiring immediate police attendance.”

The outstanding calls included: an emotionally disturbed person (three hours), a man with a knife at the Eaton Centre (19 minutes) and a hydro box explosion (42 minutes).

Elsewhere in the city, a call for a girl threatening to jump from a bridge sat in pending for five and a half hours before a car was dispatched. In another division, a domestic assault call came into communications at 6:30 p.m. while 16 other high-priority calls were pending. It wasn’t until 8:30 p.m. that the call was dispatched. Meanwhile, the victim had been taken to hospital by ambulance.

These examples are not anomalies. This is happening on a daily basis across the city. It is not uncommon for some divisions to put out only six to eight police officers each shift, despite one division having a population close to 300,000. Our members are frustrated and embarrassed that their first words when they arrive at a call are, “I’m sorry it took so long.”

The TPS has ignored warning signs, despite the police association and our members sounding the alarm. Without a doubt, the arbitrary cuts to police staffing under the guise of modernization, have depleted the police service placing both the community and our members at risk.

Instead of developing a realistic, sustainable plan to address the staffing crisis, the TPS implemented a failed shell game, pulling officers out of divisions and community response units (CRU) across the city, depleting the CRU. Officers were assigned to high-visibility patrols, giving the community a false sense of security that Toronto is flooded with officers.

It’s time to be honest with the public and acknowledge that the TPS does not have the human resources to make meaningful improvements in our city’s safety. Instead, the chief’s repeated refusal to recognize the crippling staffing issue has caused a huge disconnect between the TPS and the rank-and-file members.

Our members are losing confidence in police leadership and morale is at rock bottom. In a recent member survey, 93 per cent of our members feel the Toronto Police Service is under resourced and 94 per cent of members indicate that the way transformational change is being mismanaged has negatively impacted their morale.

Policing is a labour-intensive service, and our members need the appropriate staffing to deliver police services safely and efficiently. Unfortunately, the chief, the mayor, and the police board chair only want to hear feedback that supports their cost-cutting agenda.

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We want modernization that improves service levels for Toronto and is safe for our members. We want modernization that makes sense, not just cents.

Mike McCormack is president of the Toronto Police Association.

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