Toronto’s “elevated” gun crime problem does not warrant a return to carding, Chief Mark Saunders said Friday.

The controversial practice of Ontario police randomly selecting a person and questioning them without any suspicion of them being involved in a crime was quashed by the previous Liberal government in 2017, after a sustained stream of research into its use showed it disproportionately impacted people of colour.

“Under that definition of carding – it is simply unlawful policing,” Saunders told reporters at a year-end press conference on Friday. “It is not going to come back but I will say it (ending) has forced us to raise the bar.”

Going in to 2020, Saunders said more of his officers will begin to wear body cameras, update their 35-year-old shift schedule model and add 341 new officers to respond to gun crime.

Saunders said investigators targeting guns and gangs have become more “surgical” and more information sharing has led to investigations not causing as much damage to community trust as they did in the past, when he said police would “blanket the communities with officers.”

As a result, he said the solve rate for shootings with injuries has risen from 13 per cent last year to 30 per cent this year.

But he conceded that gun crime is continuing to increase in Toronto due to the stunningly lucrative nature of gun smuggling, dealing fentanyl and human trafficking.

“The spike (in crime) right now, is monetary,” Saunders said.

He said that that there are several new criminal activities in North America that have proven more lucrative than in the past, including the smuggling of handguns from the U.S., spiking drugs with the opioid fentanyl and sex trafficking.

These activities are encouraging more people from disadvantaged areas to join street gangs, which he said in turn generates more criminal activity and shootings.

The ability to spike traditional drugs such as cocaine with the opioid fentanyl has created more addicts, and correspondingly, more overdose deaths.

Nearly 1,000 people died of overdoses in Toronto this year, triple what it was several years ago. More drug sales equates to larger profits, and in turn encourages more people to get involved in crime.

“It all adds up to dollars, and people are getting killed as a result.”

Saunders said 800 firearms were seized by his officers in 2019.

Two-hundred and seventy-seven people were struck by gunfire in Toronto this year, up from 218 in 2018 and 182 in 2017.

A large part of why so many firearms have been found is how lucrative it is to bring them illegally from the U.S.

“When you go to a gun show and you can buy a Glock for $400 in the states and then you cross the border and it becomes $4000,” Saunders said.

And thirdly, trafficking of one vulnerable person for the purpose of sex can earn someone between $250,000 and $300,000 in one year.

Without better supports to steer people away from engaging in these activities, as well as programs to deter those released from prison from resuming their previous activities, Saunders repeated his mantra that his service will not be able to arrest their way out of the problems the city is facing.

“Ninety per cent of the people we apprehend are coming out, that’s your starting point to the theory of what needs to be done to get it right collectively.”