Tasers and Councillor Michael Walker

This might come as a bit of a jolt to Toronto Councillor Michael Walker – but he is wrong!

The Toronto Sun is reporting that Councillor Walker wants to see a moratorium on the purchase of additional Tasers by the Toronto Police Services.

A few points of clarification for the Councillor –

1. The TPSB has not made a decision to equip front line officers with Tasers.

2. The fact is that two Coroners' juries recommended to the Board that all frontline officers be provided with Tasers because, in their view, lives would have been saved had Tasers been available. The Board received these recommendations and, following our practice, asked the Chief to respond. The Chief came back to the Board to say that he was in agreement with the juries' recommendations. However, he pointed out that in order to provide Tasers to frontline officers, the provincial rules will have to change. At present, the province allows only supervisors and tactical units to have Tasers.

The Board has asked the chief to provide a more detailed business case and research from other jurisdictions on the effects of Tasers. That report has not been provided to the Board for consideration.

3. In terms of the cost of the Tasers, this discussion is premature. There is no request in the Toronto Police Services 2008 budget request for Tasers for front line officers.

4. Regardless, as I explained in a previous blog Council is prohibited from approving or disapproving specific items in the police budget.

5. In the three or so years that the Taser has been used in Toronto, there has not been a single serious injury, let alone a death. This is because the Taser is only given to supervisory and ETF officers after an intensive training that takes double the time recommended. In addition, there are very strict rules about when the device may be used, full reporting after each time the Taser is brought out (whether fired or not), close monitoring and supervision, and, finally, reporting annually to the Board, in public, on all use of Tasers in that period, includinggeographic location, reasons for deployment, any injuries and complaints or civil actions. This combination of training, monitoring and accountability has, I believe, prevented the type of consequences that we have seen elsewhere.

6. Before any decision is made to expand on the use of Tasers, the Toronto Police Services Board will meet conduct its due diligence and consult with the public to ensure we make the right decision for our City.

FAMILY DAY BLAHS

This is from Sunday's Toronto Sun.


Family Day blahs
Cheers for the Police Services Board for standing up to the union's whining
By ROB GRANATSTEIN

Well thank goodness that's done. Family Day, I mean.

Finally the ads, public relations campaign and outright whining by the Toronto Police Association is over.

Memo to TPA President Dave Wilson: No one stole anything from you. Not your lunch. Not your kitten. Not your day off. In fact, maybe you just got a very minor taste of the real world.

First, a quick recap: All of Toronto's municipal employees get more days off than is required under Ontario legislation. That didn't stop Toronto city councillors from adding a Family Day holiday for all city workers -- except for the fine men and women of the Toronto Police Service.

Toronto Police have two floating days in their complement of 12 days off, three more than mandated by the province. One of those could easily have been changed into the Family Day holiday.

That's what happened here at the Sun. That day you wanted to use for a four-day weekend in July just became a February day off. Suck it up and move on.

Police Chief Bill Blair actually sent a memo asking for all accommodations to be made to allow people who needed Family Day off to get it, using one of their floating days -- even if they had to borrow against future holidays.

We should also remember the union and the Toronto Police Services Board have entered into contract negotiations. Does this sound like a negotiating ploy to you?

And a cheer for Chairman Alok Mukherjee and the entire Toronto Police Services Board for standing up to the union. Let's hope they keep that backbone if the two sides ever get back to the negotiating table.

A FEW DOZEN CALLS

For the record, the union's public relations campaign calling for Torontonians to rise up and complain to the mayor about this gross unfairness earned a few dozen calls and e-mails.
The board had one employee ask what that officer should tell her daughter.

Still, it's too bad city politicians couldn't muster the same intestinal fortitude as the police board. And that's where the real problem lies. City Hall gives all its employees a day off, but draws the line at the police?

Wilson's right, that's not fair.

Still, ask most Torontonians and they'd take the 12 days off -- versus the nine many get -- in a heartbeat. Saying it happened because the mayor hates the cops, as some have alleged, is ridiculous. The union's ad states straight out: "It's just another example of how Mayor Miller and the Police Services Board are tough on cops instead of tough on crime."

Wilson has been a good leader for the police association. He's pulled them out of the goon phase. But on this issue, he was wrong.

There are some things here at the Sun we will always back: Toronto Police officers should be the highest paid in the country -- and no doubt they will be again after this contract is signed.

But we also believe it's time for city employees to get off the ever-rising escalator. You know the one: If that union gets that perk or benefit, we should, too. The firefighters got 9.66% over three years, so why not everyone else?

There has to be a point where we say "enough".

The problem is one of the unions has to go first. One of them has to do what the six prominent Torontonians on the city's fiscal review panel called for last week.

As they put it: "Involved unions must accept, one way or another, the fiscal constraints that face the city as they develop their own bargaining strategies."

City councillors got a 1.9% raise. That is enough for everyone.
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In 1999 Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to snowblow the city out from under a massive blanket.

In 2008, Mayor David Miller called in the army, too.

Mel's call made Toronto a laughingstock because it was the actual army. But if you look back, those 420 soldiers brought a few Bison vehicles and three full crews, but mainly moved snow with shovels.

The true comparison is that in 1999 there were 93 crews removing snow. This year there are 83 crews.

And if you were in the snow removal zone, you know it felt like an army invasion. Everywhere you turned there were more dump trucks.

Fortunately the city doesn't have to pay those contractors overtime for Family Day. Contracting out by your city. Go figure.

Funding of police services

There was a very interesting article in the London Free Press earlier this week about the debate between the London Police Services Board and London City Council on the police services budget.

This is a great opportunity to talk about how the Toronto Police Service is funded.

The legislative authority for the budget process is found under section 19 of the Police Services Act. You will see that in establishing the police budget, Council does not have the authority to approve or disapprove specific items in the estimates.

Responsibility for the Toronto Police Services budget rests with the Board. The Chief submits an operating budget and a capital budget to the Board. Over a series of meetings, the Board’s budget sub-committee undertakes an in-depth review of the budget. A draft budget is then provided to the public for comment, following which, a final budget is to the entire Board for approval. It is the practice of the Toronto Police Services Board to make as many of the details of the budget available to the public as possible. (2008 TPSB Budget Overview and 2008 TPS Budget Overview)

A Board approved budget is then presented to the Budget Committee of Council by the Board, assisted by the Chief. The Budget Committee reviews the budget, asks questions and can make recommendations for change to the overall budget. Neither Council nor its committees can make changes to specific line items in the budget. Following consideration at the Committee stage,, the budget is presented to Council which ultimately votes to approve it.

As you will see from the Police Services Act subsection 39(5), “If the board is not satisfied that the budget established for it by the council is sufficient to maintain an adequate number of police officers or other employees of the police force or to provide the police force with adequate equipment or facilities, the board may request that the Commission [Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services] determine the question and the Commission, shall, after a hearing, do so.”

DEFINING PROGRESS

The original intent of this blog entry was to discuss John Spears’ story in The Toronto Star last week on the cost of benefits at the City of Toronto, essentially comparing the city’s soaring benefits costs with the same soaring costs at the Toronto Police Service.

This is not a “Toronto issue”. In fact, this issue is affecting public and private sector employers throughout North America. We are all struggling to provide existing benefits to our workers in a cost-effective manner.

My original intent changed earlier this week when I read Toronto Police Association Dave Wilson’s quote in The Toronto Sun about how the Board has had eight bargaining meetings with the TPA without any progress being made. It depends on how you define “progress.” But, coincidentally, that too relates, to benefits.

The members of the Toronto Police Service have a very difficult job and it is important that we provide the benefits that can help them, such as an Employee and Family Assistance Program, short- and long-term disability and other benefits such as dental, eye care and prescription drug coverage.

As with every other employer, our cost of providing the benefits that we have already negotiated is increasing dramatically. In the last four years, we have seen an average annual increase of 9% in the cost of medical benefits and an average annual increase of 4% in dental benefits. This is without negotiating increases or add-ons to an already very comprehensive and very generous benefit package. Many Toronto residents do not have as good a package – indeed, some have no benefits at all.

The math is simple: any significant increase to the Toronto Police Service benefit package will cost a substantial amount of money in addition to the soaring costs of the benefits we already give to our members. Perhaps “progress” is more about recognizing and valuing what you have rather than about getting still more, with no regard for an already beleaguered property tax payer who ultimately pays for it.

SUSPENSION WITH PAY

Recently, after yet another news story about police officers who continue to draw their salary while suspended from duty, a friend of mine asked me to explain why police officers were not treated the same as other working people. She was puzzled that uniformed police officers cannot be suspended without pay even when charged with the most heinous offences. It is a question that many people ask; there are days when I wonder about it myself.

I quite understand the legal reason. Under the Police Services Act, a police officer cannot be suspended without pay unless s/he is convicted of an offence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

I also understand the philosophical reason that the Act is so restrictive. Police officers are called upon to perform duties and face situations that may result in criminal charges. Lack of legal protection against such risks can have a chilling effect and seriously affect the ability of police officers to do their jobs.

However, there is no justification for a provision which is so sweeping in scope that an officer cannot be suspended without pay even when charged with the most egregious acts, as seen in the recent past. The protection applies even when the officer's action occurred off the job.

Because of its breadth, the protection against suspension without pay constitutes a form of differential and deferential treatment of one group of working people over every other group. Quite frankly, in its present form, the provision is an anachronism, a violation of every principle of sound labour relations practice.

Continuing to pay an officer who is alleged to have committed an egregious offence jeopardizes public confidence in policing and frustrates the responsible expenditure of public funds. While the Board and the Chief are guided by the principles of fundamental justice that individuals must be considered innocent until proven guilty, both are equally alive to the delicate balance that must be maintained between the public interest and an individual officer’s right to his/her day in court.

We have to recognize that these are rare situations. The vast majority of police officers perform their duties in a professional and exemplary manner, often in difficult circumstances. But when the public hears that an officer has been suspended with pay in spite of being charged with a most heinous offence, confidence in all police officers is undermined. That confidence is further undermined when the paid suspension continues for months and sometimes years, due to adjudication and appeal processes.

It is about time that the Police Services Act is amended to allow for suspension without pay in certain circumstances.

The fact is that since 1997, the Board and the Service have made numerous recommendations for such amendments to the Police Services Act. As recently as last year, the Board wrote to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services yet again recommending that subsection 67(1) of the Act be amended to allow police officers to be suspended without pay in certain limited circumstances. The issue has been raised with all political parties in the last two years, during hearings by the Ontario Legislature's Standing Committee on Justice Policy related to amendments to the Act.

This Board and this Service are not alone in seeking this change. The Ontario Association of Police Service Boards and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police also want necessary amendments to the Act. The only group that vehemently supports the continuation of this anachronism is the Police Association.

The status quo is untenable. Chiefs of police are deprived of an important tool for maintaining discipline and accountability. Public confidence is eroded. The province must act on this issue. In certain limited circumstances, chiefs of police must have the authority to suspend police officers without pay - as they do in almost all other provinces.

PAYING POLICE OFFICERS' LEGAL FEES

With the recent stay of the charges against six former drug squad members, there has been much speculation about whether the City will be paying their legal fees. Since this matter is currently before the Courts, I will not comment upon it.

However, I can provide background information about paying officers’ legal fees.

First, it is not a matter for the City at all. It is a matter for the Police Services Board and the police association.

In the Police Services Act, the Province has recognized the issue by stating in section 50:

“(2) The board may, in accordance with the guidelines established under clause 21 (1) )h), indemnify a member of the police force for reasonable legal costs incurred,

(a) in the defence of a civil action, if the member is not found to be liable;

(b) in the defence of a criminal prosecution, if the member is found not guilty;

(c) in respect of any other proceeding in which the member’s manner of execution of the duties of his or her employment was an issue, of the member is found to have acted in good faith.”

Our collective agreement with the Police Association has more detailed
provisions. These state, in part:
“23:01 (a) Subject to other provisions of this Article, a member charged with but not found guilty of a criminal or statutory offence, because of acts done in the attempted performance in good faith of his/her duties as a police officer, shall be indemnified for the necessary and reasonable legal costs incurred by the member during the investigation of the incident that resulted in those charges being laid and for the necessary and reasonable legal costs incurred by the member in the defence of such charges.

23:02 Notwithstanding paragraphs 23:01 (a), (b) and (c), the Board may refuse payment otherwise authorized under paragraph 23:01 (a), (b) or (c) where the actions of the member from which the charges or investigation arose amounted to a gross dereliction of duty or deliberate abuse of his/her powers as a police officer.”

It comes as no surprise that, from time to time, police officers are charged with criminal or traffic offences arising from events that occur in the course of their duty. The circumstances vary widely as to the reasons for the charge.

After charges have been dealt with in the Courts and if the member is not found guilty, the Association usually makes an application to the Board to request that the Board pay the legal fees of the officer. The application is considered based upon the facts of the matter and the language of the collective agreement.

The essential features are that the officer was not found guilty and that his or her actions that gave rise to the charges were in the attempted performance in good faith of their duties. The member’s actions cannot amount to a gross dereliction of duty or a deliberate abuse of their powers.

The Board has always tried to balance the factors of accountability and oversight with the need to ensure that officers can carry out their duties fully and without concern that they will personally incur legal fees because they have been found not guilty of charges. The language in the collective agreement reflects this balancing of interests.

Sometimes the Board denies the claim for legal fees. In those cases, the Association can file a grievance and have the matter determined by an arbitrator. We have had these types of grievance in the past. In many circumstances, the Board’s denial of payment has been upheld at arbitration. In other cases, an arbitrator has seen it differently.