EXCELLENT NEWS

Excellent news today on the handgun ban.

Toronto Sun Link
Toronto Star (Link)
Globe and Mail (Link)

THE NOT SO GLOBAL SEARCH FOR POLICE RECRUITS

I wanted to engage in some thoughtful consideration before I commented on the article that appeared last week in the Toronto Sun (Link) about a so-called global search for cops.

The article didn’t sit well with me. The article claims that police forces are on a global search for recruits. In the case of the Toronto Police Service, this statement is entirely untrue.
In terms of the Toronto Police Service, all of our recruiting takes place in Ontario. We receive applications from around the world, and are always pleased to welcome qualified candidates from other jurisdictions. These foreign applications are a result of Toronto’s worldwide reputation as a great city to live and work in - and our benefits and compensation package – not as a result of foreign recruiting efforts.

For our part, the Toronto Police Service does do extensive local recruiting. As I have talked about in past blogs (Link to Blog 1, Blog 2), our recruiting is aimed at continuing to ensure that the Toronto Police Service is the employer of choice for the best and the brightest.

How do we attract the best and the brightest? By offering the most exciting job opportunities in law enforcement in the most diverse and exciting city in Canada. In addition, we provide a very appealing benefits and compensation package. You will see below, information from the recruiting section of the Toronto Police Service’s website (Link).

It is evident that the President of PAO has no knowledge of how successful our recruiting efforts continue to be. Our recruiters have brought the world to the TPS without going on expensive junkets to seek out foreign candidates, as he recommends. The diversity we want and need is in Toronto - one of the most diverse cities in the world. Our recruitment team recognizes the strength of the local community and has worked very hard to give meaning to the Board's commitment that our Service must reflect the world that is our community.

POLICING THE TTC

Policing the TTC: Update from the Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board

Prior to the meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board on Thursday April 17, 2008, there had been media reports that the TTC was considering arming its Special Constables with Tasers. I would like to share with you details of how the TPSB has responded to this matter.

At its meeting last Thursday, the Board considered annual reports on Special Constables from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) and the University of Toronto (U of T). Media reports about the TTC possibly providing Tasers to its Special Constables led Board members to ask many critical questions of representatives from the TTC Special Constable program. At the end, members of the Board wondered whether the TTC had the legal right to even engage in such decision-making.

Ultimately, the Board approved a motion that I brought forward, that the Chief present a report as soon as possible on the adequate and effective policing of public transit and public housing within the meaning and scope of the Police Services Act, and that the Board use this report to initiate a public discussion.

The motion reflects the Board’s concern about the proliferation in our city of different forms of policing, or multi-tiered policing as it is called.
All of it is paid for by the same public. However, only one form of it, that is, the police service, is covered by the Police Services Act, governed by an oversight body, and required to meet important standards of training, accountability and discipline.

I hope that the report the Board has requested from Chief Blair will result in a very vigorous and thoughtful public discussion of the kind of public police we want in our community. The time to have that discussion is now, before different approaches to policing have crept upon us and it is too late to do anything about it.

VICTIM SERVICES

I was pleased to read about Victim Services, an important program that works closely with the TPS and the TPSB, in today’s Toronto Star. Earlier this week I had the privilege of speaking at the Chief's Gala in support of Victim Services. Here are my remarks.


Good evening.

On behalf of the Toronto Police Services Board, I am delighted to join all of you in this event to raise vital funds for an organization which, every day, works to support one of the most important groups in our midst, victims of violence and crime, and their families.

I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues, Vice Chair and Councillor Pam McConnell, who is here representing Mayor David Miller, Ms. Judi Cohen and Mr. Hamlin Grange.

For the Toronto Police Services Board, the work of the Victim Services Program of Toronto is of great importance. It constitutes a key plank in our vision of community safety. Community safety requires a multipronged approach including robust policing to deal strongly with perpetrators of violent and criminal activity, preventive interventions to build community capacity in the face of threats to social wellbeing, and, equally critically, meaningful and effective support for those individuals, groups, neighbourhoods and communities who suffer in the aftermath of violent and criminal acts.

The responsibility for carrying out this last piece falls largely on our Victim Services Program. It is a heavy burden, which, since 1979, the staff and volunteers of this organization have carried with tremendous caring, sensitivity, dedication and commitment. And they continue to do this on a budget that can only be described as modest and, even, precarious.

There are few services, as important as this, which provide the value for money that Victim Services does.

It is due to the responsiveness to evolving community needs as well as the resolve and resourcefulness of this agency’s Board, staff and volunteers, that a limited financial base has not kept it from doing important things. Today, it provides an impressive range of services to individuals, families and communities. These services reflect the important recognition that it is not individual members of a family alone who suffer when violent, criminal acts take place. There are times when an entire community is affected.

Through programs and projects like the Victim Crisis Response, Domestic Violence Emergency Response, Support Link, Victims of Gun Violence Response, Project PAIN to assist victims in high crime communities and Project TEAR, Victim Services fulfills its goal of restoring, rebuilding and enhancing victims’ quality of life, and preventing revictimization.

And it meets this goal through an impressive Volunteer Program. Volunteers donate in excess of 25,000 hours every year. It is indicative of the agency’s understanding of what it takes to serve all residents of this City that it has made a serious effort to enhance its cultural competency. With volunteers who come from many ethnocultural backgrounds and possess a combined ability to converse in 30 different languages, the organization is able to provide an inclusive program.

For these reasons, the Toronto Police Services Board is an avid and vocal supporter of the Victim Services Program. Last year, cognizant of the severe financial constraints faced by this critical service, the Board provided Victim Services with funding in the amount of $100,000.

I am grateful to the Province and the City for recognizing the importance of Victim Services by increasing their share of funding and providing additional financial support for specific programs.

And I want to thank all of you for your ongoing contribution, not only because of the money that you provide, which is critical, but also for the vote of confidence that it represents. And that is extremely important.

So, once again, on behalf of the Toronto Police Services Board, I would like to say a big and very sincere thank you to all of you.

EMPOWERED STUDENT PARTNERSHIP

This is a great program. Read about it in today’s Toronto Sun (Link)

TORONTO’S GUN VIOLENCE STRATEGY

This morning, I presented to the Executive Committee at City Hall as part of their update on the Toronto Gun Violence Strategy. I spoke of the need for a handgun ban as part of an overall anti-violence strategy.

For those of you who read this blog regularly, you will know that this is an issue that is of extreme importance to the Toronto Police Services Board.

You can read my previous entries THE INACTION IS DEAFENING, BANNING HANDGUNS AND OTHER MEASURES - WE NEED ACTION NOW and ISN'T IT IRONIC?

Here is an excerpt of my presentation this morning.

I am pleased to say that the elements of your Gun Violence Strategy are entirely consistent with the position that the Board has articulated. You have, therefore, our full support in your efforts to rid our streets of illegal handguns.

We are heartened by the fact that in the three years between 2005 and 2007, there was a steady decline in shooting occurrences as well as in the number of victims. However, there were more deaths in 2007 than in the year before, and there were fewer occurrences last year in which there were no injuries. Shooting occurrences and injuries in 2008 to date, show a downward trend compared to 2006. Nevertheless, the number of deaths remains unacceptably high and must cause all of us concern.

We must also be concerned by the fact that the decline in the number of gun calls is not consistent or shared across the City. And it should worry all of us greatly that many of the accused and victims of gun violence are young people of colour who ought to be pursuing their future in schools and not chasing or dodging bullets on the streets. As your Update notes, “The rate of youth aged 12 to 17 accused of a firearm-related offence has risen in three of the past four years.”

We know that a ban is not the only answer to a complex problem. The Board has long taken a multi-pronged approach to dealing with gun violence in this city. We have asked for, and ourselves worked to put in place, a combination of measures to promote strong enforcement as well as prevention. However, the Board has recognized that a handgun ban is, quite simply, an essential element of a comprehensive anti-violence strategy. Therefore, demand for strong and effective political, legislative, and judicial action to deal with the illegal importation, circulation and use of handguns has always been an important component of that approach.

In the past three years, I have communicated the Board’s position to our province’s and the country’s political leadership. We have, as well, enlisted the support of our provincial and national associations. I believe that there is widespread support among Canadians for a total ban on handguns for purposes other than law enforcement. These calls have come from many people, including Chief Blair, victims of gun crime, who know firsthand the shattering effect of handguns – and yourself, Mr. Mayor.

And because of this widespread support, I have, in the past, publicly conveyed my disappointment in Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day’s outright refusal to consider such a ban.

We need to send a clear message about handgun crime – it will not be tolerated. Anything less may placate the gun lobby but it will be of no help to those in our communities who continue to suffer from the devastating effects of handgun violence. And it will do absolutely nothing for the young victims and grieving families in certain parts of our City who, as we know, bear a disproportionate share of the social cost of this violence.
I believe that a handgun ban is an issue that requires non-partisan political leadership. The federal government must be persuaded of the necessity of concrete and immediate action so that we can rid our communities of handguns now and put an end to their tragic toll. And for this to happen, we need to build broad political and societal support.

Your letter to the Prime Minister and your call to all our national political leaders is a step that we very much support, Mr. Mayor. We support, as well, your intention to build a broad base of support across the country.

You can be assured that the Toronto Police Services Board will be a partner in this effort. It will continue to play a leadership role on this issue in the provincial and national organizations to which it belongs as well as in the political interactions in which it participates.

Thank you

THE BEST OF THE EDITORIALS

This insightful editorial from today's Toronto Sun is a good addition to my ongoing series on diversity.

Toronto is a global city now
By SUN MEDIA

Okay, StatsCan. We get it. We get it, we get it, we get it.
Almost half of Toronto's population (46.9%), according to the 2006 census results, is visible minority.
Yawn. That's old news.
It's so old that for years the city erroneously reported on its website that Toronto's visible minority population was greater than 50%, after the Toronto Star erroneously jumped the gun in 1998, wrongly predicting in screaming headlines that would happen by 2000.
In fact, other communities in the GTA have already gone over the 50% mark, with their visible minority populations growing even faster than ours.
The real question is, what does it mean for all of us?
First, many good things -- a diverse workforce able to compete in a global economy, an incredible array of cultural, entertainment and sporting events, great restaurants, exciting stores and businesses offering us food, produce, goods and services from around the world.
Forget the outdated idea of Toronto as a "world-class" city, which speaks to a sense of envy of others and an inferiority complex.
Toronto today is a global city and for all its challenges, a city that works, from its quality of life to its relatively low crime rate to the ability of its citizens to get along.
But diversity has also brought problems and challenges.
Among them, a chronic lack of English as a second language teachers in our schools, contributing to low student achievement, because Ottawa sets immigration policy largely in isolation from Toronto, which, along with the GTA, accepts about half of all immigrants to Canada.
Our school board has foolishly decided to set up a token "Africentric" school for a few hundred students more than a year from now, instead of confronting and addressing an unacceptable, system-wide failure rate of up to 40% for black students. Then the board becomes indignant when one of its own trustees, Josh Matlow, rightly asks how it plans to address similarly high failure rates among students of Portuguese, Hispanic and other origins.
Well? ... How?
We have too many foreign-trained engineers driving cabs, too many foreign-trained doctors not allowed to practice here despite a doctor shortage because we've been slow to recognize their credentials and integrate them into our system.
We avoid, out of misguided notions of political correctness, honest discussions about the reality of racism, the problem of black crime, the resentment many whites -- often immigrants themselves -- feel toward "equity" programs they believe discriminate against them and their children, in order to make up for past sins against others they had nothing to do with.
It's time for honest talk about these issues.
The statistical question is over -- Toronto is a diverse city and its increasing diversity will be marked by every new census.
The challenge now is to make Toronto work for all of us, regardless of where we come from.