They may as well just change their motto to:
"To Maybe Serve And Possibly Protect At Our Leisure And Comfort"
When you factor in all the other monies set aside and actually allocated to the TPS, they are being funded with $60million more than the previous budget. Talk about shameless.
Toronto police are fear mongering to get more money. What if other city divisions did the same?
What if Toronto's water or parks departments tried to drum up more money the way Toronto police are with their fear-based campaign?
ByShawn MicallefContributing Columnist Saturday, February 3, 2024
“Like to flush your toilet? Give us more money or you might have a problem.”
Imagine if messages like this started appearing around town from Toronto Water, the city division responsible for our running water and sewage treatment.
Or a message from the parks, forestry and recreation department demanding more money, while saying, “Hey, that’s a great big oak in your front yard. Be a shame if it fell on your car or house.”
Imagine transportation services suggesting, ever so ominously, that pot holes will spontaneously appear and grow uncontrollably unless it gets more money.
Seeing these kinds of messages would spark feelings of fear, panic and maybe even confusion. It's precisely why the Toronto’s civil service doesn't actually do this kind of thing.
Except for Toronto police.
It’s municipal budget season and there is debate over how much money the police should get. The discussion is reasonable, yet the police have mounted a big public relations campaign letting Torontonians know — and feel — that the city is going to get very dangerous if they don’t get all the money they're asking for.
One part of this campaign is by the Toronto Police Association (TPA). It's been dropping flyers in mailboxes and campaigning hard on how risky it is not to give the police the ever-increasing amount of money they annually ask for.
The TPA even took aim at a sitting councillor on Jan. 18, replying to a message Coun. Shelley Carroll posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the budget with, “Response times in your ward are 24.6 minutes and you had the highest increase in the city for major crimes at a whopping 45.8% last year. Your proposed budget will not address these issues for your constituents.”
The directness is breathtaking and for those with long memories, an echo of “Operation True Blue,” a campaign the TPA ran in 2000 to raise money to unseat politicians they deemed unfriendly to police. They backed down after widespread outrage and threats of charges against union executives.
The TPA is the police union, operating as its members wish. The other side of this is the Toronto Police Services itself, led by Chief Myron Demkiw. It’s much more egregious and concerning.
The Chief is making media rounds and the TPS’s robust (and expensive) communications department is putting out a flurry of messages advocating for more money while tapping into fear.
On X a recent official police message was, “22 minutes when people are scared in their homes from somebody who has broken into their home is not what Torontonians expect or deserve.” Demkiw uses language of “significant risk” and fear, but little about how the police work internally, how the force might be restructured, more efficient or reformed.
The TPS is also running videos with ominous music defending the mounted unit, a huge expense that is arguably a public relations arm. A Jan. 26 TPS budget “briefing note” made a similar case for the horses, listing tours as well as community and ceremonial events.
The note also quietly mentioned that its controversial "24 Shades of Blue" podcast has ended. Controversial because a 2023 CBC investigation found it cost nearly $300,000 to produce and that TPS even hired the crisis communications firm Navigator as a consultant between 2021 and 2023, with an average cost of $142,000 a year.
There’s a lot to unpack here. The Toronto police have received steady increases for years yet still deal in this kind of fear mongering, profoundly so this year. In his column last week, my colleague Matt Elliot made the point that whatever happens here, the police budget is going up, just not as much as the police want.
As the Star reported a few weeks ago, a new, comprehensive study found that there is “no consistent correlation” between police spending and crime rates in Canada.” One way of countering such a rigorous study is to go for the emotions, and fear is a big one.
Thinking about the pothole department issuing ominous messages there is, at first thought, something compelling about government departments and divisions advocating for their own existence and for the means to do their work better.
It’s one thing to clearly say what you’ve done, demonstrating worth without embellishment, versus cranking up the fear and muddling or pre-empting the possibility of an honest conversation about policing or where, in its massive budget, savings can be found.
Those conversations should be democratic, led by elected officials responsible to Torontonians. But this kind of fear-based lobbying bypasses democracy.
That Toronto police are able to spend so much time and money (our money) on these slick communication efforts is, ironically, a perfect example of the police force spending money on areas that aren’t its core duties — duties it says will prevent the stuff we’re supposed to be scared of.
To serve, protect and fear monger on the public’s dime isn’t a great slogan.
"To Maybe Serve And Possibly Protect At Our Leisure And Comfort"
When you factor in all the other monies set aside and actually allocated to the TPS, they are being funded with $60million more than the previous budget. Talk about shameless.
Toronto police are fear mongering to get more money. What if other city divisions did the same?
What if Toronto's water or parks departments tried to drum up more money the way Toronto police are with their fear-based campaign?
ByShawn MicallefContributing Columnist Saturday, February 3, 2024
“Like to flush your toilet? Give us more money or you might have a problem.”
Imagine if messages like this started appearing around town from Toronto Water, the city division responsible for our running water and sewage treatment.
Or a message from the parks, forestry and recreation department demanding more money, while saying, “Hey, that’s a great big oak in your front yard. Be a shame if it fell on your car or house.”
Imagine transportation services suggesting, ever so ominously, that pot holes will spontaneously appear and grow uncontrollably unless it gets more money.
Seeing these kinds of messages would spark feelings of fear, panic and maybe even confusion. It's precisely why the Toronto’s civil service doesn't actually do this kind of thing.
Except for Toronto police.
It’s municipal budget season and there is debate over how much money the police should get. The discussion is reasonable, yet the police have mounted a big public relations campaign letting Torontonians know — and feel — that the city is going to get very dangerous if they don’t get all the money they're asking for.
One part of this campaign is by the Toronto Police Association (TPA). It's been dropping flyers in mailboxes and campaigning hard on how risky it is not to give the police the ever-increasing amount of money they annually ask for.
The TPA even took aim at a sitting councillor on Jan. 18, replying to a message Coun. Shelley Carroll posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the budget with, “Response times in your ward are 24.6 minutes and you had the highest increase in the city for major crimes at a whopping 45.8% last year. Your proposed budget will not address these issues for your constituents.”
The directness is breathtaking and for those with long memories, an echo of “Operation True Blue,” a campaign the TPA ran in 2000 to raise money to unseat politicians they deemed unfriendly to police. They backed down after widespread outrage and threats of charges against union executives.
The TPA is the police union, operating as its members wish. The other side of this is the Toronto Police Services itself, led by Chief Myron Demkiw. It’s much more egregious and concerning.
The Chief is making media rounds and the TPS’s robust (and expensive) communications department is putting out a flurry of messages advocating for more money while tapping into fear.
On X a recent official police message was, “22 minutes when people are scared in their homes from somebody who has broken into their home is not what Torontonians expect or deserve.” Demkiw uses language of “significant risk” and fear, but little about how the police work internally, how the force might be restructured, more efficient or reformed.
The TPS is also running videos with ominous music defending the mounted unit, a huge expense that is arguably a public relations arm. A Jan. 26 TPS budget “briefing note” made a similar case for the horses, listing tours as well as community and ceremonial events.
The note also quietly mentioned that its controversial "24 Shades of Blue" podcast has ended. Controversial because a 2023 CBC investigation found it cost nearly $300,000 to produce and that TPS even hired the crisis communications firm Navigator as a consultant between 2021 and 2023, with an average cost of $142,000 a year.
There’s a lot to unpack here. The Toronto police have received steady increases for years yet still deal in this kind of fear mongering, profoundly so this year. In his column last week, my colleague Matt Elliot made the point that whatever happens here, the police budget is going up, just not as much as the police want.
As the Star reported a few weeks ago, a new, comprehensive study found that there is “no consistent correlation” between police spending and crime rates in Canada.” One way of countering such a rigorous study is to go for the emotions, and fear is a big one.
Thinking about the pothole department issuing ominous messages there is, at first thought, something compelling about government departments and divisions advocating for their own existence and for the means to do their work better.
It’s one thing to clearly say what you’ve done, demonstrating worth without embellishment, versus cranking up the fear and muddling or pre-empting the possibility of an honest conversation about policing or where, in its massive budget, savings can be found.
Those conversations should be democratic, led by elected officials responsible to Torontonians. But this kind of fear-based lobbying bypasses democracy.
That Toronto police are able to spend so much time and money (our money) on these slick communication efforts is, ironically, a perfect example of the police force spending money on areas that aren’t its core duties — duties it says will prevent the stuff we’re supposed to be scared of.
To serve, protect and fear monger on the public’s dime isn’t a great slogan.
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