Report urges Toronto police to freeze hiring, outsource parking enforcement

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A task force report recommending dramatic changes to rein in the Toronto Police Service's $1-billion budget will include controversial calls to freeze both promotions and new hiring for three years, reduce the number of police stations and outsource parking enforcement.

Sources familiar with the report, to be released publicly on Thursday afternoon, say it calls for the merger of the police force's east-end 54 and 55 divisions and an examination of whether similar moves make sense for as many as five other police stations across the city.

It also recommends "alternate service delivery" for certain functions now overseen by the police, including parking enforcement, life guards, crossing guards and court security, which could be run by other city agencies or even the private sector.

This is not unusual in other cities: Parking enforcement in Hamilton and Calgary, for example, is not under the purview of the police. Currently in Toronto, parking enforcement officers are not police officers, but they work for the police department.

The report will also recommend the "civilianization" of certain clerical or support jobs in the police force – such as doing criminal record checks – that are now done by fully fledged, and more expensive, uniformed officers.

Mayor John Tory convened the Transformational Task Force behind the report after widespread criticism that the police budget was ballooning and remained politically untouchable.

Headed by police board chairman Andy Pringle and Chief Mark Saunders, the task force included other senior police officers, as well as former city auditor-general Jeff Griffiths and former budget chief David Soknacki. The document being released Thursday is only its interim report; a final report with more recommendations is expected to follow at a later date.

The task force was expected to study and recommend action on a laundry list of previous proposals to modernize policing in Toronto, including a 2015 report by consultants with KPMG. That report recommended looking at outsourcing both parking enforcement and court security. It also recommended using civilians to do clerical jobs.

Among the task force's other recommendations, sources say, are plans to have officers increase their use of smartphones, to use crime statistics to better deploy police and to stop sending police to city bylaw-enforcement calls.

City Councillor Shelley Carroll, a member of the Toronto Police Services Board who has been briefed on the task force report, confirmed it also suggests winding down the police force's 40-officer transit patrol unit and the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) team, which was set up after a spate of gun violence in 2005 but is facing cutbacks in provincial funding. The report also makes sweeping calls for police to adopt new technology, she said.

Ms. Carroll, who served as city budget chief when David Miller was mayor, said the recommendations are a good start. The police services board, on which she and Mr. Tory sit, will have the final say on which proposals are implemented.

"The public made a tall order, and I think they are right," Ms. Carroll said. "They think that policing should cost less, but they also think that policing should be done in a better way that rebuilds a healthy relationship between police and community."

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Tory would not reveal any of the specific recommendations in the report. But he pledged it would result in "meaningful reform" that will not only save money but make the city safer.

"I think this is going to be one of the most significant documents that has come out with respect to policing in Toronto in the last 25 years," the mayor said. The recommendations "will make for the more efficient deployment of police services, and they will make for the beginnings of a restoration of trust in areas where, in some cases, trust had been eroded between the police and the community."

The president of the Toronto Police Association, which represents the city's front-line officers, says his union could consider "job action" in response to the implementation of cost-cutting measures.

TPA head Mike McCormack made the remarks in an interview broadcast on CBC Radio's Metro Morning even before the official public release of the report Thursday afternoon: "Whether or not a job action is required or whatever, I mean, we'll look at it, we'll decide what the appropriate action is. … We don't have a problem looking at stuff that's evidence-based, looking at efficiencies, making for a more streamlined modernized service. But … we're not going to do that at the jeopardy of public safety."