Re: Ford's announcement yesterday about efforts to improve police recruitment.
What Did Ford Do Now?
Doug Ford is the current premier of Ontario, Canada. During a news conference on Tuesday, April 25th at the Toronto Police College, he shared that police forces have been reporting that recruitment has been challenging. In response, Ontario wants to:
Drop the requirement that potential constables have a post-secondary education (new legislation still to be introduced that would amend the Community Safety and Policing Act 2019)
Provide about $34 million annually to cover tuition (100% of costs!) for the 12-week Basic Constable Training program at the Ontario Police College over the next 3 years (when the program will be reassessed)
Expand enrolment for its basic training program - starting in 2024, the college will be able to graduate up to 4 cohorts of 550 officers, up from the current 3 cohorts of 480 officers
Am I alone in thinking, what the hell?!
This announcement comes just weeks after the inquiry into the April 2020 mass shooting claiming 22 lives in Nova Scotia recommended that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police create a 3-year, degree-based model of police education for all police services in Canada.
Police response was largely criticized, even before the results of the public inquiry came to light.
A class-action lawsuit was even filed against the RCMP, the federal attorney general and the attorney general of Nova Scotia, alleging that the RCMP "breached the standard of care expected of them" and behaved in a "high-handed, self-serving and disrespectful manner" to victims and their family during the course of their investigation.
This "disrespectful manner" is illustrated in one of the lawsuit's most shocking claims, that the RCMP released a vehicle containing bullet casings and body parts back to the family member of a victim.
Criminologist Darryl Davies calls the RCMP’s response to Wortman’s rampage “a mess.” He says it’s clear, after several other active shooter incidents have been mishandled over the last decade, that big changes are required. He states that:
“There’s no change in the RCMP’s approach for dealing with high-crisis active shooter situations,” he says. “They’ve been slow to respond in the past, they’re slow to respond today, because they don’t have a plan in place; they haven’t trained their officers to respond to these types of crises.”
NDP Leader Weighs In
Leader of the Ontario NDP and the MPP for Davenport Marit Stiles said she was concerned about the “watering down of education requirements,” saying that university and college educations teach a wider view of the world.
“What I hear from community and from front-line officers themselves is that they want more support and more training, that they have a very difficult job and they require a lot of skills, including critical thinking, to do their jobs properly,” she said.
Municipal police forces are responsible for hiring police officers, but they are subject to budgets set out by local councils, which means there’s no guarantee there will be a hiring blitz, Stiles said.
“I think a lot of municipalities will be asking whether or not they have the capacity to even take this on,” Stiles said.
A Slap in the Face to Ontarians
As much of what Ford does, this is a slap in the face to so many people, like nurses for example, who have been yelling about solutions to the nursing crisis in this province for years now, but especially the communities that are more likely to be harmed by police.
The racist origins of policing and continued existence of systemic racism within policing is not an issue unique to the U.S. In Canada, the RCMP was created to control the Indigenous people already living on the land.
Allowing police to continue to operate the way they do disproportionately hurts Black and Indigenous people, as well as other people of colour. Not to mention, police are rarely, if ever, held accountable for misconduct. And if giving cops less immunity means less people will want to be cops, so be it - other professions exist in which people are under a lot of pressure but are still held accountable.
Furthermore, they uphold a system that criminalizes vulnerable for just trying to survive, like unhoused people, people who use drugs, and those with mental illness, but we cannot arrest our way out of addiction or homelessness.
Toronto Police Service 2022 Report
In just 2022, the Toronto Police Service released their race-based data collection, which measured the use of force and strip search data across races. TPS stated that from their own analysis, "There is a disproportionate impact experienced by racialized people, particularly those of Black communities."
Which just proves what has already been known by Black communities. Some findings revealed by the report include:
When force was used, Black people were over-represented in higher types of force used
Black People were 2.3x more likely than White people to have firearms pointed as the highest level of force where no weapons were perceived
Black, Indigenous and Middle-Eastern people were over-represented in having police interactions relative to their proportion in the city
Black, East/Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latino people were over-represented in use of force incidents compared to their presence in enforcement action
Overrepresentation of Black people in Toronto enforcement population, use of force and strip search data:
We ask police to "handle" too many of society's failures, but then "deal" with it by criminalizing those negatively impacted by the social determinants of health rather than helping.
More police don't prevent crime, funding social supports do. If more police created safer communities, the U.S. would be one of the safest places in the world, which is very much not the case. More police = worse outcomes for marginalized people.
And if there's a "growing wave of crime" as Ford says, why wouldn't we fund efforts to address the root causes instead of giving inadequately trained people guns? We can actually address crime and improve society by ensuring affordable housing, accessible mental health care and harm reduction services, funding education and healthcare, and so on.
It's even more ridiculous that Ford also mentioned that some people are scared to go for a walk once it gets dark, as if that's something women have ever felt safe doing.
What Now?
The new legislation that would amend the Community Safety and Policing Act 2019 to drop the requirement that potential constables have a post-secondary education is still yet to be introduced. Ford currently has a majority government, but it is still worth it to make your voice heard.
Find your MPP to encourage that they vote against it at www.ola.org/en/members
You can also find various methods to contact the premier directly at
correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca/EN/feedback/default.aspx
References
Canadian Mental Health Association. (2005). Police and mental illness: Increased interactions. Retrieved from https://cmha.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/policesheets_all.pdf
Casey, L., & Jones, A. (2023). Ontario eliminating post-secondary education requirement to become police officers. Global News. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/9649201/ontario-eliminating-basic-constable-training-tuition-fees/
CBC News. (2022). 'We do not accept your apology,' activist tells Toronto's police chief after race-based data released. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-police-race-based-data-use-force-strip-searches-1.6489151
CBC News. (2023). Ontario scrapping post-secondary education requirement for police recruits. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-police-recruitment-changes-1.6821382
Cecco, L. (2020). Canada urged to open its eyes to systemic racism in wake of police violence. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/canada-systemic-racism-history
DeClerq, K. (2023). Ontario eliminating tuition fees and post-secondary education requirements for new police officers. Retrieved from https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-eliminating-tuition-fees-and-post-secondary-education-requirements-for-new-police-officers-1.6369883
Ferguson, R. (2023). Doug Ford wants to boost police ranks by lowering the education requirements for officers. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2023/04/25/doug-ford-wants-to-lower-the-education-requirements-for-police-officers.html
Gerster, J. (2019). The RCMP was created to control Indigenous people. Can that relationship be reset? Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/5381480/rcmp-indigenous-relationship/
Leffler, B., & Lord, R. (2020). Emotional aftermath: Families of victims in Nova Scotia shooting struggle to heal. Global News. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/7514276/nova-scotia-shooting-victim-families-struggle-heal/
Levinson-King, R. (2020). Could Canada's worst mass shooting have been avoided? BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53411315
McKay, J. (2021). Systemic racism in policing in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/432/SECU/Reports/RP11434998/securp06/securp06-e.pdf
Ranger, M. (2023). Ford government aims to remove post-secondary requirement for police recruits. Retrieved from https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/04/25/ford-government-police-recruitment-education/
The Canadian Press. (2023). Key recommendations of Nova Scotia mass shooting inquiry. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/30/key-recommendations-of-nova-scotia-mass-shooting-inquiry.html
Toronto Police Service. (2022). Race-based data collection strategy. Retrieved from https://www.tps.ca/media/filer_public/b9/f4/b9f492b5-8e11-450a-af6e-deae2658010b/1ec05b46-427f-41eb-8697-cd12e95dad0b.pdf
Comments