Policing & Opposing John Tory – Nov.2.2003
By Gary Morton
* Policing information is from the Police Accountability Coalition and the Metro Network for Social Justice.
This election site (MegacityElection.com) did not want to get into endorsing candidates in the 2003 Toronto mayoral election. Unfortunately that became nearly impossible due to the unpleasant nature of some of the top candidates.
The choice for mayor is really between David Miller and Barbara Hall. They are the only candidates fit to be mayor that have a chance of winning. (Note that Barbara Hall’s support collapsed after this article was written.)
With Miller complaints I’ve heard are that he comes up short on democracy issues. He wants to weed out corruption and leash lobbyists, yet keep the system pretty much the same as it is with no real structural reform.
Early in the election people complained about Barbara Hall using Jamie Watt to play a leading role in running her campaign. They saw it as a shift right and her decision to support the Island Bridge as regrettable.
Society is leaning to alternatives at the moment. People are not afraid to take a chance. So candidates should take chances too and not try to appeal to the soft centre.
That brings us to the Police Union Choice, John Tory. I have to say that he’s no choice at all, for a number of reasons. The best way to describe him is to say he’s like those President’s Choice products at grocery stores. Tory is a cheap product disguised as something green and good, and a taste of him as mayor will turn many stomachs. He represents a mode of politics that Toronto residents dumped with Ernie Eves. Tory backroom politics is the system where Mel and the boys decide everything in a smoky backroom. It’s the system where Ernie and a couple confidants make all the decisions on running Ontario in Bigliardi's upscale steak house.
We have to oppose Tory, and some other candidates. Tom Jakobek is simply not in the race so the small numbers that support him should switch to Hall or Miller. The same goes with John Nunziata. He can’t win and he’s in a unite-the-right bribery feud with John Tory. Smart Nunziata supporters will jump ship.
John Tory grabbed the Police Union endorsement and he’s also more proof that the police are their own worst enemy and politically motivated in a strange way. How could an honest police force endorse a candidate being investigated for links to election bribery? The list of council candidates police support looks like a roster of people who would fit well with the Canadian Alliance or Ontario Tory Party, but not with the citizens of Toronto. And that’s not surprising when you consider that many police officers live outside of Toronto.
The best way to use the sheet of police endorsed candidates is as a reference for who not to vote for. And as a reminder that police that aren’t supposed to get involved in politics are revealing their corrupt nature by doing so.
When I say the police are their own worst enemy, I’m referring to their heavy involvement in politics. Chief Fantino is always lobbying on political issues. The police union does the same. And most of it reveals the police to be politically naïve and in touch with their pocketbook more than the public.
It has also gone beyond lobbying to the waste of police resources for attacks on political targets. A good example is Fantino’s new war on that crucial element of democracy called protest. He wanted the federal government to disallow any protest that wasn’t by paid police/city permits that can cost as much as 4000 dollars …that’s what they cost in Dundas Square, where public space has become police/corporate space. The square is governed by a board of city reps, business reps and the head of 52 Division Police. In that model public space becomes dead space as any protest group that now tries to get near it is targeted by politically oriented cops from 52 Division.
If you can’t use it because of police, it’s police space not public space and police have taken power from the public and City Hall.
Then there’s the next phase of waste where vast police resources are used to block protest and target the visible symptoms of poverty on the streets.
There was a shooting this Halloween. There are lots of crimes like burglary, home invasion, sexual assault and robbery that need investigation. Yet a small army of downtown 52 Division police were out to harass and ticket people participating in the Halloween Critical Mass bike ride. The reason being that politically biased cops like Julian Fantino and Paul Gottschalk at 52 Division don’t like public space advocates that may have been in that bicycle ride and headed for Dundas Square.
The waste of police resources is tremendous. I documented the number of police at demonstrations over the past couple of years. Absolute armies of cops and equipment were sent out to police peaceful protests. There is no explanation for it other than a desire to rip the city off for overtime charges and to short circuit democracy.
Julian Fantino gets around this by trying to have City Hall cover-up the facts on a large number of officers who make well over 100 thousand a year due to overtime.
Another reason for police going after activists is that other types of crime are declining and they need new criminals. The number of calls per officer has declined by 10.6% from 1998, and the number of crimes per officer has also decreased from 1998, by 5%.
The number of actual offences exceeds the number of persons charged by about four times - each person is generally charged with about four offences for the same set of circumstances.
All violent crimes are falling in number.
Waste probably exists right across the board. We are spending a fortune in city money for needless policing while real crime is not fully investigated.
The police response is simply to ask for more money and officers and they endorsed John Tory because he is willing to make more cuts in important city programs like parks and community centres and you name it to throw more cash down a sinkhole called the police budget.
Toronto police get nearly 700 million a year. It is our largest expense and we can’t afford to pay for more inefficiency, police politics and waste … especially not when the city is digesting the bad news from Dalton McGuinty on the provincial deficit. Police spending increasingly accounts for a larger share of all city spending. In 2002, 66 percent of all new spending went to police while spending fell in other areas … and in any formula for democracy, a society that spends the lion’s share of new funds on police has become a police state. Especially when we consider that the crime rate has fallen in most areas.
Money the city needs might not be there with the province in debt. And if it isn’t there, we still have an option, and that is to audit the police budget, and make the force more efficient and crime oriented. Toronto could find some millions of waste in police spending and allocate the money to more important public programs.
John Tory is a candidate who will pour cash into police pockets and political interference while auditing and chopping city social programs. In that sense he paid with our tax dollars to get a police union endorsement.
David Miller may be ahead in the polls, but the Tory wolf is number 2 and he’s still at the door.
On November 10th let’s pay John Tory back, where it counts … on the ballot, by voting for someone else.
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