Thank you very much for this opportunity.
I'd like to say on behalf of Toronto Police Service's Chief of Police William Blair, thank you for the opportunity to share some information with you.
I'm going to quote Chief William Blair about the reviews that the Toronto police are currently undergoing in the context of the economical climate that we face, who has said: “The service is a solid foundation of excellence upon which to build an adaptive and flexible organization. We have the chance to benefit from our past experience: what's worked, what hasn't, what we could do better.”
In the context of the discussions today, I will just make some observations. The governments in our city, our province, and in fact right across the country are facing enormous challenges in maintaining the economic sustainability of the services they are tasked to provide to their communities. The Toronto Police Service is operating in an environment of budget deficits at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, and our own budget is verging on over a billion dollars a year. Our policing budget has grown to become one of the most expensive line items paid for by the Toronto taxpayer. Cost-cutting in police budgets is taking place throughout the United States, Great Britain, and Europe.
The Toronto Police Service has earned the trust of our citizens by delivering excellent service to our community and by keeping our community safe. We have an obligation to maintain the trust of our community and maintain a safe city. We also have the responsibility to deliver those services in an effective, efficient, and economical matter.
Chief William Blair has initiated a review of the Toronto Police Service, including how its services are delivered, its business processes, and its organizational structure. The purpose of this review is to examine how we are currently conducting business and ask whether we can do it better, more effectively or economically, and whether we are delivering service that is of value to our community.
The chief's decision to direct a comprehensive review was reinforced by the recent release of the report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services, colloquially referred to as the Drummond report, in 2012. The Drummond report calls for reform of government programs and the manner in which they are delivered as a way to address deficits. It recognizes that simply cutting budgets will not address the problem. A similar approach is called for in the policing sector.
For the Toronto Police Service, our review is not a cost-cutting or budget exercise, although we must be mindful of the fiscal environment we are in. Therefore the review includes an examination of options for more economical ways of delivering services and meeting our obligations. The desired outcome is to prioritize our service and deliver those necessary services in a manner that allows the police service to meet its legislation obligations and maintain a safe city.
The new model of policing that will be achieved will represent changes in the organization. Those changes will include the manner in which the services may be delivered. That new delivery of service may include the use of new technology, civilianization of services currently delivered by police officers, consolidation of resources, outsourcing of services, and shared delivery. In the same way that my OPP colleague discussed the use of special constables and auxiliaries, suffice it to say that our model of the use of special constables and auxiliaries in Ontario is comparable with that described by the OPP.
Toronto police have special constables working in courts for prisoner and court security and in our police precincts booking prisoners. We also have a special constable working at the Toronto Police College in our armoured section, so that they can handle restricted and prohibited weapons. Our auxiliaries, just as those in the OPP, are subject to the Police Services Act and participate in special events, crime prevention events, and ceremonial events.
The service has looked at a number of functions internally that might be performed by alternative methods. I would like to point to two examples. We are currently working in detailed partnership, closer partnership, with the City of Toronto, the United Way, Toronto Community Housing, and what we're calling a hub or focused approach to crime prevention and crime solution. It focuses on intervening in the cycle of violence at an earlier stage, on behalf of both victims and perpetrators, in an attempt to try to intervene before matters escalate into more serious activities in the community. So it has both a crime prevention as well as a crime interdiction approach.
In the same way, we're looking at using technology more efficiently in Toronto to help enforce traffic safety. Our belief is that through automated traffic enforcement or photo enforcement, we can achieve more efficient and safer movement of vehicles and pedestrians on the roadway and free up police officers to deal with more habitual offenders or more dangerous locations in the community.
These are just a couple of examples of how Toronto police are addressing some of the challenges facing our community.
Again, like my OPP colleague, I would be happy to answer any questions the panel may have.