“Petition in Support of Ontario Getting More Boots on the Ground by Making It Easier to Recruit and Train Police Officers.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the government of Ontario is committed to ensuring the safety of Ontario communities; and

“Whereas the government of Ontario is committed to supporting our hard-working women and men in blue, who put their lives on the line every day in police forces across the province of Ontario to keep our communities safe;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To support the passage of Bill 102, the Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act, 2023, to ensure the following:

“(1) To make it easier for police services across the province to recruit and train more police officers by removing tuition fees for the basic constable training program at the Ontario Police College, otherwise known as OPC, and immediately expand the number of recruits that can be trained each year;

“(2) To expand the basic constable training program at the Ontario Police College immediately to accommodate an additional 70 recruits per cohort from 480 to 550;

“(3) Starting in 2024, expand the basic constable training program to four cohorts per year instead of three;

“(4) Additionally, to support recruitment efforts at a time when local police officers have signalled challenges in doing so, introduce legislation that, if passed, will eliminate the post-secondary education requirement to become a police officer as set out in the Community Safety and Policing Act, otherwise known as CSPA; if passed, the act would amend the Community Safety and Policing Act, otherwise known as CSPA, to provide that a secondary school diploma or equivalent is sufficient education for the purposes of being appointed as a police officer; and

“(5) To make the elimination of the tuition fee for the basic constable training program at the Ontario Police College retroactive to January 1, 2023, and recruits who paid for their 12-week basic constable training earlier this year to be reimbursed.”

I proudly affix my signature and give it to page Dina.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 31, 2023, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 97, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to housing and development / Projet de loi 97, Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne le logement et l’aménagement.

I rise today to voice my support for this motion and for our province’s outstanding police officers. While some seek to vilify our police, this government is committed to investing in police to tackle violent crime and to create safer communities across Ontario.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to participate in a ride along with the Hamilton Police Service and saw first-hand the compassion that their officers have for all members of our community, including marginalized people. Every day, thousands of brave men and women across the province put on the uniform to serve and protect their communities. They have an incredibly difficult job that requires strength and sacrifice. Over the last year, our province has witnessed the tragic deaths of far too many officers in the line of duty. Now more than ever, police deserve our support, our respect and our gratitude.

Our government’s Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy outlines the actions that we are taking to help our police stop crime and to get dangerous offenders of our streets. This strategy includes investments in a provincial gun and gang support unit to aid investigations and prosecutions of gun and gang crimes. It also includes funding to support major investigations into organized crime and drug and human trafficking. This strategy directs more resources towards community policing programs to help address concerns around mental health, addictions and hate-motivated crimes at the local level. Our government is also eliminating tuition fees for the basic constable training program at the Ontario Police College and increasing the number of police recruits per cohort from 480 to 550. These measures will deter criminals by increasing the number of police officers in our communities.

Some of the most heinous crimes that we have seen in our province recently were committed by offenders who were on bail. Our government is doing its part to prevent more of this senseless violence from occurring by investing $112 million to reinforce the bail system by supporting local police services in creating bail compliance teams and creating a province-wide bail compliance unit within the OPP to arrest high-risk offenders in violation of their bail conditions.

While our government takes concrete action to support our officers, radical activists and, unfortunately, some politicians have denigrated the sacrifice and bravery of police with calls to defund them. This kind of rhetoric is insulting. It is insulting to our police officers and it is insulting to victims of crime and Ontarians, who rely on police each and every day for their safety. Instead of condemning this rhetoric and supporting our government’s plan to reduce crime and invest in policing, the NDP has proposed taking away some of the tools that police rely on to do their jobs. Our government has unequivocally rejected defund-the-police rhetoric and has instead embraced policies that are serious and effective.

Sadly, the NDP has not just refused to join us in rejecting this rhetoric, they have endorsed it. Their policy commitment on policing said that calls to defund the police should not be dismissed, and that a conversation about defunding police is long overdue. I hope the member from Hamilton Centre takes the opportunity tonight to speak to this motion to explain why she tweeted, “Police in Ontario have a record of arbitrarily killing babies, Black, Indigenous, racialized, disabled civilians ... & those who are in crisis.” Shame.

I will be supporting this motion because we all must stand steadfast in our rejection of this kind of anti-police rhetoric, and we must continue to fund policing to support our officers and protect our communities.

I rise in support of a motion tabled by my colleague the member of Essex. I, too, want to thank our men and women in uniform for the work they do every day by keeping our communities safe.

Speaker, as we’ve heard tonight, Ontarians from all walks of life and all across this province, from Etobicoke–Lakeshore and Essex to Flamborough–Glanbrook and Whitby and everywhere in between, have earned and deserve the right to safe streets and safe communities. But it seems that everywhere you turn now, especially through social media, you come across pockets of people who say law enforcement isn’t part of the solution but part of the problem. They want to spend less on policing in the face of rising crime, random violence, gang shootouts and other forms of mayhem now gripping many of our cities and towns.

In fact, as mentioned earlier, a policy paper issued not long ago by the official opposition puts it plainly, right there on page 1: “We cannot and should not ... dismiss the call to defund police.” Well, Speaker, I can say with some confidence that the response to this statement from this side of the House is: Oh, yes, we can, and yes, we will.

So I rise to declare my view on this matter as reflected in tonight’s motion put forward by the member of Essex: “In the opinion of this House, the government should reject the ‘defund the police’ position and continue funding police, seizing illegal guns, suppressing gangs and supporting victims of violence through the Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy”—hear, hear, Speaker—because the reality is that the city of Toronto, for example, currently has fewer police on our streets than we did 10 years ago. That’s despite significant population growth and the fact that many forms of violent crimes have skyrocketed in the decade since. Would the members opposite not concede that there might just be a cause-and-effect relationship at work here, do you think?

Speaker, I say it again: The people of Ontario deserve safe communities. That is why, since 2018, our government has allocated approximately $203 million to combatting gun and gang violence. Through the government’s Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy launched in 2020, we are taking action to support measures that dismantle crime activity. We are enhancing investigative supports, increasing collaboration throughout the justice sector and stopping the flow of illegal guns across the border, and it’s working.

Just last April 11, the Windsor Star reported the seizure by police of 173 guns and the arrest of 42 people resulting from a cross-border trafficking investigation. Congratulations to the Windsor police. The story quotes Toronto Police Service Superintendent Steve Watts as saying, “A seizure of this size is definitely going to save lives on the streets of the GTA and elsewhere.” But then I suppose the official opposition might not dismiss the call to defund that program, too.

I just want to say a couple more words. I want to thank the member from Essex for this motion. Once again, I want to thank our servicemen and women. I want to thank them for what they do every day. A special shout-out to 22 Division in my riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore and of course our OPP officers. They’ve gone through some hardship over the last couple of months and our hearts go out to them and their families.

First, I want to thank the gentleman member from Timiskaming–Cochrane for his comments. He expressed the concerns he had about policing in his riding, and I draw from his comments that he would like to see more policing commitment in his riding, and based on those comments, I would invite him to vote in favour of this motion because if we continue to fund police, then we might be able to provide more policing for his riding, which is clearly what he would like.

I would like to thank the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook for her comments on this motion. She spoke about the sad reality that there are pockets of our community here in Ontario where people are calling to defund the police, and they’re denigrating our police forces. I’ve said this often in this House, and I’ll say it again, because it’s true in almost every situation: Regardless of how many good people you have, there are always a few bad apples in the barrel, and those bad apples have to be rooted out and dealt with, but that should not cause you to paint everybody with the same brush. We’re very proud of our police forces, and we should continue to speak well of them, promote them and thank them.

I thank the member from Whitby for his comments. He spoke about all of the excellent programs that are available for police officers in the province of Ontario and how this government is making extra investments to promote mental health for police officers and to assist police officers in what sometimes is a very difficult job. As I described in my comments, the world of police officers is a world of confrontation and tragic events, because that’s what police officers have to deal with.

Finally, the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore: I thank that member for her comments. She spoke very strongly in favour of her police forces and police forces across the province of Ontario. She indicated quite well the importance of continuing with the funding of these programs. In particular, we should note that she’s the parliamentary assistant for the Solicitor General, and she’s doing a great job in that role.

So I thank you, Madam Speaker, for this debate tonight and encourage all members to vote in favour of the motion.