“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.

It’s always an honour to speak in the House, and I would like to thank the member from Essex for bringing this issue forward. Actually, I listened intently to his remarks, and I would like to thank him for the life experiences he shared. I always love that about private members’ motions and bills—sometimes they’re partisan, but he spoke from the heart, and I respect that.

I would like to start by respectfully paying the respects of the official opposition to the family of Detective Constable Steven Tourangeau, who recently lost his life in East Zorra township. I lived there for a little while. Police officers not only risk their own lives, but their families also share that risk. On behalf of, I believe, all members of the House, we would like to express our condolences.

I come from an area where, in my riding—and the member from Essex talked about his riding. I appreciated that—I like it when people bring things personally. I’ve just lost, in Timiskaming–Cochrane, in Matheson, the OPP detachment—closed. French River OPP detachment—people in that area are signing petitions, which I have signed as well, to try to keep it open. We know—I don’t pretend to know a lot about cities, but I know what canola looks like; I know what canola smells like. We’re fighting to keep OPP officers. In northern Ontario, we wonder who’s trying to defund the police. I’m not trying to be facetious. We’re doing everything we can to keep our police officers.

Do we believe that to try to solve societal problems we have, we need to look beyond the police? Yes. This is a nuanced debate; it should be.

I’ve spent a long time talking to—and I’ve mentioned him in the House before—Martin Thibault, an officer in the Temiskaming detachment. One of the things that frustrates Martin is when he deals with people with mental health issues. He’s their first point of contact, and he has to deal with them over and over and over again because there’s no one else in our part of the world to help. Just in that instance, two Martins isn’t going to make that any better. He needs to be part of a team, a circle of care. We have to look at that, as well.

Do we recognize that police officers play a vital role in our society? Absolutely. Do we believe that everyone in our society should feel safe, including police officers? Absolutely.

I appreciate the member’s tone. This is a nuanced debate, and it should be. We need well-funded, well-trained police.

I think everyone in this House knows that—I believe the number is 35% of our police officers are off on PTSD. We need to look at that too. We need to support them.

Do we need to recruit more police officers? Absolutely. But if you want to keep a well-trained police force, you also have to support the people who are already trained, who are already working and who face incredible challenges, as your police officer friend did when he pulled you out of that car wreck. There are so many things that police face. They need to be supported. Do we want that support to be there? Absolutely, we want that support for them. We want that support for the people they have to deal with on a daily basis. They deal with more trauma than the rest of us. And when they are overworked, when they lack support—they’re human. Sometimes they make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Let the first perfect person throw the first stone.

Do we need to properly fund police? Yes, 100%. Do we need to look further to see what else is breaking down in society that is causing the increased risks that we all face, that we all feel and that police feel times 10? At the end of the day, when something goes wrong, we call 911—well, I’m going to divert. In some areas, we call 911—because the whole province doesn’t have 911 either. But we call the police. The police are trained, and they can suffer incredible trauma.

I’ve talked to Mark Baxter a fair bit. I have a pretty good relationship with Mark, I think. I helped him out on a bill a little while ago. I like talking to Mark Baxter. I actually learn a lot talking to police. But actually, the defund-the-police concept—which I’ve never used and which isn’t a party position—they never bring that up. They bring up the supports that they need, the supports that the community needs. That’s what they bring up, and that’s what they should bring up, because when people become—what’s the word I’m looking for?—marginalized, destitute, sometimes they do things that they shouldn’t, and the police end up dealing with them. But there’s no place for them to go, so we need to look at that.

There are a lot of things we need to look at, but let’s get over the issue that any of us here want to have less trained police or don’t believe that we need policing in a civil society; you need policing in a civil society. But you need to give the police, also, the support that everyone else should have in a civil society.

When Martin Thibault—and I’m going to tell you exactly: There was a Crime Stoppers barbecue in front of the OPP, and Martin came up to me and talked to me. We talked about how he was an officer for 21 years. He knew exactly when he could retire, because it wasn’t the same; the last five years, it’s not the same. We talked about how he didn’t feel safe—and police officer is a risky job; it is. There’s an inherent risk in taking the risk for others. There’s an inherent risk. But Martin pointed to the highway, and there was a homeless person sitting on the side of the highway in front of the OPP detachment in Temiskaming Shores. And he said, “He’s part of our issue. Not himself, but we’ll likely have to deal with him three times today. There’s nowhere for him to go.”

You have a police officer with 21 years’ experience, very well trained. Everyone in Timiskaming—or at least our part of Timiskaming—knows Martin Thibault. Martin Thibault used to sell John Deere equipment, and then he became a police officer—highly regarded, well trained, the kind of police officer that we all know and respect. Martin wanted to find services to help the homeless guy. That’s what Martin wanted.

So I thank the member from Essex for bringing this issue forward, because I think he brought it from his heart.