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Canada’s police chiefs are calling on all levels of government to provide more resources, training and “moral” support to help police respond to the growing number of protests in the country.
The Canadian Association of Police Chiefs said Tuesday at the end of its annual summit in Halifax that increased protest activity is creating an “unsustainable demand” on police resources.
Thomas Carrique, the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police who is also the president of the national association, said chiefs are increasingly concerned about having to pull officers from their regular duties to police demonstrations. Those officers are also working more overtime, chiefs heard, leading to fears of burnout.
“National issues and global conflicts have led to an increase in the frequency, duration, complexity, risks and threats of these public gatherings in cities across our country,” Carrique told reporters.
“Protests and civil unrest on the scale we are seeing in Canadian society today are truly unprecedented.”
Carrique said Toronto’s police chief told association members at the conference that his department has responded to more than 1,000 protests since the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas began last October.
The additional resources needed to control the demonstrations have cost Toronto police “tens of millions of dollars that they otherwise would not have had the budget for,” Carrique said.
Over the past two years, protests and demonstrations have been held across Canada against the rising cost of living and global conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, and in support of the Freedom Convoy movement.
Across the country, Carrique added, protests have become increasingly violent, with some participants threatening and attacking police officers. Carrique said the aggression is often the result of “activists, splinter groups or just plain thugs” who want to cause disruption by hijacking the original intent of a lawful demonstration.
The most recent police-reported crime data from Statistics Canada shows that attacks on police officers increased by 6.5 percent last year compared to 2022. Between 2019 and 2022, the number increased by only 4.5 percent.
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The association on Tuesday a resolution released that was first adopted in July which draws attention to the problem. It argues that immigration can play a role by bringing people to Canada from countries where “the use of force is an accepted vehicle for social change.”
The resolution further states that “each year, thousands of people who prefer violence as a means of expression or activism continue to come to Canada.”
Carrique repeated those claims on Tuesday, but did not name the countries where the association’s members believe these immigrants come from.
However, he noted that police have a “huge responsibility” to reach out to different communities, including areas with new immigrants, to build trust.
“In some cases there is distrust of the police and some people may come from areas where the police are corrupt,” Carrique said.
Asked about these claims, a spokesperson for the office of Immigration Minister Marc Miller did not address them directly. Instead, the office issued a statement saying it was working to reduce current immigration volumes to manage Canada’s affordability crisis and that it condemns all violence against anyone, “including immigrants.”
Carrique said police need more officers, equipment and training to handle the protests, which will require additional government funding.
A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told Global News that the federal government agrees that police officers are increasingly “being called upon to respond to complex, difficult situations that go beyond what would traditionally be considered the traditional duties of a police officer,” particularly in “these turbulent times.”
“We will continue to be there, together with provincial and municipal authorities, to support them within our federal jurisdiction, provide them with the resources they need on a daily basis and improve the environment in which they carry out their work,” spokesman Jean-Sébastien Comeau said in a statement.
The association also advocates for legislation that makes it illegal to target police through doxxing: the practice of releasing personal information on social media or other online platforms with malicious intent.
The group’s resolution states that there has been “an increase in online activities by protesters targeting police officers (for example, by doxing them)” and calls for an amendment to the Online Harms Act, introduced earlier this year and currently before Parliament.
Comeau noted in his statement that disinformation and hateful rhetoric on social media are making police work “more complex.”
Halifax Police Chief Don MacLean told reporters Tuesday that such a law would not stop people from criticizing police for their mistakes.
“It’s the way you use the tool (social media) that’s important,” he said. “There’s a level of discourse that’s happening that I think goes beyond what’s needed and I think that’s what we’re talking about.”
—with files from The Canadian Press
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Sean Boynton
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