No More Police For You

No More Police For You!

The chairman of the police services Board in Toronto doesn’t believe her own eyes.

New reports show that the crime rate in Toronto has declined by a hefty 8% in the past year. Some types of crime have decreased by 15% or more.

Every single time the statistics show that crime has gone up, the Chairman of the Police Services Board has climbed onto her gold-plated pedestal and proclaimed that the taxpayers better fork over some more money for police services. The Chairman never says: Oh oh. We’re doing a lousy job. Instead of reducing crime, we’re making it go up! Nor does she ever say, "Oh, those statistics are due to changing demographics—we’re doing just fine, really. Put that money into shelters for the homeless instead." And she never says, "Those statistics are not true. I don’t believe them." Not when the statistics say that crime is on the increase.

But when these statistics come out and show that the amount of crime in the city of Toronto has gone down, she says, "I don’t believe those numbers. All of my friends say crime is going up. They are all more afraid of crime now than they used to be."

This is about as stupid a thing as a responsible person in an official position can say. She is saying, I don’t care about proof or facts or truth. I don’t’ care about the fact that my personal experience is a completely meaningless measure of how widespread crime in a city of 2 million people is. She is saying, it doesn’t matter what the reality is: we are going to ask for more and more money every single time the budget comes up for negotiation.

I think we should give her the increase. Give her another 10, 20, 30 million dollars. Why not? And the next time the statistics come out and show that crime is going up, we’ll tell her: We don’t believe those statistics. We feel that the crime rate is going down. No soup for you.

June 23, 1999