Anthony Furey: Olivia Chow embraces a lawless Toronto

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has done a decent job sticking to a tight script during her bid for re-election. It’s a script that casts her as a centrist concerned about public safety and affordability — two of the electorate’s main concerns.

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But at a recent debate she let the mask slip and reminded Toronto voters of her true colours — that she has never been an ally of the police. That’s not something you want to do, especially when we need law and order more than ever.

Chow’s re-election slogan is that she’s working for “a more affordable, safe and caring city.” The use of “safe” certainly gives the impression that Chow recognizes the city’s troubling state and intends to get tough on crime. But before accepting that conclusion, voters should unpack what she’s really saying.

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As one of her lead safety talking points, Chow has touted how the city hired dozens of additional 911 operators under her watch, which cut 911 response times in half.

This is good news and wise policy and it’s a scandal that we had that brief period where callers were put on hold for a service most people have long assumed answers immediately.

I unfortunately learned the other year what it was like to be put on hold by 911 for almost a minute, when I called to deal with another person’s medical emergency. The 45 seconds or so on hold felt like an eternity.

Answering the phone is only one part of the solution though. Are there sufficient resources to deploy to the emergency once the call is made? Far from it. The number of police officers today is fairly flat compared to a decade ago, yet the population has grown significantly. The resources are being stretched thin.

Yet at the recent mayoral debate hosted by the Daily Bread Food Bank, Chow made clear what Toronto political insiders have long known about her: that Chow has never been considered a supporter of the police.

During the debate, lead challenger Coun. Brad Bradford pressed Chow on why, as mayor, she never sat on the Police Services Board as was the tradition. There are many city boards and the mayor can’t be on all of them, but none are as important as the police board and so the mayor has always sat on it.

Sidestepping the question, Chow pivoted to how she believes her policies have improved public safety via youth programs and violence prevention initiatives.

Then the real answer came: “We have hired a lot more mental health crisis workers,” she said. “Because police are not the only answer. People who have mental health issues need help. Guns are not the only solution.”

There we have it, a philosophy laid bare. At a time when Toronto residents feel the city is less safe and see the daily chaos on our streets and public transit, Olivia Chow is downplaying the role police can play in fixing things and dismissing them as gun-waving distractions.

It’s incredibly disrespectful to the many police officers who have spent years working on the streets of Toronto without once firing their weapons to dismissively say “guns are not the only solution.”

It’s now all too common to encounter mentally ill and addicted people acting irrationally and violently on the streets, in public spaces and within the tight confines of public transit. Do they need help? Of course. Could a mental health worker provide that help? Yes, in some circumstances.

But once they become a potential risk to public safety, it then becomes the role of a police officer to intervene. Everyone knows this. It’s just common sense.

Residents have come to feel less safe in Toronto in recent years. The problems are broad. The buses and subways have more violent and anti-social behaviour on them. Drug addicts feel entitled to take over public spaces. Petty criminals loot liquor stores in broad daylight. Organized crime conducts wave after wave of auto-thefts with impunity. And even average drivers who otherwise follow the law are now dangerously running red lights all the time, knowing they’ll never get a ticket.

This potpourri of lawless activity has a variety of underlying causes. But there are a few common threads that can’t be denied: these things have gotten worse since Olivia Chow became mayor, and adding more 911 operators and crisis workers is only scratching the surface — yet those are the only solutions Chow is offering.

Chow may be campaigning on making things safer, but without meaningful policies that include meaningful backing of the police, the voters shouldn’t buy it.

Anthony Furey is a former journalist and past Toronto mayoral candidate who now works in corporate consulting.

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