It began yesterday with the Toronto police union launching a website complaining about their working conditions and contending that politicians are putting cost-cutting agendas ahead of public safety.
The Toronto Police Association is warning of a staffing crisis and a breaking point; it's officers are over-worked, stressed out, burnt out.
Today, Mayor John Tory is calling on the union to stop criticizing and help problem solve. "They've never come to the table even having agreed to do so several times to talk about their shifts which would help us to deploy people better and also contain budgets, they've never done that."
"There isn't a single person that has a job in Toronto that hasn't been affected by change and policing is no different. I would just hope the association might start to devote itself to helping us with that change instead of trying to resist it and protect the status quo. Everything is changing in this world. Our police do a great job but we need their help in modernizing policing in Toronto and that's what we're trying to do."
Union president Mike McCormack calls the mayor's statement disingenuous. "I don't know if it's his memory that's going or he doesn't really follow what's happening in the police service. He talks about shift schedules; it was the police service board, because of its transformational task force, put that committee on hold and said 'there's no sense in meeting as a committee until we figure out what's going on with the transformational task force.' So, to this date I haven't received a letter or anything saying we should reconvene."
"I don't know if he has a selective memory or maybe, you know, age is just taking its toll," McCormack adds.