The frequency of protests linked to national and international issues is creating an “unsustainable demand” on police forces across the country, Canada’s police chiefs say.
Meeting in Halifax on Tuesday for its annual summit, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) called on all levels of government to provide the “moral and financial support” needed to meet this increased demand for services.
Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Thomas Carrique, who is also president of the CACP, said Tuesday that police chiefs are increasingly concerned about having to take officers off their regular duties and send them to police protests.
“National challenges 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.
As protests become harder to control, police will need more officers, equipment and training to deal with them, Carrique said. “This increase is creating an unsustainable demand for police services and operations across Canada.”
Mr. Carrique reported that Toronto’s police chief told association members at the conference that his force had responded to more than 1,000 protests since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October.
These additional resources needed to control the protests have cost Toronto police “tens of millions of dollars that they would not have had the opportunity to budget for,” Carrique said.
Additionally, a growing number of protests in Canada have ended in threats or violence, he noted. He argues that aggression is often the result of “activists, splinter groups or just plain thugs” who want to cause disruption by interfering with an otherwise legal protest.
Immigration, he added, has brought people from certain parts of the world — unnamed — where the use of violence is an “acceptable vehicle for social change.” But police have a “huge responsibility” to reach out to diverse communities, including areas where new immigrants are located, to build civic trust, he said.
“In some cases there is distrust of the police and some people may come from areas where the police are corrupt,” Carrique said.
Halifax Regional Police Chief Don MacLean said officers can build trust when they play a background role in certain situations, such as when responding to people experiencing homelessness.
Halifax has created a civilian community safety team that takes the lead on issues related to homelessness, allowing police to be involved at some level, “but not necessarily always on the front lines,” he explained.
MacLean believes lessons were learned from a housing protest that turned violent in downtown Halifax in August 2021. “Policing these types of events is constantly evolving and we’ll continue to learn more about things that don’t necessarily go well,” he said.
Meanwhile, the association is calling for legislation that would make it illegal to target a police officer by disclosing personal information on social media or other online platforms with malicious intent.