By Doug Draper
The provincial government may be asking its million or so public employees to accept a wage freeze for the next couple of year. But obviously that does not apply to our police.
This July 27 – a week to the day that Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan hauled more than 50 representatives for public union employees across Ontario to urge them to accept a two-year wage freeze – an abitrator for the province approved a wage increase of close to 10 per cent for the Niagara Regional Police Service over the next three years.
This means that taxpayers across Niagara, Ontario are going to have to pay for this increase through their property taxes – not through income taxes or anywhere else. The province gets to be the hero here and give the police the salary increases they want, and they don’t have to pay for it. Pretty good deal for a province that has it enshrined in an Ontario Police Act only it can change.
And hey, why would the province change the act if they can be the good guys and let people pay for it off their property taxes rather than through income taxes set at the provincial and federal levels?
One might wonder why, when so many of their friends and neighbours across communities in Niagara are trying to get by on a median income of about $35,000, why $77,000 a year (about the current rate for a first-class constable in Niagara) isn’t good enough. What is wrong with that!
But here we are. Once again the provincial government of Dalton McGuinty and one of his senior cabinet soldiers, Jim Bradley of St. Catharines, has tied our regional government’s hands. And now our regional councillors have to try to keep property taxes down around the gold-plated salary and benefit increase McGuinty’s and Bradley’s hand-picked arbitrators has reached with the union representing our police.
As for the rest of us out here, take a wage freeze.
(Click on Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Senior citizens have their pensions frozen no cost of living yet the NRP get to take an increase of10% over 3 years,so we are the suckers that have to out up with that nonsense we need to man the ramparts and raise hell, who is serving whom here? they are serving themselves to heaping amounts of our cash, Dalton you are doing a helluva job yes we are living in a POLICE STATE.
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I fully support the police for the conditions under which they have to work and the clowns they have to deal with. Having said that, I would love a 10% raise in my pension. Unfortunately, people are not paid commensurate with their responsibilities, sacrifices and knowledge, eg Generous Motors. I had a friend working in ICU at Buffalo General and her cousin with grade 10 education working at GM made more money than her! HELLO! We won’t even go into our sports “heroes”! Police should make a good wage. A 10% increase over 3 years is pretty damned good but I would sooner see people such as them (plus nurses and other valuable workers ) get good wages rather than assembly line automatons, CEOs, immigrants who have never contributed to our country and POLITICIANS.
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I worked at GM for 30 years,that person I think you are referring to was probably hired when they need people with a strong back and weak mind,doing grunt work, GM doesn’t hire those kind of people anymore the equipment is very sophisticated and they have to havea much higher qualifications, just to get an interview the whole auto industry in run by computers and robots, police don’t have to be to smart, I had an opportunity to join the NRP at almalgamation they were not to choosy in those days that is why it’s full of nepotism they are all related to each other the Archer Report found the police was rife with cronyism, I turned down the job as I have a low threshold when dealing with drunks and punks. my patience would wear thin fast.
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Every job is becoming more technical but there are still not exactly what you would call life and death decisions in the auto industry. The good pay received is because they produce a saleable commodity. The benefits there are still far superior to those I ever received (or currently receive as a pensioner) and I had considerable post secondary and continual ongoing educational requirements (at my own expense), tremendous responsibility, stressful and dangerous working conditions, and a good deal of complex equipment to work with as well. I did make life and death decisions!!! Granted, some police are just goons who like to wear a uniform and throw their weight around and there is nepotism but many ARE in it for the right reasons. A lot of them have become cynical due to working with the social element they must deal with. You stated yourself you wouldn’t be able to handle that aspect of policing. When I had to call the police relating to circumstances in my own occupation (which was frequent) they responded instantly and were a God send.
The problem is there are too many bean counters out there who do nothing but sit at desks and draw huge salaries and most of them have little practical knowledge (usually much less then the workers they supervise and make decisions about). That is where CUTS are needed, not cuts OR raises to the workers, professional or otherwise. Pensioners are also short changed. They served their country for years and get less than the benefits of immigrants who have done nothing for the country and, in fact, often come here falsely with criminal records or just to take advantage of the benefits. Priorities in this country are terribly screwed up.
Another major SNAFU where people are short changed is the HST rebate. Oh goodie, give us some of our own money back and take it out of the other hand. Why, can anyone tell me, does a single person get $300 and a married person $500? That includes pensioners (with 2 pensions) and married or equivalent persons with no children and double the income. The cutoff is $80,000 for singles and double that for marrieds. How many people wish they made $80,000, especially seniors? Another excample of misdirected finances that could be better used.
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While I respect the police too, we need to ask ourselves how many of them need to be in our annual and growing Sunshine Club list? Can other taxpayers continue to pay ever escalating pay increases, as well as more and more money for facilities, etc. when many taxpayers are getting little or no increases and many are even getting less than they did last year? How can we justify this? I would love to see my income increase — period — but it hasn’t by much, yet anything I make gets eaten away with hydro hikes, HST, food price hikes (a full 29% over the past four years alone … I can prove it with grocery receipts). The buck has to stop somewhere!
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