By Doug Draper
Another two to three per cent annual wage increase for the police? The response to police union demands for an increase like that should be a flat no, says St. Catharines regional councillor Bruce Timms. The taxpayers of this region, he says, simply can’t afford it.
“I want the same two-year pay freeze for the police,” added Timms at a regional council meeting this March 22, “that (the province) is asking teachers for.”
“I think we all should respect the taxpayers and not just selfishly ask for more and more and more,” Timms continued of recent media reports that the union representing the Niagara Regional Police is using its latest contract talks with Niagara, Ontario’s regional government to ask for wage increases comparable to the 2.5 to three per cent yearly increases police forces of similar size are getting across the province.
Talks between the police union and regional government’s police board, which includes Niagara Region’s chair Gary Burroughs, Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey and Thorold regional councillor Henry D’Angela among its representatives, have recently failed to a point where the positions of both sides are now going to conciliation. That means they may very well end up in the hands of provincially appointed arbitrators in Toronto where, if past history is any indicator, the police union usually gets all or most of what it wants without a peep out of the government of the day.
Timms, who has long been an outspoken critic of the arbitration process for not taking into account a region’s ability to pay the increases it awards to unions representing both police and firefighters, said the circumstances of a region like Niagara, where the jobless rate is among the highest in the country and many people have not seen much of an increase in their income for years, should most certainly be taken into account.
St. Catharines, Ontario regional councillor Bruce Timms
Reading from a news article quoting Niagara police union president Paul DiSimoni saying; “We are looking for (a wage increase) that is in line with other services our size. … We are not looking to be the highest paid service in Ontario, but we want to keep what we have,” Timms said a first-class police constable making about $83,000 in Niagara is not making all that much less (about $600 in total) than his or her counterpart in Toronto under the current contract.
Someone should tell DiSimoni about the difficulties taxpayers are facing in Niagara these days, added the veteran St. Catharines councillor.
“It appears that the police union has no respect for the taxpayers askinf for this kind of raise, given what is happening (in Niagara), he said. “I tell you what I want Mr. DiSimoni. I want a two-year freeze – zero and zero. Respect the taxpayers.”
Timms finished his remarks by challenging the province’s premier Dalton McGuinty to show “the courage” to respect the taxpayers of Niagara enough to stand up to the arbitrators and their usual habit of approving whatever demands a police union makes.
Another St. Catharines regional councillor, Andy Petrowski, read from an editorial in the March 22 edition of The Globe and Mail on policing costs.
“Given the financial pressures on Canadian cities caused by rising police budgets, municipalities and police leaders need to adapt law-enforcement delivery to a new era. Otherwise, the price of law and order will become unsustainable,” reads the Globe editorial.
The editorial goes on to note that “it is difficult to negotiate layoffs and salary cuts to municipal police forces because, in the event of labour disagreement, provincial arbitrators step in and can approve binding agreements without considering a municipality’s ability to pay.”
In Niagara, Ontario, the operating budget for the police department has increased significantly over the past decade and a half, and usually well above the average increases for other regional government departments. More than 90 per cent of Niagara Regional Police’s operating budgets goes to wages and benefits, leaving little left for everything else the department needs.
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Niagara At Large 
I think the local politicians are afraid to upset the police.
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Precisely.
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I’d have to agree with Ray. Reading the article it sounds like the making of a future dystopia where elected officials bow to the edicts of the public unions. You have to appreciate Mr Timms for speaking out about the problem.
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In addition to freezes, a two tier pay scale should be introduced. We do not need to pay officers $80K+++ to direct traffic, pass out speeding tickets, conduct road blocks…. about 90% of what they do. We do not need to promote officers to the full pay rate based on time, but rather on need and budget capabilities. So instead of automatically achieving full pay scale after four years it would be on an as needed basis.
Also with respect to the unions claims with re: putting life on the line, I know truck drivers, farmers, construction workers, to name a few, that expose themselves to risk daily as well. And in my opinion their jobs are just as necessary as the police. Who doesnt need food, housing etc… Only 7 NRP officers have lost their lives in the Niagara Region over the last 100+ years (2 by training accidents and one by a health issue). One could argue that the job is not as unsafe as the self-serving union would claim. On the note of unions and all public service positions, they should be legislated out of existence. We do not need unions dictating what we the tax payer will pay for services. Not when there are lineups of people eager to take these jobs at a fraction of the compensation.
On a side note – does anyone know how much the members of our armed forces make????
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Before you start making comments, you should learn about the true facts. Police duties are rarely traffic enforcement nor road blocks. I have many friends who are cops and they deal with high risk situations all the time in this region. So comparing them to farmers and construction workers is way out of line.
It is funny to hear one talk negative about the police until you are the one that needs them when you are in trouble.
– A rsponse from Niagara At Large – Ins’t it interesting how someone from the police union always suggests that the police are th only ones whose jobs involves risks. The police rep up above should know, if he bothers to check out statistics, that people in the construction industry in Canada and the United States often suffer more deaths and industries, than do police. The police representative above might also note that the value of work police or any other group of people provide to the community is a matter of perspective. For example, if the people who haul our household gargabe away from curbside where on strike for eith or 12 months and people had to start stacking their stinkintg garbage bags in their backyars, some may well come to the concluson that garge collectors perform an imporant service too. At the end of the day, the writer of this comment obviously feels that police are entitled to a two to three per cent wage increase each year as a matter of entitlement. The rest of us apparently have no other say in the matter other than to dig deaper in our pockets and pay up. Is this the message from our police force? Is that all you have to say to us? Pay up or else?
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