Temporary suspension of Toronto police services until 2024 cost $1.3 million

Toronto taxpayers spent nearly $1.3 million to pay for a suspended Toronto police officer until 2024, according to an exclusive database created by CBC News, which examined the reports of hundreds of Ontario police officers on salary. misconduct or violation of law.

The investigation Collected publicly available information on officers from 44 police departments, including the Toronto Police Service.

The suspension by the Toronto police is linked to numerous allegations, including gender-based violence, impaired driving, fraud, racial discrimination and drug-related allegations. Most of the officers were prosecuted.

CBC News data shows that between January 2013 and April 2024, the 119 officers employed by the Toronto Police Service were suspended a total of 130 times, multiple times. All were paid for by their full salary of $31 million for taxpayers.

As of April 9, at least 31 Toronto police officers are still suspended, 69 have returned to work, 12 have resigned, five have been terminated and three have retired. CBC News was unable to determine the results of the other five.

Most of the officers were paid for being home for nearly a year, but four were suspended with pay for more than seven years.

“It's funny,” says the ex-policeman-turned-politician

The data is based on publicly available information, compiled and verified using multiple news sources, police and special investigation unit reports, and court and disciplinary records. The Toronto Police Service said it averages 30 suspensions a year, so there may be more suspensions with pay than are accounted for in the numbers.

City councilor John Burnside, who sits on the Toronto Police Services Board, said the public's confidence is strained when they see someone charged with a serious crime who spent years taking public money off-duty.

“It's ridiculous,” said Burnside, a Toronto police officer nearly a decade before entering political life. “When someone watches TV for seven years, it affects people's perception of the police, and it really does. it's harder for everyone.”

“The police have a special mandate, a special authority, and they depend on people's trust in them and in the system, and that really undermines that,” he said.

CBC Toronto reached out to Toronto lawyers, academics, politicians and people in leadership roles in the police force to comment on the findings. Most who agreed to speak said they would support any measure that could strip officers of their pay when they are fired. But while the latest legislation could strip suspended officers of their pay in limited circumstances, many said the provision is too limited to significantly improve public trust and accountability.

Delays lasting hundreds of days

The Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto Police reported the most suspensions in the province between 2013 and 2024, but they are the largest forces with 5,993 and 5,100 sworn officers, respectively.

Suspended officers are in the minority. Less than three percent of Toronto police have been suspended over the past decade.

Three of the 10 officers with the longest suspensions over the past decade were with the Toronto Police Department. They are Const. Ioan-Florin Floria, Const. Leslie Niznick and Const. Samir Kara, all of whom were suspended with pay for over seven years.

Const. Cara and Niznik were suspended for years before being acquitted in a 2021 criminal gang rape trial. Both returned to work after being paid $1.03 million and $1.1 million, respectively. Cara, who has been suspended three times, is currently suspended for another charge that, as of April 9, costs another $251,115.70.

Floria was fired after serving a 2,785-day suspension during which he was paid more than a million dollars. CBC News previously reported that Floria's earliest firing was in 2007, when her employer accused her of obstructing a kidnapping investigation and using her position to aid a criminal organization.

The average length of suspension with pay in Toronto police is shorter than the provincial average, at 549 days compared to the provincial average of 675 days.

The new legislation allows for suspension without pay

Until now, police chiefs in Ontario have been able to suspend police officers with pay if they suspect misconduct. code of conduct or breaking the law.

Ontario is new Law on Public Safety and Police ServiceIntroduced April 1, it now allows chiefs to suspend officers without pay, but only in specific circumstances.

It applies only to allegations of a serious, indictable crime, such as murder or aggravated sexual assault, committed by an officer while off-duty. And any decision to suspend an officer without pay will first be made before a judge.

Anna Willatz, a founding member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition (TPAC), a self-described non-partisan group of residents debating police accountability, says the change is positive, but wants chiefs to have more choices. further consideration of other types of offences.

He said unlike in Alberta, where officers can be fired without pay and only get back pay if they are found to be innocent, Toronto officers are eager to prolong the process any way they can.

“There's an incentive for officers, especially those with convictions, to drag it out so that ultimately they'll be found guilty no matter what the charges are,” he said.

The act responds to calls for more flexibility: the province

CBC Toronto has asked the Attorney General's Office to respond to concerns that the new act's proposed powers are too limited.

Spokesman Brent Ross said in a statement that the act “gives police chiefs the flexibility to terminate without pay in a wide range of circumstances, not just when an officer is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. As previously required under the Police Services Act.

He said the act would better respond to calls by increasing flexibility in the use of unpaid suspensions.

Patrick Watson, a professor of criminology and the social humanities at the University of Toronto who specializes in police accountability, says transparency about suspensions is as important as changing pay.

He said public disclosure of the types of complaints and how they are being resolved is an important next step that taxpayers deserve.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Watson said.

In compiling this database, CBC News found that most police departments do not routinely release information about suspended officers, and when they do, the reports are archived for only a few months. No agency or state office currently tracks or publishes the total number of suspensions in the province.

CBC Toronto asked the Toronto Police to determine if there is a specific process that dictates how information about suspensions and warrants is released, but they did not respond by our deadline.

During this investigation, CBC News found that the Toronto police did not have a searchable database, and said that several questions required freedom of information requests or records were not available.

For now, Watson says the province will follow up on any test cases involving an officer's suspension without pay.

New rules not enough: Association of Police Chiefs

The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police says the new legislation doesn't go far enough, with their executive director Jeff McGuire calling it a “small step.”

“I think there's still going to be a number of police officers on paid suspension, and I'm going to join the majority of the crowd in saying that's not appropriate,” he said. .

CBC Toronto has reached out to Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiev for comment. It was not available by deadline.

Stephanie Sayer, a spokeswoman for TPS, said the act would only allow a member to be suspended without pay in “very rare circumstances,” without commenting on the strength or weakness of the legislation.

At least one Toronto police officer His pay has been suspended since the new rules took effect on April 1, 2024, after he was arrested and charged with firearms offenses.

John Reed, president of the Toronto Police Association, which represents police officers, said in a statement: “Our members, like everyone else, have the right to the presumption of innocence and due process when faced with allegations of wrongdoing or criminal conduct.”

He said the association was trying to ensure the new guidelines in the legislation were applied correctly and that leaders could reassign a member to a non-public role.

However, Burnside said that despite the new rules, many off-the-job offenses only result in suspensions with pay – a problem that he says needs to be addressed through further legislative changes.

As a taxpayer, he says he hopes the situation will be “cleared up soon.”

“Save the $31 million and invest it in the right police.”