the Ford government announced<\/a> that Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) may soon be taking over policing of the highways, which are operated by the province along with other King\u2019s Highways, including 400-series highways. <\/p>\nToronto police will maintain responsibility for non-traffic related criminal matters on the Gardiner and DVP. <\/p>\n
In a statement released last week, the TPA said it \u201cfundamentally opposes\u201d the change, calling it a \u201cgross overreach.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost every call in the city, regardless of its location, requires a multi-agency response. It does not make operational sense to bring in another response unit, such as the OPP,\u201d TPA President Clayton Campbell said in the online statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe this move will inevitably fragment the delivery of traffic enforcement and general policing services, increasing stress for commuters and posing a potential risk to public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking about the decision on Monday, Campbell said the union will be speaking with the Solicitor General to urge him to reconsider. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m struggling to understand this decision,\u201d Campbell said Monday, suggesting that the move will duplicate work. <\/p>\n
He added that very little consultation was done on the subject.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth the chief and I learned about it late last week,\u201d he said. \u201cI think those highways are different than other King\u2019s Highways.\u201d <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria\u2019s office said a \u201cdue diligence review\u201d of the two highways is underway, which includes an assessment of the highways, financial and legal reviews, and corridor management controls. <\/p>\n
Control of the Gardiner and the DVP was transferred back to the province as part of deal that was brokered by Mayor Olivia Chow and Premier Doug Ford amid the city\u2019s financial troubles in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The deal is estimated to save the city billions of dollars in upkeep for the highways.<\/p>\n
Clayton noted that there is still time to reverse course on the policing change, suggesting that the transition is not expected to happen for another year or two. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, I think our traffic officers have done just done a fantastic job,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
With files from CP24\u2019s Joshua Freeman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the union representing Toronto police officers says it is both \u201cineffective and inefficient\u201d to bring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-632146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}