The Thunder Bay Police Services Board (TBPSB) in response to
a resolution tabled at a recent City council meeting by Mayor Mauro has asked
the police service to “produce
a report on a possible redeployment of existing resources to get more officers
on the front line.” The mayor was
motivated to make the request based on feedback from residents who have been
complaining about crime in the city.
The police in Thunder Bay appear to be facing increasing
service calls on a variety
of fronts while crime rates in the city along with homicide rates are not
exactly in the middle of the distribution when it comes to comparably sized
CMAs across the country. Meanwhile, an
additional half a dozen officers have been hired since 2018 so the mayor wants
to increase front-line deployment of officers.
However, apparently the TBPSB annual report for 2019 does not specify
how many of its 227 officers are considered front line – hence the request.
In the absence of direct information, we are left with
comparisons and assessments based on the data available. A question one can ask is how does Thunder
Bay’s policing strength per capita look compared to other cities? The accompanying chart using data from
Statistics Canada provides police officers per 100,000 population for a dozen
Ontario cities including the five northern Ontario cities. The numbers are for 2000 and 2019. Except for Toronto and Peterborough-Lakefield,
since 2000, all of the cities have seen an increase in police officers per
100,000. In percentage terms the largest
increases have been for Barrie at 38 percent followed by Timmins at 28 percent,
then Kingston at 23 percent and Thunder Bay at 18 percent.
Of the five northern Ontario cities, Thunder Bay in 2019 had
the most officers per 100,000 population coming in at 205. This is followed closely by Timmins at 199
and then the Sault at 177, North Bay at 160 and then Greater Sudbury at
155. Of the southern Ontario cities,
Windsor comes in at the top at 205 per 100,000 followed by Barrie at 163 and
Toronto at 162. The average number of
police officers per 100,000 is generally greater in the five northern Ontario
cities at 179 compared to the seven southern one here at 159. That staffing requirements might be larger in
the north given the geographic spread of its major municipalities as well as
unique local issues is not in question.
In the south, Windsor is also an outlier and can probably base its numbers on
the unique challenges of being a border city.
Nevertheless, in per capita terms, Thunder Bay is at the top
of the distribution whether it is being compared to its northern counterparts or
others in the rest of the province. The
mayor is correct in asking whether there is potential for redeployment of existing
police resources to the front line especially given the increases of recent years.
