Policing and Crime in Ontario, Part 2: severity and levels

 This post originally appeared on the Fraser Institute Blog on February 6th.

While crime in Ontario has been rising recently, it’s still at comparatively low levels while the number the number of police officers per person is also relatively low. However, there are sometimes rather large differences across Ontario’s cities both in terms of police staffing, crime rates and crime severity. The reasons for these differences can be complex ranging from historical and institutional factors to geographic spread of municipalities and local policing environments rooted in different crime rates and types of crimes.

The chart below plots police officers per 100,000 population in 2021 for Ontario’s 30 largest municipalities by population and ranks them from highest to lowest. (Note that a number of these municipalities have regional police services and in the chart the per-person policing number for the regional service has been assigned to the municipality.) The average across these 30 municipalities is 144 officers per 100,000, which is below the provincial level of 176 per 100,000 reflecting higher police per 100,000 population in more rural or remote areas with large geographies and sparser populations.

 

 

The level of policing ranges from a high of 200.4 officers per 100,000 in Thunder Bay to a low of 117 per 100,000 for the set of communities in the Halton region—a substantial difference. The four highest number of officers per 100,000 are for Thunder Bay, Windsor, Brantford and Toronto, ranging respectively from 39 per cent to 17 per cent above the 30-municipality average of 144. Conversely, the four lowest communities of Milton, Burlington, Oakville and Waterloo (which incidentally are all part of regional forces) are respectively 12 per cent to 18 per cent below the average.

The second chart plots the ranked Crime Severity Index (CSI) for these 30 communities. The CSI is a relatively new tool that complements existing measures of traditional crime rates by taking severity and the volume of crime into account (Statistics Canada, 2009). All Criminal Code offences, including traffic offences and other federal statute offences, are included in the CSI. In the calculation of the CSI, each offence is assigned a weight, derived from average sentences handed down by criminal courts with more serious sentences on average for the crimes resulting in a higher weight for that offence. Thus, more serious offences (for example, homicides versus traffic offences) have a greater impact on changes in the index.

 

 

The results again show a substantial range in overall crime severity ranging from highs of 105 and 98 for Windsor and Thunder Bay to lows of about 23 for the Halton region communities of Oakville, Burlington and Milton with an average CSI across these 30 communities of 57. While there’s a wide range in crime severity across these Ontario cities, given that the CSI is standardized with Canada equal to 100, Ontario cities generally rank lower in crime severity than some other parts of Canada such as Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Territories.

Again, it should be noted that a number of these municipalities have regional police services and the crime severity index as reported for the regional service has been assigned to the municipality. The communities with the highest crime severity are Windsor, Thunder Bay, Brantford and Sudbury, which range from 84 per cent to 54 per cent above the average crime severity. Meanwhile, for the communities at the bottom—Brampton, Oakville, Burlington and Milton—they are 35 per cent to 60 per cent below the average crime severity. Notably, the per cent differences from the average for crime severity across these communities is larger than the difference in policing resources.

Of course, when examining what crime is like in these same communities and ultimately what relation the municipality may have to policing resources, it’s important to bear in mind that the relationship between crime rates, crime severity and policing is bidirectional or somewhat murky. On the one hand, one would expect that more police, all other things given, should result in lower crime rates as more resources are brought to bear on the problems. At the same time, one might also find that higher crime rates spur calls for more police resources, which in turn results in the hiring of more police. Put another way, it’s sometimes difficult to sort out if more police officers result in less crime or more crime also leads to more police officers.

In the next post in this blog series, we’ll take a more in-depth look at the relationship between policing resources and crime severity in these Ontario communities.

 

 

Policing and Crime in Ontario: Part I

 

This is the first post in a blog series exploring the state of policing levels and crime rates in Ontario. This post first appeared on the Fraser Institute Blog, Feb. 3rd, 2023.

Municipal budget season in Ontario comes with an assortment of budgetary issues including proposed hefty increases in policing budgets partly fuelled by rising crime rates.

Recent proposals include:

• A 4.3 per cent increase of police spending in Toronto, which would increase the police budget by $48.3 million to $1.17 billion, and an increase of 200 officers (in light of a planned 5.5 per cent increase in property taxes, this proposal has generated much debate).
• A 5.6 per cent increase in the police budget in Sudbury, accompanied by a proposal for 15 new officer cadet hires and ultimately 24 new officer positions. The proposed hires come at a time when crime rates have not fluctuated a great deal.
• In Hamilton, the Police Services Board asked for a 6.7 per cent increase ($12 million) in its budget that includes 18 new civilian positions and 13 new officers yearly.
• In Thunder Bay, a proposed increase in the police budget for 2023 accounts for about one-third of the proposed 6.2 per cent tax levy increase and also includes the hiring of 21 positions.

When proposing these large budget requests, advocates often cite the effects of capital renewal, general inflation of operating costs, rising demand for police services given their more complicated roles (especially with respect to social and mental health issues) and rising crime rates—that is, the number of police service reported criminal code incidents per 100,000 population. As chart below shows, crimes rates in both Canada and Ontario have grown since 2015 but took a sharp drop in 2020 (the first pandemic year) and then resumed upwards.

However, by historical standards crime rates remain quite low. At the same time, policing numbers in both Canada and Ontario are also at comparatively low levels in terms of officers per 100,000 population over the 1986 to present period (see second chart below). Since the mid-1980s, there have been two peaks in officers per 100,000—1991 and 2010. Both peaks were followed by declines in the number of officers but the decline after 2010 appears more pronounced with officers per 100,000 population in Ontario declining from 200.3 in 2010 to 174.9 in 2019 (a 13 per cent drop) followed by a slight rebound to 176 by 2021.

 

 

 

Given these numbers are per 100,000 people, another factor in the demand for more officers is simply Ontario’s rapid population growth. Since 2010, Ontario’s population has increased from 13.1 million to 14.8 million (an increase of 13 per cent) while the total number of police officers has remained flat, hence the per-person decline.

In general, public debate on rising police costs should be considered within the context of overall public spending in Canada and the demands of a more complex society. Policing has evolved beyond just dealing with crime and includes a wider range of problem social behaviours, which are factors in police resource and expenditure growth.

The key question then in municipalities across Ontario is what should municipal councils do in response to demands for more policing? To answer that, we must know what the relationship between police resources and crime is and how that might shape the assorted requests across the province for larger police budgets. Given the diversity that is Ontario, in terms of the size and needs of its urban centres, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer to such questions. In the next post in this series, we’ll explore the relationship between police staffing and crime severity across major Ontario municipalities.

 

 

Ontario Universities: Is More Competition Underway?

 

Ontario universities saw the release this week of the preliminary application statistics for the 2023-24 academic year by OUAC, and they are quite intriguing given that they suggest that there may be a shift underway in how students both apply and make their ultimate choices.  These applications are for full-time, first-year, fall-entry, undergraduate university study or 101s as they are known, and applications are up 2.9 percent this year though the number of applicants is down slightly by about one-firth of one percent.  Figure 1 plots both applications and applicants over the period 2014 to 2023 and though both exhibit a rising trend the number of applicants has been more volatile as a result of the pandemic year. 

 

 

 

What is more interesting is Figure 2 which divides the number of applications by the number of applicants in each year and reveals that over time individual applicants have been applying to more universities.  From 4.6 applications per applicant in 2014 to 5.8 in 2023.  This suggests that students are open to considering more options either because they are shopping around or perhaps to ensure that they get into a program they desire.  In any event, this alone suggests that university recruitment out of Ontario high schools may be getting a bit more competitive.

 

 

 More evidence to this effect is provided in Figures 3 to 5.  Figure 3 ranks Ontario’s universities with constituent affiliated campuses included with the main campus (for example, King’s, Brescia and Huron are included with Western) and there is definitely a pecking order in terms of application totals: Large (University of Toronto, York, McMaster, Toronto Metropolitan, Western, Waterloo and Guelph: 59,218 to 40,461), Medium (Queen's, Ottawa U, Wilfrid Laurier, Carleton, Brock, Trent, Ontario Tech, and Windsor: 37,638 to 10,665) and Small (Lakehead, Laurentian, Nipissing, OCAD, Algoma and Universite de l'Ont Francais: 3573 to 22).  Yes, 22 for Universite de l'Ontario Francais which because it had only 14 applicants last year it registers the largest percent increase in 101s of all Ontario universities at 57 percent making it such an obvious outlier that it is omitted from Figure 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4 plots the universities ranked by the percent increase in preliminary 101 applications in 2023.  Some of the largest increases are for smaller universities.  Of the top 10, only two are in the large university category – Guelph and York – while four are in the medium category – Windsor, Ontario Tech, Wilfrid Laurier and Brock - and the other four are all smaller institution – Nipissing, Laurentian, Lakehead and Algoma. Coincidentally, all four of these are in northern Ontario.  Figure 5 plots the percent increase in 101s applying in 2023 against the number of applications in 2022 for these institutions and there is a definite correlation between size and growth.  Smaller places in terms of previous application numbers on average seem to be seeing higher growth in applications this year.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, to keep things in perspective, this does not mean that University of Toronto or McMaster are going to have trouble filling their first-year classes this year.  The main competition is still between the bigger places. They have way more applications than they need to fill their spaces making them still the overwhelming choice for most.  The seven largest universities ranked by applications accounted for about 64 percent of applications.  The eight medium sized places accounted for 34 percent and the remaining small universities accounted for just over 2 percent.  The small furry mammals are hardly a threat to the larger denizens of Ontario’s university system.  Still, the fact that their application numbers are up suggests that some students may be becoming more open to venturing outside their home communities which are invariably close to the GTA.  As well, students in these communities with smaller universities may be deciding not to go to school in higher cost centers. The cost of living in the GTA for students away from home is undoubtedly a factor in these inflationary times and so we may be seeing the smaller more out of the way places improving their enrollment at least at the margin.  This should hopefully spill over into budgetary positions given that Ontario universities have faced freezes in both their tuition and government grant revenues.

 

Municipal Property Taxes and Water Rates in Ontario: A Comparison

 

As we continue to journey through  the 2023 municipal budget year, it is time to update some of the property tax and water rate comparisons I have done over a number of years.  This time, I would like to do the comparison for the top 30 municipalities in Ontario by population which essentially amounts to all the cities with over 100,000 people with the exception of Niagara Fall which is almost there at 96,000.  These cities together account for 75 percent of Ontario’s population.  The data for comparison is from the 2021 BMA Municipal report and two indicators are compared: 1) Annual property taxes for a detached bungalow and 2) Annual residential and Wastewater Costs per 200 cubic meters.  While much of the focus in municipal budgets this year is on the rather large increases in the tax levy, it remains that water charges are also another hefty amount on top of property taxes. In all the figures, I also highlight the amounts for Thunder Bay and Sudbury, which are the two northern Ontario members of the top 30.

 

Figure 1 ranks these municipalities by the property taxes for a detached bungalow in 2021 and they range from highs of $6,643 and $6,500 for Markham and Richmond Hill to lows of $3,444 and $$3,262 for Windsor and Chatham-Kent with an average of $4,323 and a median of $4,049.  It should be noted that the top ten property tax amounts are all in the GTA where of course property values are also the highest.  Thunder Bay is essentially mid-ranked in this comparison with its property tax figure  of $3,955 below both the average and the median.  Greater Sudbury, is much lower than Thunder Bay and at $3,453 has the third lowest property taxes for an average detached bungalow in Ontario’s top 30 municipalities.

 

 

 

Figure 2 now does the ranking by  residential water and wastewater(sewer) costs per 200 cubic metres of water.  The top three are Greater Sudbury, Windsor and Thunder Bay at $1,409, $1,306 and $1,278 respectively.  At the bottom are Hamilton, Mississauga and Brampton with Hamilton at $781, and the last two tied at $590.  The average was $976 while the median was $929.  The two northern Ontario cities both are amongst the highest when it comes to water rates in the province.  One suspects that water rates for some of the cities at the bottom are likely to go up substantially in the near future given urban growth and other issues.  Hamilton for example, is likely facing some expensive issues with respect to its water infrastructure given recent developments with respect to sewer discharges. 

 

 

 

Of course, for the average municipal residential ratepayer, what really matters is the total package when it comes to property taxes and water charges  and this is provided in Figure 3 where the two items are summed up and ranked by municipality.  When the two totals are summed up they range from highs of $7,537 and $$7,478 for Markham and Richmond Hill to lows of $4,482 and $4,457 for Waterloo and Chatham-Kent.  The average is $5,299 and the median is $5,099.  At $5,233 Thunder Bay is slightly below average and slightly above the median for the totals of property tax and water rate.  However, it does have the 11^th highest total coming right after the ten GTA municipalities ahead of it and just before Hamilton.  With those types of numbers, when it comes to municipal finance, Thunder Bay is definitely GTA class in terms of property and taxes and water rates.  Greater Sudbury on the other hand is in the top of the bottom third with a total of $4,856.

 

 

 

The more interesting question is what the numbers will look like for 2022 once complete as well as where they are going to be headed in 2023.  Municipalities have been hit with escalating costs for labour, materials, supplies and energy as well and one can expect that there will be a lot of upward pressure to bring in property tax and water rate increases that reflect the inflation rate.  These increases will come at the same time as rising interests will put financial pressure on the mortgages of home owners and the pressure that inflation has been generating on family budgets.  Given that in Ontario, municipal elections in October have put in place a council for the next four years, one suspects that most councils will eventually  front end fairly large tax increases at the start of their terms and ease off midway through their terms in the run up to the next election.  Sad, but very likely to be the outcome in many cities across Ontario.  It will be the rare council with the foresight, fortitude and ability to rein in their costs sufficiently to prevent large tax increases this year.

 

Municipal Employment in Thunder Bay: An Analysis

 

The last post presented an overview of what for lack of a better term can best be described as higher tier municipal employment in northern Ontario – that is individuals in the five major municipalities of northern Ontario who earned $100,000 or more in annual salary (let's call them Listers) thus placing them on the public sector salary disclosure list.  What was interesting in the overview was that Thunder Bay in 2021 had the most municipal Listers at 547 followed by Sudbury at 540, then the Sault at 246, North Bay at 187 and finally Timmins at 142.  This ranking roughly parallels population size with the exception that based on population, one would expect Sudbury to exceed Thunder Bay.  The per capita cost of municipal employees on the public sector salary disclosure list was also the highest in Thunder Bay of the five cities.  As a result, a more detailed look at trends for Thunder Bay is of interest.

 

Figure 1 plots the number of Thunder Bay  municipal employees earning $100,000 or more over the period 2017 to 2021 and shows that the number was relatively stable over the 2017 to 2019 period but took a large leap in 2020 (to 558 from 452) and has remained at approximately the same level (at 547 in 2021).  The percentage increase in the number of employees over $100,000 in 2020 was approximately 24 percent and at the time was attributed to a large number of employees in protective and emergency services who had been just under the threshold for a number of years going over.  However, this is only part of the story as the increase in the total wage and salary bill of municipal Listers (see Figure 2)  in Thunder Bay from 2019 to 2020 was nearly 30 percent.   That is the salary bill for those on the list  increased more than the number of employees on the list  suggesting compensation increases drove a portion of the increase.  And indeed, compensation particularly of higher tier administration and management was an issue last year with some increases approaching 12 percent.  This could be seen as particularly annoying by others in the broader public sector - particularly  front line workers in health and education - who were limited to one percent annually by Bill 124 while the municipalities were exempt.

 

 

 

 

Depending on what you think is the total municipal employment of the City of Thunder Bay, those making over the list probably make up anywhere from one-fifth to one-third of the City’s municipal employment though given the absence of readily accessible municipal employment numbers, these are estimates at best.  One thing that does not need to be estimated however is the ratio of the total wage and salary bill of Thunder Bay municipal employees earning $100,000 plus to the total value of the tax levy as illustrated in Figure 3.  Between 2017 and 2019, this share averaged 27 percent but in 2020 it took a leap to 36 percent  and then declined to about 34 percent in 2021.  In any event, one could make the case that the value of the wage and salary bill accounted for by those Thunder Bay municipal employees earning $100,000 plus represents over one third of the tax levy.  

 

 

 

Figures 4 and 5 round out the analysis by presenting first the average salary of Thunder Bay municipal employees on the List and then the per capita cost of these employees.  Again, 2020 – the pandemic year – is the crucial point in time.  In 2020, the average salary per List member rose just over  5 percent  - going from $121,002 to $127,091.  Meanwhile, the per capita cost of those on the municipal salary list rose from $494 to $640 – an increase of nearly 30 percent.  Between 2019 and 2020, the number of municipal Listers grew from 452 to 558 (24 percent) while their salary bill went from $54.7 million to  $70.9 million (30 percent increase).  Thus the average salary rose by about the difference.  However,  when you spread that salary bill across the entire population of the municipality you get a somewhat different result - salaries rose 30 percent but population growth was flat. 

 

The List get a lot of attention every year.  While accountability is important, it remains that the real accountability measure is not how much is being paid out but the value received for that money as well as its sustainability over the longer term.  It is not that people on the list are making too much given what they may or may not do or that their salaries rose too much or even that there are a lot more of them.  In the end, you do get what you pay for even in the public sector.  The real issue is that the cost of services has grown dramatically but the tax base and population of Thunder Bay have not.  Thunder Bay’s official population has stayed flat at about 110,000 people over the period 2017 to 2021, the value of the tax levy grew from $184 million to $204 million – an increase of 11 percent  but the wage and salary bill of its municipal list employees has grown from $50.1 to $69.6 million dollars – an increase of nearly 40 percent.  

 

No one is saying that those employees are not worth what they are being paid or are not deserving of their pay especially given the travails of the pandemic.  However, ultimately  the money does have to come from somewhere and to date the solution has simply been to pass the bill onto municipal ratepayers - something that was aided by the Ontario government under the provisions of Bill 124 which exempted municipalities because they had "own source revenues" - that is a municipal tax base.  It would appear a number of fiscal and budgetary chickens are coming home to roost.