Toronto mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat says she wants to focus on neighbourhood-centred policing and improve 911 wait times while taking aim at Mayor John Tory and a local police hiring freeze.
“People need to know that their basic services are available to them,” Keesmaat said on Monday while unveiling the community safety elements of her election platform.
“It absolutely was a mistake that Mr. Tory made to put a hiring freeze in place without having any kind of plan or strategy. Now he’s rushing to announce that he’s hiring new officers. That kind of a yo-yo approach doesn’t create for a healthy city or stable, safe neighbourhoods.”
Keesmaat said her platform focuses on crime prevention through jobs for youth, expanding neighbourhood-based policing programs to all of Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods within four years, and increasing the use of mobile mental-health crisis intervention teams. Keesmaat also said she supports a ban on handgun and ammunition sales, something Tory and a majority of city councillors called on the federal government to implement locally back in July.
Also included in her platform is beefing up Toronto’s 911 communications centre in an effort to improve response times. Keesmaat pointed to a “traumatic experience” she and her family experienced after someone broke into her home.
“I don’t know how long I waited on hold, but what I do know is that when I went on hold, I handed the phone to my young son who was with me so he was on hold,” she told Global News.
“And by the time that there was an operator on the phone, we had come face to face with a robber in our house, and so that was a critical period.”
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Keesmaat said she wants to ensure the Toronto police communications centre can meet the National Emergency Number Association’s standards, which states calls should be answered within 10 seconds at least 90 per cent of the time.
The commitment comes days after residents on an east-end Toronto street were left shaken after a shooting occurred in their quiet neighbourhood. Just before 11 p.m. on Friday, shots were fired on Alder Road, north of Woodbine Avenue and O’Connor Drive.
“I heard seven pops followed by two pops. I immediately went to the window and saw people running. There was confusion,” Dianne LeBreton, a local resident, told Global News.
Police arrived in less than 10 minutes. Officers say a silver sedan was seen speeding away from the area. A person was shot in the hand and taken to hospital. Suspects haven’t been apprehended in connection with the incident.
Neighbours expressed concern to Global News about how long it took to get through to 911 in the first place. Several neighbours said they called 911 as soon as they heard the shots. But in each case, they were put on hold. One of the people said they waited upward of four minutes, while they say the shooter was still on the front lawn.
“We were on hold for what seemed like an eternity. We were hiding away from the windows out of fear for what we didn’t know was about to unfold and, frankly, it was scary,” LeBreton said.
Toronto police were unavailable for comment on the issue over the weekend.
Global News first reported on lengthy 911 wait times in 2017. During a shooting at North York Sheridan Mall in August that left a man dead, a source inside the centre shared internal call volume data from the late afternoon on Aug. 31 with Global News.
It showed there were seven dispatchers on duty. At 5:22 p.m., there were 31 calls to 911, with a wait time of one minute and nine seconds. At the time of the shooting four minutes later, the callers jumped to 86 with a wait time of five minutes and 27 seconds. At 5:30 p.m., there were 56 people trying to get a hold of 911 with a wait time of seven minutes and 17 seconds.
Shawna Coxon, who was appointed deputy chief of the Toronto Police Service in 2017, was asked to lead a review of the 911 centre by Chief Mark Saunders. The review confirmed there was a shortage in required personnel and it found call takers were being swamped with non-emergency calls.
In April, the Toronto Police Services Board approved increasing the total complement of communications operators by 50 positions to 281, as well as adding three new supervisors and implementing, on a permanent basis and implementing a revised shift schedule to tackle staffing shortages and to cut wait times.
“It is a constant challenge. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we talk about it, our calls for service coming into communications services are up 8.5 per cent this year,” Coxon told Global News earlier this year.
“So at a time when we’re talking about calling 211 for social services or 311 for bylaw services, people seem to be calling us more. We’re not sure why that is.
The Toronto Police Association (TPA) launched an ad earlier this year targeting Mayor John Tory, TPSB chair Andy Pringle and Chief Mark Saunders, saying they’re to blame for a “crisis” in staffing and response times. The TPA said at the time, the service hasn’t adequately provided the appropriate level of staffing as officials work on implementing a large police modernization initiative.
When asked about Keesmaat’s proposals on Monday, a campaign spokesperson for Tory said they are “glad” Keesmaat is supporting modernization initiatives endorsed by the mayor.
“To keep Toronto safe, the city needs a strong, experienced leader who has shown they can work with the police and the other governments to get things done,” Keerthana Kamalavasan told Global News in a written statement.
“That’s what Mayor Tory has proven over the last four years. What we don’t need is more empty talk and second-guessing.”
— With files from Katherine Ward
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