BARRIO – Mayor John Tory is proposing a $48.3-million budget increase for the Toronto Police Service.
“One of our principal responsibilities is to keep our community safe and to keep Torontonians safe. This will show itself in a proposed 4.3 per cent increase in the police budget,” Tory said at a news conference Tuesday announcing the investment.
The proposed funding would bring the service’s 2023 budget to approximately $1.166 billion. In 2022, the police budget was roughly $1.118 billion and in 2021 it was roughly $1.076 billion.
If approved, the investment would see 200 more officers join the force.
At least 162 of those officers would be deployed to what the city described as “priority response units,” 25 of which would be based downtown. Another 22 officers would work in major case management, and 16 officers would be assigned to neighbourhood community policing.
Tory said that Torontonians have become “extremely anxious” about acts of violence in the city and across the GTA seen in recent weeks and months.
“We must do everything we can to address crime and to keep people safe and have them feel safe in our city,” he said.
Tory went on to say that the public has become specifically anxious riding the TTC given the number of random violent attacks that took place on the network in 2022 and said he will have “more to say” on that front in the coming days.
At the Toronto Police Service’s (TPS) Chief Change of Command ceremony on Dec. 19, Tory had said he was committed to increasing the force’s budget “responsibly” in the New Year.
Tory said that the proposed Toronto Police Service budget will include an additional $2 million for youth and families, allocated to anti-violence programming to address the roots of violence and build on existing programming to support youth supports including employment.
