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EDITORIAL: How certain are those savings?

November 15, 2019   ·   0 Comments

THERE NOW SEEMS TO BE little doubt that Orangeville Council will at least be thinking about voting to disband the Orangeville Police Service in favour of having the Ontario Provincial Police do the local policing.

In doing so, the councillors will be able to cite both a consultant’s report and one from CAO Ed Brennan, which have predicted enormous savings for town taxpayers.

They may be right about that, and then again they may be dead wrong. As we see it, everything depends on who ultimately calls the shots – not the OPP, but its masters, the Ontario government.

One thing we do know is that the $58 million in savings by 2036 are based on an assumption that the current and future Ontario governments will continue to encourage the disbanding of local police forces by heavily subsidizing urban policing by the OPP.

Something else that should be painfully obvious is that as creatures of the Province, Ontario municipalities really have no clout when it comes to dealing with changes in provincial policies.

And we also know that the Ford government is predicting a $9 billion deficit in its current fiscal year and promsing to eliminate annual deficits by the end of its current four-year term.

One of its options may just be to make all municipalities pay the full cost of local policing, be it by their own forces or the OPP. Food for thought. 

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