Mayor John Tory defends new spending on police, 10-cent TTC fare hike on Metro Morning

Toronto Mayor John Tory defended his plan to spend nearly $50 million more on the police budget this year on CBC Radio's Metro Morning Friday, saying he "campaigned openly" on a pitch to focus on improving safety in the city.

Tory said he has heard from residents that they want more police officers in their communities. Some critics of the move, like former Toronto Police Services Board chair Alok Mukherjee, have said there is little evidence that bigger police budgets mean more safety.

Tory pushed back on the notion that the city should rely on academic studies when allocating money for police spending.

"The best study I participated in lately was an election," Tory said, noting he won a strong mandate in the October 2022 municipal vote.

"I have the evidence of people telling me" they want a larger police presence in the city, he added. "I'm not going to sit here and apologize," he continued, saying there will be a debate about the budget in council.

Tory, along with his budget chief and close council ally Gary Crawford, is scheduled to release his proposed spending plan next Tuesday, when the budget committee has its first meeting of the year.

But the mayor has already been busy this week making announcements about some of his top line priorities for the budget, already drawing criticism from some councillors and advocacy groups.

On Tuesday, Tory said he wants to increase funding for the Toronto Police Service by $48.3 million, pushing the force's total annual budget to more than $1.1 billion.

A majority of the money would be used to hire hundreds more officers and improve 911 call service and response times, he said, while roughly 38 per cent — or about $18 million — will go to scheduled pay raises for police under existing collective agreements.

Councillors opposed to the funding boost for police say the money would be better spent on social programs and services geared toward preventing crime.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Tory announced that TTC fares would increase by 10 cents per ride and that the city would also invest $53 million in additional money, with some of that directed at improving safety on the network.

Tory told Metro Morning guest host Jason D'Souza that dramatic increases in costs paired with sagging ridership from the pandemic mean a fare increase was unavoidable.

"I'm not sure we have a choice, to be honest," Tory said, noting that inflation has put severe financial pressures on the transit agency.

He said that the planned fare increase comes after two years of freezes. Averaged over the that three-year period, it represents about a one per cent increase annually.