Police chief concerned with OSPCA changes
By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express
With the OSPCA soon relinquishing its power to enforce animal cruelty laws, Durham Police Chief Paul Martin has expressed some concern of the impact on police workload.
In January, Ontario Superior Court Justice Tim Minnema ruled some powers given to the OSPCA (Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) by the province are unconstitutional.
The OSPCA Act, which was first brought into law in 1919, gave the organization the authority to enforce provincial and federal animal cruelty laws.
However, that will soon not be the case, as the organization will hand those responsibilities fully over to police services on June 28, 2019.
Speaking at the most recent Durham Regional Police Service board meeting, Martin said he is concerned about the additional workload this will cause and the stress it will put on the police.
“We responded to 270 of those calls last year, about 10 per cent of those we either were referred to or we were involved with the OSPCA, in addition to that my understanding is the OSPCA did about another 400 calls – how much of that is overlap I don’t know – but we conservatively estimated it would increase our calls for service by at least 350,” said Martin.
He also noted depending on the complexity of any potential investigations, it would have a toll on the DRPS’ resources.
“We had the Ministry of Natural Resources say ‘Well, you know what, we’re not going to come to bear calls anymore, it’s over to you police,’ and that’s an issue. So as one of our former senior leaders used to say, ‘It’s not necessarily the one single event that’s going to cause the problem for the police service, but it’s the death by 1,000 cuts,’ and that is that these services walk away from things and say we’re going to take it over,” he said.
Martin also expressed his worries on the additional workload of enforcing bylaws surrounding the use of recreational cannabis.
“There are limits, and I just draw this as a cautionary note as one more thing where they think that we just have inexhaustible resources to deal with…,” he said.