Cops should be suspended without pay, says Fedeli

Mayor Vic Fedeli is calling for the Police Services Act to be overhauled in order to address several concerns including the issue of officers under suspension continuing to draw a paycheque.

Fedeli made the call in support of the same resolution passed during the annual general meeting of Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police in Waterloo in June.

“We’re very concerned, we had one officer here in the City of North Bay who for several years, while being charged and eventually convicted, was on the municipal payroll,” he states.

“And we received and awful lot of email at the city that said ‘how dare you continue to pay that officer,’ it was always unfortunate to have to respond that our hands are completely tied under the police act. We absolutely must continue to pay an officer even when they are charged, and so what we are asking, and supporting the police boards across Ontario, is to ask the province to allow us to be able to change that law so that we can suspend pay for officers who are charged.”

Police Chief Paul Cook says it is a real issue with officers being paid while not working and the case of former North Bay Police Constable Sean Burns is a prime example of the drain the current status has on the service. Burns was suspended with pay for four years before being handed a jail term for harassment and extortion charges.

“Believe it or not we’re not the worst scenario, we really aren’t, there’s others that have been on the payroll for much worse serious crimes and for longer durations,” states Cook.

“The Mayor spoke to this during the meeting; this is something that is difficult to explain to the community, that the act allows for people to continue to be paid despite the fact that they are not coming to work.”

Chief Paul Cook says it has been almost two decades since the act was last updated, and that opening the act up to changes is no easy feat as it would require a great deal of work. He explains that all issues from interest groups would have to be addressed at that time

“You’ve got all kinds of vary vocal minority groups that want changes to the act now whether that’s changes to the public complaints system for more civilian over sight or whether it’s the board’s ability to suspend without pay, the act has a multitude of different issues for different stake holders,” he says.

“So that’s the challenge for the government is if you’re going to start making amendments to one section, how do you then say to another group yah but we aren’t going to touch that section this year.”

Fedeli says that if the officer is found not guilty of the charges, at that time they would receive back pay for the time they were suspended.

Fedeli says he would also like to see the cost of tasers and court security addressed at the same time.