Organizational News

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Chief Demkiw:

Good afternoon, everyone.

Chair, I want to begin my remarks today with a heartfelt message of appreciation for our frontline members.

Every day, they make important arrests, they see things that are very difficult to see, and they run toward danger to help people.

Last month, we saw yet another example of this courage when our members worked with firefighters in 51 Division to evacuate a residential building with an apartment fire.

Some of these members were Neighbourhood Community Officers who interact with affected residents daily.

We have countless stories like these and, every time, our officers do everything they can to protect this city.

Today, I want to thank them, and I want to tell our members who have been injured in the line of duty recently that we all stand with them.

The safety and wellbeing of our members will always be my top priority.

Since we last met in January, it seems like the world has become even more uncertain than it was before.

What is not uncertain though is that the Toronto Police continues to be laser-focused on our mission.

Over the past two months:

We announced the largest seizure of cocaine in our Service’s history – drugs that were coming from Mexico through the United States.

We announced additional arrests and charges related to the brazen gunfight on Queen Street West this past November.

And we arrested a suspect in connection with a murder case dating back to 1998.

Over the past several months, we have also seen improvements regarding call response times.

We have achieved this through the continued strategic deployment of new recruits based on call demand, improved supervisory capacity, and active management of resources and priorities across the city.

Last year, at this time we had a Priority 1 average response of 19.6 minutes.

So far this year, we have improved average response time down to 12.6 minutes.

This decrease of 7 minutes represents a 35.1% improvement.

So far in 2025, we have seen decreases in Community Safety Indicators including robberies, auto thefts, break & enters, shootings, intimate partner violence, and hate crime.

Specifically, auto thefts have decreased by nearly 46% and there have been 21 fewer home invasions compared to the same time in 2024.

However, we remain vigilant as we see that carjackings are up for a total of 67 this year, compared to 57 at the same time last year.

On gun violence, I can report that shootings are down by 26% for a total of 17 which is 6 fewer than last year.

Firearm discharges are down 50% for a total of 28 which is 28 fewer than last year.

Persons killed by firearms are down 67% for a total of 2 which is 4 fewer than last year.

Shootings resulting in injuries are down 19% for a total of 17, which is 4 fewer than last year.

In terms of overall arrests, numbers have continued to rise.

In 2024, we made over 50,000 arrests.

And this year so far, we have made nearly 8,000 arrests, which is on par with 2024.

Most of these trends are encouraging, however the year is still young.

It is important to note that many factors including the weather could have had an impact. We remain committed to doing everything we can to see these trends moving in the right direction.

I will now pass it over to Deputy Chief Johnson.

Deputy Chief Robert Johnson:

Thank you, Chief.

Chair, in addition to what the Chief already mentioned, we continue to prevent, monitor and respond to hate crimes.

On this topic, the Service co-hosted the “Building a Case Against Hate” conference two weeks ago organized with the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

This conference brought together experts and members from law enforcement communities from across Canada.

These discussions help ensure we develop the most effective strategies to prevent and respond to hate crimes and other threats.

We highlighted some of our actions, including the two mandatory programs we introduced last year for our members: one on Judaism and the harmful impacts of Antisemitism, and one on the Foundations of Islam and the harmful impacts of Islamophobia.

These two training courses have been so well received by the policing community that the Canadian Police Knowledge Network will be delivering them nationally this spring to 176 police services across the country.

The program on the impacts of Antisemitism in particular is mentioned as a good practice example in the federal government’s Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

In his introduction, the Chief mentioned that we have seen a decrease in hate crimes.

Precisely, we have seen a gradual decrease in hate crimes in monthly reporting since August 2024, with the exception of the month of October.

And I can confirm that so far in 2025, there has been a 48% decrease in hate crime occurrences, and a 39% decrease in hate crime calls for service, compared to the same time last year.

While the number of hate crimes are decreasing, the number of occurrences reported to the Toronto Police remain significantly higher in comparison to pre-October 7, 2023.

As the Chief said, we have to remain vigilant. We will continue to analyze these trends and do everything we can to prevent and respond to hate crimes.

Since October 7, 2023, there has been a total of 2,172 protests and demonstrations in Toronto.

This number includes 473 protests and demonstrations related to Project Resolute specifically resulting in 94 arrests and 135 charges in total, which include hate crime related charges.

Thank you, I will now pass it over to Deputy Chief Pogue.

Deputy Chief Lauren Pogue: 

Thank you, Deputy Chief Johnson.

Chair, in January at our last meeting, we discussed the launch of the Downtown Community Outreach Response and Engagement Team pilot, or the Downtown CORE Team.

The Chief and I, and other senior officers, have personally spoken with members who are assigned to the team, and it is already bearing positive anecdotal evidence of success.

Yesterday, we released a video that shows what the CORE Team does, and we want to play it for you today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxURbzbn8oE

Chair, no one agency can do this work alone, and we are committed to working alongside our Partners at Toronto Public Health to decrease vulnerability and reduce emergency calls, while providing individuals with the support they need.

Thank you, I will now pass it over to CIO Stairs.

Chief Information Officer Colin Stairs:

Thank you for this video, Deputy Chief.

Chair, I know the Board has not heard from me in a while and we have accumulated a number of win stories that I am delighted to share.

First, the TPS Tracker.

As you know, Police investigators must keep Provincial Databases up to date to track violent criminals and serial offenders through the ViCLAS and Major Case Management systems.   

Because the Toronto Police has the highest volume of cases in Canada, we need a tool to keep track – which is the TPS Tracker.

To be as efficient as possible, we have upgraded the TPS Tracker significantly.

It just went live with a major overhaul of both technology and usability – the first in 25 years.

According to some of the investigators we spoke with, and posts on social media, the upgrade is very welcome.

The upgraded Tracker makes our investigator’s job easier and improves our compliance, ultimately supporting the investigation of the worst offenders.

Second, our Video Response pilot is underway.

We are piloting a new approach in 13 Division to get to more people faster and reduce travel through video-conferenced police interactions.

Once we smooth out the process and fix technical issues, we will be able to expand.  

Our goal with this, as always, is to improve service delivery.

Third, the Records Management Project.

We are replacing our largest software program – the Records Management System – and we have just passed a major milestone.

We are building the solution in stages, progressively covering more of the workflows of the organization. 

The consultation process right now is underlining how transformative this will be, particularly for the frontline.

It will bring digital notes, streamline the charge processing, and streamline interactions with the crown.

Our current timeline is for go-live in fall 2026.

And lastly, Next Generation 911.

NG911 is the switch to a digital network for our 911 communications operations. 

It will give us better tools to manage hangups and misdials andwill set up new capabilities like real-time transcription. 

The go-live date is for March 26th. There will then be a second cutover of our second site to complete the work. 

Ultimately, NG911 will enable text messaging and video calls – but that is still in the future.

That’s it for me.

Thank you, I will now pass it back over to the Chief.

Chief Myron Demkiw:

Thank you, CIO Stairs.

Chair, you joined us two weeks ago for the Graduation of Class 24-04 when we welcomed 91 new recruits to the Toronto Police Service.

We also celebrated 4 officers from the United Arab Emirates who were there as part of the IACP-UAE Ministry of Interior Officer Exchange Program.

As a part of this program, we had one of our members graduate earlier this month in the UAE.

This is the first time that the Toronto Police and the Ontario Police College have hosted international students during recruit training.

For the occasion, we were joined by dignitaries from the UAE Ministry of Interior.

As you know, international collaboration is something the Service is committed to.

In this spirit, we were pleased to inaugurate the new Toronto Training Centre and Office for the International Association of Chiefs of Police at the Toronto Police College.

The IACP will be using our College for their training programs and will be provided with access to some of our courses.

I was pleased to host the President of the IACP and other representatives for this event.

And it was also great to be joined by the Israel National Police Attaché for North America who was in Toronto for the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s conference that Deputy Chief Johnson mentioned moments ago.    

Chair, in closing, as we know, geopolitical events worldwide can impact our communities here at home.

Not surprising for a city as unique as ours with so many different languages being spoken. 

Recent global events have touched many communities including our Ukrainian community.

As you know, the City of Toronto signed a friendship agreement with Kyiv when Ukraine declared independence in 1991, so we have been sister cities since then.

Given recent geopolitical developments and our relationship with Ukraine, I wanted to share with you that a Toronto Police Service member recently in Kyiv is presenting our Military Wellness Veterans Program.

This program was developed by our Service to improve the well-being of veterans by providing law enforcement agencies with a better understanding of military culture, de-escalation training, and resources for support.

Our member is doing well, and we look forward to sharing more with the Board about this visit in the near future.

We will continue to support the Ukrainian community, and all communities.

Thank you.