OPPAA
screengrab from the Ontario Provincial Police Association attack ad
against Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak.
John Ivison | June 2, 2014
Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer my coffee black and my elections free from interference by the police and the military.
The Ontario Provincial Police Association’s decision to launch attack ads
against Tim Hudak has to make even partisan Liberals squeamish.
The two 15-second spots feature a uniformed OPP officer emerging from a cruiser
over the words: “We’re here for you. Who’s Hudak here for?”
The Ontario Provincial Police Association’s decision to launch attack ads
against Tim Hudak has to make even partisan Liberals squeamish.
The two 15-second spots feature a uniformed OPP officer emerging from a cruiser
over the words: “We’re here for you. Who’s Hudak here for?”
The association press release says it’s the first time in its history that it has involved itself in partisan politics. The reason Mr. Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives are getting the nightstick is that his call to hold the line on public-sector pay increases is a “direct assault on the collective agreements of police associations.” The cops don’t like the Conservatives’ position on arbitration, public-sector pensions or further wage freezes.
“Let me be clear,” says the release issued in the name of chief executive Jim Christie, “these ads do not serve as an endorsement for the Liberals or NDP. … We just don’t want this Conservative as premier.”
It’s unlikely Mr. Christie’s chief administrative officer, Karl Walsh, agrees with such an ecumenical approach — he was the Liberal candidate in the Barrie riding in the last provincial election.
But let’s take Mr. Christie at his word — that he’s agnostic on whether Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals or Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats win the election. Either one is likely to honour a contract that will see the OPP get a raise of at least 8.5% this year.
The provincial force received a 5% increase in 2011 and then saw its pay frozen for two years. However, its contract states it must be the highest-paid force in the province, which will mean a hefty increase this year to top the Toronto Police Association’s latest raise.
In order to realize this bonanza, the association has to ensure Mr. Hudak goes down in flames. The same imperative is driving partisan spending by every other public-service union in the province.
Ontario has no limits on third-party advertising and the teachers, nurses and police unions are capitalizing to ensure their narrow, sectional, selfish interests triumph over the broader public interest. The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario spent $2.6-million in the 2011 election, either directly or through the Working Families Coalition.
Spending by third parties often dwarfs that of the official parties. In the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection in 2012, the teachers’ unions spent $1.5-million on anti-Hudak ads, compared with $370,00 by the Liberals and PCs combined.
Does anyone really think this support comes free? Public policy in Ontario has been made in the image of the unions, as a reward for the help they have given the Liberals in successive elections. Spending by third parties has tripled between 2007 and 2011, making the Grits ever more indebted to their paymasters.
The growth in third-party spending has troubled Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer, Greg Essensa. It may be that the ill-advised intervention of the police association provokes some kind of backlash by the slumbering voters of a province where it seems a government can wrack up billions of dollars in misspending without paying any political price.
By my reading the police association ads are not even legal, contravening the Police Service Act and the Public Service of Ontario Act. Police officers, even those seconded to unions, are not meant to express views supporting or opposing candidates or the positions they take. They are certainly not meant to engage in political activity while wearing a uniform or when using government equipment like a cruiser.
If it’s not illegal to intervene in the provincial election — and it should be — it is at least unprofessional. It does the men and women in uniform — some of whom presumably support the Progressive Conservative party and have paid for these ads with their union dues — a grave disservice.
Does anyone really think this support comes free?
The OPP is currently investigating at least two cases in which the Liberals are, shall we say, compromised: the Ornge air ambulance and gas plant investigations. Clearly the prospect of its members being caught in a flagrant conflict of interest did not give the police association pause for thought.
It should have done. When it was suggested in 2010 that the Toronto Police Association might endorse mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone, he urged the TPA to reconsider.
“An official endorsement could interfere with the necessity for the police service and association to not just be neutral but to be seen as neutral by the public.”
Ms. Horwath and, especially, Ms. Wynne should follow Mr. Pantalone’s gracious lead. They should step forward and say that the operation of a healthy democracy requires the OPP to stay out of the province’s electoral politics.
National Post
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
The fact that cops have the audacity to make a political comment, shows that as a group, they are corrupt and lack the ethics to be entrusted with any task that requires objectivity.