City Council Round Up: Why last night’s police budget debate should concern every Thunder Bay resident
Last night’s City Council meeting was different for me. So today, the round up had no script. That almost never happens, but I tuned in partway through what had already been nearly three hours of budget deliberations, and what I saw and heard didn’t need polishing — it needed to be called out.
Here’s the reality. City administration did exactly what council asked them to do. They delivered a proposed operating budget that came in at a 2.6 per cent increase. Council approved that. Job done. Where the budget changed was when outside boards and agencies — which the city is legally required to fund — submitted their budgets. The biggest driver of the increase from 2.6 to about four per cent was the Thunder Bay Police Service.
The police service requested a 9.1 per cent increase to an operational budget of roughly $64 million. That number did not come out of thin air. It reflects higher call volumes, more high-priority calls, longer response times, staffing shortages, retirements and the basic reality that policing today costs more than it did five years ago — just like groceries, utilities and everything else.
This was not discretionary spending. This was not about fancy equipment. This was about people — boots on the ground, officers and civilian staff needed to keep up with the workload and maintain public safety in a city that has been very vocal about wanting safer streets.
So here’s the simple question I asked on air: if your taxes go up $20, $30, maybe $40 a year to improve safety in this city, are you OK with that?
Based on the flood of texts that came in, most people said yes — absolutely yes.
What troubled me was how some councillors treated the police service and the chief during the debate. There were repeated challenges to staffing levels, overtime and spending decisions from people who have never worn the uniform, never responded to a violent call, never processed a case file and never dealt with the realities officers face every day.
At one point, councillors were questioning whether administrative staff were even necessary. That tells me there is a serious lack of understanding about how policing actually works and what it takes to move cases through the court system. The backlog is real. The paperwork is real. The workload is real.
What also bothered me was how far off track the debate went. Instead of focusing on municipal responsibilities, the conversation drifted into complaints about the justice system, something city council has absolutely no control over. That kind of grandstanding does not improve public safety and does not solve budget pressures. It just wastes time and muddies the issue.
The most important moment of the night came when an amendment was put forward to reject the police budget request and send it back for further cuts. After another long round of debate, the vote ended in a six-six tie. In council procedure, a tie means the motion fails, so the amendment was defeated and the police budget did not go back for revision.
But here’s the part people need to pay attention to: six councillors voted to tell the police service and their board to go back and “do better,” despite being told clearly what the staffing pressures are and what the community has been demanding when it comes to safety.
Watch who voted that way. Watch how they spoke. Watch how they behaved when the vote did not go their way.
And that brings me to the most important point of all.
This is an election year.
Not just any election year, but one where the next mayor will hold strong-mayor powers, including the ability to shape budgets and even remove the city manager. That is an enormous amount of authority in one office.
If the attitudes and behaviour on display last night belong to people who may be seeking that role, then residents should be paying very close attention.
Thunder Bay is at a critical point. We are talking about housing growth, economic development, major infrastructure decisions and public safety all at the same time. The next council — and especially the next mayor — will either help move this city forward or stall it badly.
So my message is simple: if you care about safety, if you care about growth and if you care about how your tax dollars are spent, you need to start paying attention now — not in October, but today.
Watch the meetings. Watch the last 45 minutes of last night’s debate. Listen to how councillors talk to each other, to staff and to the people who actually deliver frontline services in this city.
Because there is a very real chance that the people you saw last night could soon be running the city — and that should matter to every single voter in Thunder Bay.
Incase you missed it, here’s today’s round up with listeners joining the conversation via text. If you are concerned about what happens this year, during the election year, you should be. We all need to be informed, and make our own decisions on what we want for our city and our future.
