Defending the good guys:

Jim Christie, President
Ontario Provincial Police Association

“We are professionals doing the most difficult of jobs”

Some take the insults quietly, fuming inside. Others get pissed and speak out. And that’s exactly what Jim Christie, president of the Ontario Provincial Police Association did when a local reporter criticized a salary increase for his members despite the fact that they worked without a raise for two years. Here’s what he had to say, loud and clear:

I am writing to you in response to Chad Ingram’s article on the Ontario Provincial Police policing costs.
We did our part to control costs during the recent economic challenges, voluntarily taking zero per cent increases for two full years. No other police service in Ontario did that. OPP members will be receiving a raise of 8.55 percent. Policing costs have increased in recent years across all services and municipalities in Ontario, across Canada, and around the world. The same can be said for all other public and essential services. Police have been asked to do more, and that costs more. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement, our communities are safer than ever before.

Although Mr. Ingram is correct that the minimum education standard for Ontario police officers is currently a high school diploma or equivalent, the reality is that the vast majority of OPP recruits enter policing with college diplomas and university degrees.

The OPP’s most recent recruiting figures report that, 90 per cent of OPP officers began their policing career with post-secondary educational qualifications. With reagard to Mr. Ingram’s flippant commentary encouraging motorists stopped for a traffic offence to simply drive away, in the interest of public safety, we hope that he is not seriously counselling members of the public to disregard complying with OPP traffic stops and thereby putting themselves and others at risk.

Ingram’s assertion that my members are greedy is not only unfounded but also rude. We are professionals doing the most difficult of jobs, often in the most dangerous of circumstances. We do this, not for the money but to serve our communities. We are fairly compensated and I make no apologies for this.

Jim Christie, President
Ontario Provincial Police Association