A Closer Look at Our Provincial Priorities

By Michael Duffy

Our members have a crucial role in the success of our important work to make our association an effective advocate for Ontario police personnel, including setting our provincial priorities. This year, Lobby Day conversations centred around the mental health and well-being of our members. Here are our two key provincial priorities:

Priority A – A WSIB Framework that Understands Mental Health Injuries

Over the last several years, more and more attention has been paid to the psychological toll that police work takes on the individuals who choose to serve their communities.

With fewer police officers, dispatchers, and other police staff, our members have had to learn to do more with less. At the same time, Canada’s bail laws have loosened, resulting in a churn of habitual offenders cycling through the courts and Ontario’s communities and a resulting increase in workload for police. We know that these factors, as well as the significant traumas to which police workers are exposed, make police employees more likely to suffer from debilitating mental health injuries.

A few police employers have recognized the role that the workplace plays in mental health and have worked toward culture changes that allow members to more readily make use of the resources available to them. However, this is not the norm and too many police employers continue be an obstacle to good health and recovery.

Sadly, for those workers who reach the point where their diagnosable mental health issues require them to be absent or accommodated, we are finding that their experience with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WISB) tends to make problems worse. Significant policy and procedure changes are needed at the WSIB as well as within police workplaces to prioritize wellness and increase the chances of successful returns to work.

In addition to these policy changes, amending inadequate pieces of legislation will create a framework that more closely reflects the reality of these workplace injuries:

1 - Amend the Timeline for Mental Health Claims

First, the WorkplaceSafetyandInsuranceAct(WISA) requires that members claim within six months of diagnosis of a compensable illness. This does not reflect the reality of living with these injuries. A member may receive a diagnosis of PTSD or another occupational stress injury at some point in their career, but the injury may not impair their ability to work until far in the future. For members living with these injuries, there is a significant fear in filing an unnecessary claim for fear of stigma. The filing clock should not start running until their diagnosis impacts their ability to work.

2 - Amend Section 14 to Ensure Access to Benefits

Second, Section 14 of the WSIA outlines the right of first responders to a presumption of work-relatedness when diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Unfortunately, in assessing the claim, the WSIB does not presume that the member’s loss of earnings is due to absences caused by their PTSD.

The WSIB routinely denies claims for Loss of Earnings benefits because the members have failed to show that their absence results from compensable illness. This often occurs after the employer has suggested to the WSIB that the absence from work is due to reasons unrelated to the illness. This undermines the entire presumptive framework and leaves members lesslikely to recover, instead of more likely.

With the need for robust police services more vital than ever, changes to the WSIA can help Ontario’s communities. But any amendments will improve life for our members and the communities they serve onlyif they are combined with policy changes at the WSIB, and senior police leaders acknowledge how their policies and practices can negatively impact people’s lives.

Priority B – Inappropriate Ticketing of Officers on Duty

During a work shift, a standard police constable may find numerous instances where it becomes necessary to exceed the posted speed limit while performing their duties. In many cases, such excesses are accompanied by sirens and flashing lights to indicate to other road users that a police vehicle is engaged in work that requires other users to yield.

But, in other cases, an officer might briefly exceed the posted limit and refrain from the use of lights and sirens. For example, an officer needs to catch up to a road user driving suspiciously as an indicator to other road users that a police vehicle is engaged in work that requires other users to yield.

An officer might also briefly exceed the posted limit and refrain from the use of lights and sirens when, for example, they need to catch up to a road user driving suspiciously in order to read their license plate.

The HighwayTrafficAct recognizes these circumstances and provides that an officer in a police vehicle does not break the law when, in the legitimatecourseofduty, the posted speed limit is exceeded.

Ontario’s automated speed enforcement regime allows a provincial offences officer to issue a ticket whenever a vehicle is photographed, while radar technology measures its speed as above the posted limit. Currently, officers in the lawful execution of their duties are routinely issued such tickets.

This leaves the officer in the position of having to recall their duties at the time of the alleged offence. But there may be no record of the officer’s reason for exceeding the speed limit. In most cases, an officer is required to pay for the ticket and may face additional police discipline because of infraction.

This undermines the exemption in the HighwayTraffic Act. Instead of issuing the ticket and requiring the officer and/or police service to exercise their right to contest the ticket, the Act and/or Regulation should be amended to require the provincial offenses officer to presume that the exception for emergency vehicles applies and be prohibited from issuing the ticket.