Toronto police preparing for three in 10 officers to be sick at once with COVID-19

The Toronto Police Service is preparing for a worst-case scenario that would keep as many as three in ten officers at home sick or self-isolating thanks to a surge of a COVID-19 variant, the force’s chief told CTV News Toronto in a wide-ranging year-end interview Friday.

The news comes as several officers from 51 division are isolating and awaiting COVID-19 test results — a scenario that could be repeated throughout the city, according to Chief James Ramer.

“It’s happening as we speak, a whole bunch of people who are being tested,” Ramer said Friday. "We’re having to prepare for 10, 20, 30 per cent of our people sick at one time. That’s something we haven’t experienced in the pandemic,” he said.

The still-evolving plan is to adapt to shortages, by putting people in headquarters or in plainclothes in uniform, Ramer said. Thirty per cent of the force’s more than 5,500 officers is more than 1,800 people who the force is preparing to be affected at any one time.

The knowledge the TPS has acquired after almost two years of a pandemic will help prepare the force to face the surge, likely caused by the Omicron variant spreading rapidly in the winter, with many staying indoors where the disease can spread more quickly.

But there are about 160 officers who are on unpaid leave thanks to their vaccination status — one headwind that makes managing the coming wave more difficult — and he said that drops in the crime rate that accompanied earlier waves may not materialize this time around.

COVID-19 has been a major focus since Ramer was installed as interim chief in 2020, but he also has other priorities.

Among them: reform missing persons investigations and implement the recommendations of Judge Gloria Epstein after she reviewed the failings of the investigation into serial killer Bruce McArthur. He is also shepherding a transformation of the city’s mental health call response, and he’s pushing for a new approach to a toxic drug crisis that’s killed more than 1400 Ontarians this year alone. It’s a fight, he said, that’s now personal.

“I’ve had a very good friend who lost someone as a result of an opioid overdose. That’s the reality of what we’re confronted with. In many cases we’re all going to be touched by it because it’s such a significant issue,” he said. “It’s given me a commitment to see that we advance this issue.”

Ramer said he supported the City of Toronto’s request of the federal government to grant an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that would decriminalize possession of hard drugs for personal use.

“It’s about safe supply. It’s about wraparound services. That’s what we’re advocating for. If we don’t achieve that we’re going to continue to have this problem,” he said.

Ramer said safe supply of drugs is one way to make sure his officers attend fewer drug deaths, including the one that killed 14-year-old Kaylee Gillard in November.

In that case, it’s not clear how Gillard made it from her home in Etobicoke to a Toronto Public Housing Facility, where she was found dead in the shared kitchen just after noon on a Sunday in November. 

Ramer said his force has investigated and laid three manslaughter charges this year in situations where it appeared the victim had been exposed through negligence of another person.

“We demonstrated they were supplying the drug,” he said — but warned that such cases are difficult to prosecute.

Another priority, he said, was that he wants to improve case management and strengthen relationships with the community to combat shootings and increase trust with the public. The force is increasing its contingent of people tackling hate crimes, which have been on the increase, he said.