Our Vision

  • Funding and operational decisions support wellness and resilience.
  • Administrative/operational pressures have a reduced impact on the mental health of frontline members.
  • Resilience is strengthened through a more inclusive membership.

The high cost of operational vacancies

There is no shortage of evidence that operational staffing issues have an impact on member wellness. Across the province, the Panel heard about staffing shortages, long shifts, challenging shift cycles, and pressures related to working overtime hours. Members reported feelings of increased isolation as they frequently conducted calls alone, increased exhaustion as they attended a greater number of calls without a break, overtime hours, concerns about safety, and increased exposure to other work-related stressors.footnote 1

Many members also reported feelings of guilt – that they did not feel they could take time off or other steps to manage their own physical and psychological health challenges because it would leave their units understaffed and their colleagues more exposed. Members wait until their health situations are ‘desperate’ before seeking assistance, requiring greater interventions, more time off and causing more damage to the individual member and their colleagues.

“Every office is short staffed. Members are constantly being asked to do more with less. It’s burning people out; supervisors have a difficult time filling overtime and it’s a safety issue. Officers are responding while exhausted and often with back up far away.” OPP member

This vicious cycle of increased exposure due to staffing shortages leading to greater stress on those left to cover the shifts has been exacerbated by recent fiscal decisions that tolerate a greater reduction in frontline and other operational staffing numbers, meaning that positions vacated due to leaves are not all filled.

Obviously, there are consequences for individual members caught up in this staffing crunch. There are also systemic consequences to the financial and operational functioning of the OPP.

At the time of this Report, about 875 or 21% of frontline members were off on approved leave. This means more than one-fifth of the frontline staff is unavailable for work.

There is a high price tag to having over 20% of frontline officers unavailable for duty. Overtime is more costly than regular time, short-term absences such as sick leave are seldom backfilled, and any positions that are backfilled mean that the OPP is paying both for the officer who is off and the backfill. The cost of benefits and health care for mental health and stress issues is high and these issues have a high rate of recurrence.footnote 2

Applying a wellness lens

It is the Panel’s view that the Government and the OPP must adopt a policy with respect to fiscal and operational decisions that support the positive mental and physical health of frontline officers. A clear business case can be made for the connection between adequate staffing, a healthy workforce and a more efficient and fiscally effective organization.

There may be many elements to such a case. The Panel strongly recommends that this include revisions to the minimum acceptable staffing levels. In addition, the Panel frequently heard about the stress associated with calls piling up for frontline officers when the shift is short-staffed. In other words, while members are responding to one call, a second call is directed to them, rather than the use of a queuing system. This creates a great deal of pressure and stress on the officer to appropriately manage the first call and also respond to any emergencies related to the second call.

The business case must be premised on the concept that ongoing and consistent staffing below acceptable levels is harmful to the health and wellness of OPP members, is more expensive to Ontario taxpayers and potentially impacts the safety of the public. This is the application of a ‘wellness lens’.

Recommendation 14: The leadership priority on wellness must extend to budgetary and operational staffing decisions

  1. The Government, including the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Treasury Board Secretariat should apply a wellness lens to all budget decisions related to operational staffing in the OPP.
  2. The OPP should apply a wellness lens to all operational decisions related to staffing across the Province.
  3. The wellness lens should include the recognition that adequate staffing has long-term fiscal and functional benefits through the maintenance of a healthy and resilient workforce.

The challenges of resource constraints

Addressing the organizational pressures that contribute to work-related stress and enhancing the resilience of the workforce to manage the pressures is multi-faceted, going beyond funding commitments.

Along with low staffing levels, the Panel heard of other administrative/organizational resource pressures that increase stress for members, including the nature of the shift schedule, demands for overtime, isolation while on shifts and service calls stacking up.

In the Panel’s survey, 66% of responding members indicated that they experience the stress of staff shortages and resource pressures constantly or very often. That number increased to 72% for uniform members.footnote 3

Acknowledging the detrimental impact of these resource pressures on the resilience of the workforce is a critical first step. Implementing critical elements for success, including and beyond a funding commitment to staffing levels, is next.

The responsibility for reducing the burden experienced by members as a result of organizational and resource pressures rests broadly with a number of entities, including the Government through the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Treasury Board, the OPP leadership team, OPP management across the province, members who support one another and champion a healthy workforce, and the bargaining agents.

There are two important concepts that the Panel urges the parties to consider with respect to the implementation of staffing and scheduling policies that form part of the wellness lens:

  1. preserving time for rest and recovery
  2. reducing the isolation of members

Preserving time for rest and recovery

Members identified the challenges they experience with fatigue as a result of overtime, calls that stack up without a break, court appearances on scheduled days off and no automatic/presumptive rest after a critical incident.

While some of these challenges may be inevitable or unavoidable at times, the nature of the resource pressures appears to increase the occurrence of fatiguing conditions for frontline members.

Adequate rest and recovery are critical to overall mental health, resilience and the impact of traumatic or critical incidents.footnote 4 The Panel urges the OPP to preserve time for rest and recovery in scheduling and staffing decisions.

Reducing isolation

Addressing physical isolation

It is largely outside the Panel’s mandate to make specific recommendations with respect to staffing and scheduling. However, the Panel is of the view that a commitment to reducing the physical isolation of members would support increased member wellness and resilience.

We encourage the OPP to consider ensuring adequate operational members on each shift, ensuring that patrol areas are drawn in a way that reduces time spent without available back-up, and building in time at the beginning and end of shifts for group debriefs and discussions.

The Panel is of the view that there are some areas of the province where staffing levels have reached crisis proportions. In particular, the North is woefully understaffed and members serving in Northern detachments report conditions that are detrimental to their health and wellness.

In the Panel’s survey, members who work in the Northwest:

  • feel more anxious (41% compared to 36% in other regions)
  • feel more isolated (36% compared to 30% in other regions)
  • report missing more work as a result of work stressors (average of 14.3 days of work over the past year compared to 6-13 in other regions)footnote 5

The OPP struggles to recruit members from Northern and remote communities resulting in the use of ‘duration postings’ of members from other regions. This increases the isolation of those members and may also have a chilling effect on the OPP’s relationship with Northern communities. The Panel heard conflicting information about the educational and other requirements for recruitment to the OPP and conflicting information about the success rates of Northern recruitment efforts, including the perception that a university degree is required.

The challenges facing members working in Northern communities are compounded by isolation as a result of the remote nature of the communities and the distance between communities, and a lack of access to health and wellness support services.

While the Panel does not presume that these issues can be solved easily, the Panel urges an immediate and targeted approach to managing resource pressures in the North, including staffing increases, new approaches to recruiting from Northern communities and finding alternative ways to provide supports to members. It was clear to the Panel that there are excellent people available as potential recruits in the North. It is incumbent on the OPP to make every effort to recruit them.

The Panel notes that, while we have referred to the North as both an area requiring immediate attention and an illustration, there are other regions and specific units or detachments that are acutely impacted by staffing crises. These other high need areas should also be considered immediate priorities for the OPP.

Wellness and resilience require intentional inclusion

The role that diversity and inclusion play in the health of an organization should be viewed as an operational requirement, as opposed to a ‘project’ or a unit inside Human Resources. Diversity of membership adds valuable dimension to issues of mental and social wellness, a sense of community, leadership and important perspectives on conflict resolution and engagement with the public. Inclusion ensures that the gains of a diverse membership are meaningful to all members.

“[We n]eed to do more to promote [the] organization across the province, both urban vs rural but also to promote across a variety of cultures, backgrounds, races and faiths that live in Ontario.” OPP member

The OPP’s current approach to diversity and inclusion is inadequate. Membership in the OPP does not reflect the population of Ontario in terms of gender, ethnicity or identity. The Panel understands that a review of the OPP Inclusion Councils is underway.

Inside the OPP, there are limited supports or communities for members who do not resemble the majority. It is noteworthy that June 2019 was the first year that GHQ has flown the Pride Flag, having previously displayed the flag only in its lobby.

There are no networks for women, people of colour, Indigenous, LGBTQ2+ or other groups. There are strong communities inside the Ontario Public Service that are available to OPP members, such as the Black Ontario Public Service Employee Network (BOPsers), OPS Pride, FrancoGO and others but these networks are not police-specific and are largely administered out of Toronto.

The isolation that members from non-majority groups feel is compounded by the disparate geography of the OPP. Members may be the sole ‘different’ person in a detachment or on their shift. There are very few members of these groups in the management or leadership ranks.

It is incumbent on senior leadership in the OPP to acknowledge the current lack of diversity or meaningful inclusion in the OPP and to address the issue as an operational threat to resilience and wellness. Frequently, organizations and leaders, even after they have acknowledged the need for and value of inclusion, view it as a job for the people seeking it. In other words, women should band together to seek equity. This is wrong and it does not work. Instead, it pits groups against one another, the majority and the leadership, while perpetuating the difference in power dynamics.

The Commissioner and the leadership team should lead a collaborative campaign to increase the diversity in the OPP and strengthen meaningful inclusion. Meaningful inclusion requires commitment and action by the leadership.

Recommendation 15: Staffing and scheduling require a wellness lens and strategic approaches to ensuring the membership reflects and supports the population of Ontario

  1. The approach to scheduling should apply a wellness lens to recommendations, including:
    • reducing reliance on overtime
    • ensuring adequate time in shifts for debriefs (formal and informal) at the end of busy shifts
    • reducing the isolation of members while on shifts
    • introducing the potential for time off the day after a critical incident
    • introducing added shift flexibility to account for work and personal responsibilities, including court appearances
  2. In addition to the recommendations made in this Report, the OPP Suicide Review and the Mental Health Review with respect to increasing the wellness and resilience of members, the OPP should continue to work collaboratively with members and bargaining agents to find ways to increase the number of members available for operational positions, with attention to the most critical shortages.
  3. An urgent strategic approach to staffing shortages is required to support detachments in the North. This support should be comprised of:
    • targeted spending increases on staffing
    • an enhanced hiring campaign for potential new recruits in Northern and Indigenous communities
    • a strategic approach to deployment that supports mental wellness for members deployed in the North, including increasing access to support services and proactive member health check-ins
  4. Priority efforts should be directed at ensuring authentic inclusion in the OPP. Along with the findings from the review of the OPP Inclusion Councils, these efforts should include communications from all levels of leadership that diversity and inclusion lead to a healthy workplace, and creating empowered communities of members inside the service at a central, regional and local level.
  5. A more aggressive mandate to increase the inclusivity of the OPP is required to recruit members that more accurately reflect the diverse makeup of Ontario. Direct outreach to diverse and/or under-represented communities should be part of a larger recruitment campaign.

Footnotes