TORONTO - A police crackdown on illegal guns and gang activity in Toronto has sent criminals across Ontario seeking safer places to do their illegal business, Thunder Bay's police chief said Thursday.
The Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy, or TAVIS, was expanded to about 17 police forces from Amherstberg to Waterloo after criminal gangs spread from their Toronto base, said Robert Herman, who is also president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.
"What happened during the successful project in Toronto, it was like a balloon -- as you're pressing it just starts to spread out," he said.
"We saw the activities of these gangs actually spread throughout the province of Ontario, as far north as Thunder Bay. I had people who were identified as Toronto gang members in my community, and we're talking about 1,000 miles away."
Herman commented after joining the other chiefs to hear the provincial government pledge another $15 million over the next two years to support the crackdown on guns and gangs.
About $1 million will go to municipal and First Nations police forces not currently involved in the provincial strategy.
The provincial plan was modelled on the Toronto gang strategy, and has led to more than 1,100 arrests and 2,000 criminal charges in three years, while 200 illegal guns were taken off the streets.
The drug-fuelled gang activities are taking place in communities large and small in Ontario, warned Herman.
"There's huge issues involving drug abuse, Oxycontin, all sorts of narcotics that are a plague and a problem throughout the province," he said.
"There's a lot of money involved, criminal organizations -- gangs -- involved with it, and they resort to whatever means necessary to do business."
The New Democrats welcomed the extra funding to target guns and gangs, but predicted the result would be a clogged court system that can't deal with all the extra accused.
"Once the arrests are made, and this is what really ticks off cops across the province, the court system simply collapses under the weight of that new influx of persons arrested," said NDP justice critic Peter Kormos.
"Charges get withdrawn, plea bargaining at the most ridiculous level ensues and chaos erupts in our courtrooms."
However, Attorney General Chris Bentley said Crowns and the police now do a much better job of co-ordinating their efforts to reduce court backlogs, and insisted the government would find the resources needed to prosecute more accused criminals.
"The very important characteristic of TAVIS is to continue to integrate, co-ordinate, co-operate and I actually think that's helping to reduce the pressure" on the courts, said Bentley.
"If safer communities means more arrests of people who are endangering our communities, absolutely what has to be done (is) we'll find the resources to prosecute. We're not telling anyone to slow down; in fact put the foot on the accelerator."
The Progressive Conservatives called the Liberal government "irresponsible" for providing only two more years of funding for the guns and gangs units instead of making the program permanent.
Public Safety Minister Jim Bradley said the program was so successful, he was confident it would continue to be funded beyond the two-year funding time frame announced Thursday.
