I'll believe police are accountable when I see it

Ontario has let this rot fester through root and stem.

At the 2025 Toronto Pride Parade last June, Toronto Police supervise parade marchers from their squad cars. Older TTC buses have been repurposed as “Events Support”, serving to block off the intersection and prevent ramming attacks like the 2018 incident in Toronto and the 2025 incident in Vancouver. | Copyright © Jake Landau, all rights reserved.

In the past, I’ve faced some criticism for referring to police officers colloquially as “pigs”. These critics, understandably, want a society with some form of ethical, even-handed law enforcement, and I would assure them that by no means am I an anarchist! I fully comprehend the necessity of maintaining public order.

The conflict between our perspectives is that they perceive police to be that idealized form of fair and just law enforcement, while I have always been extremely skeptical of the way in which police misconduct is covered up by the thin blue line. Ever since I was ten years old, and I saw Toronto Police commit acts of brutality en masse at the G20 protests under Harper’s Conservative government, I was disgusted.

But rather than be held responsible, Bill Blair was rewarded, becoming a Liberal MP in 2015 and then a senior cabinet minister just a few short years later. Now, he’s set to become the new High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, a plump sinecure position that will place him in supreme comfort for his golden years.

And but merely a few weeks ago, a black defence lawyer says she was brutally assaulted by Durham Regional Police just ten minutes after the courthouse closed to the public, and issued a “trespassing ticket” despite remaining to complete work for her client, as other lawyers attested is regular and common practice at this courthouse after public closing.

Despite visceral photographic evidence of her injuries, showing streaks of blood across her face, the Special Investigations Unit, ostensibly the provincial body responsible for civilian oversight of police, stated they would not investigate, as her injuries were not “severe” enough, a ludicrous judgment considering the details of this accusation.

The reason for this becomes easier to understand when you learn that the SIU largely employs former police officers. The former director of the SIU himself has remarked on the blatant bias shown by the people who worked for him in favour of the police, and against complainants.

But the revelations this past week from Project South show that police aren’t just acting as violent thugs, but are also accused of significant material involvement in organized crime!

Seven active officers and one retired officer with the Toronto Police Service are facing criminal charges in relation to allegations that they engaged in numerous abuses of police resources, uncovered by the discovery of a conspiracy to murder a senior corrections officer at the Toronto South Detention Centre while he was off-duty at his Markham residence.

It is alleged that Toronto Police Constable Timothy Barnhardt, someone with 19 years of service with TPS, used a police database to gain the home address of the target, and then leaked it to an accused drug trafficker allegedly linked to several criminal networks.

Mr. Barnhardt has previously come before a police tribunal for discreditable conduct, pleading guilty in 2016 after issuing a ticket based on a lie to punish someone he was upset with. His punishment was minor, merely forfeiting 96 hours of pay, and continuing to serve for the next ten years up until being charged this week in Project South.

Additionally, Mr. Barnhardt is accused of attempting to traffic authentic Toronto Police Service uniforms to organized criminals, something that would allow them to impersonate real police officers. Of course, if the police are the ones giving the uniforms to organized crime, is there even a difference between the two?

Other officers are charged with accepting bribes to protect illegal cannabis dispensaries, or are accused of having participated in drug trafficking more directly. CAD$600,000 in cash and four illegal firearms were also uncovered by Project South. Overall, extensive criminal activity is alleged to have been performed by experienced police officers, using the resources available to cops in order to commit acts disruptive to good society.

Where is the justice? Where is the accountability? Show it to me, because I do not see it! All I see is a concerted effort by both Liberals and Conservative governments alike to reward and enable the cops who hurt our communities. This is why I call them pigs, because all of them drag each other into the mud and make themselves dirty!

Ontario’s Inspector General of Policing, Ryan Teschner, who formerly served as Executive Director for the TPS Board, claimed in the wake of Project South that his agency will be launching a province-wide investigation of all 45 police services and their boards, including Ontario Provincial Police, to be conducted by an external agent.

But do you really think that such an investigation will have any teeth? Do you think this will be any different from the SIU, where cops investigate cops, like a fox guarding the hen house? Protection of corrupt pigs from the law is woven into the very fabric of Ontario’s political system.

And indeed, the Toronto Police Association, which should be under the most intense scrutiny right now, is instead demanding that they be represented in the investigative team, complaining that the Inspector General’s review could “damage morale” of Toronto Police officers and that it would be “performative”, in TPA President Clayton Campbell’s own words on talk radio station NEWSTALK 1010.

Why would I think that anything is actually going to change? My entire life, this behaviour has been tolerated, if not abetted or outright rewarded! So, we can wax on about police accountability and reform all we like, but truthfully?

I’ll believe it when I see it.