‘Ludicrous’ 21.3% operating budget hike for Peel Police raises questions about worsening ability to solve crimes

Chief Nishan Duraiappah has requested one thing from the Peel Police Services Board over the last five years: more. 

More money, more officers and more equipment to get his organization “back to a breathing point” and ensure they can continue to keep residents safe in Brampton and Mississauga. 

The two municipalities continue to see their diverse populations grow, generating more calls for service and introducing complex criminal elements that have proven difficult for the local police force to infiltrate. 

Each year, the police board, a collection of elected officials and citizen appointees responsible for governing the force and keeping its budget in line with what taxpayers really need, has rubber-stamped the Chief’s request for more.

In just two years, once final approval for 2025 is granted by Peel Regional Council, the police operating budget will swell by more than 35 percent.

Evidence shows taxpayers are not getting much in return. 

When the Chief wanted, and got a 14 percent operating increase a year ago he said it was the “largest ask we have ever, ever made”. It didn’t take him long to ask for a much bigger one.

He wants more than 35 percent extra for operations in two years. At this rate the force will double its budget in less than six years. 

The extra tens of millions of dollars have not helped Peel police solve more crime. In fact, while each of the last five years has seen the force receive more funding and hire more officers, its ability to solve many types of crime has actually decreased. For experts, this is not surprising, as numerous studies in recent years have shown how there is no correlation between bloated police budgets—a Canada-wide issue (with Peel now the poster child)—and more officers actually resulting in less crime. 

Chief Duraiappah is back again and this year his request for more has reached a level never before seen in the region and hardly ever seen in any publicly funded institution. 

For 2025 the Chief claims his organization needs a 21.3 percent operating budget increase (the operating budget makes up the lion’s share of the overall budget). 

To put the magnitude of this request into context, it nearly matches the increase recorded during the entire decade between 2012 and 2022, which saw spending on police rise by 23.6 percent. 

The additional $131.7 million being requested will support the hiring of 300 officers, 10 communicators and 55 civilian positions. If approved—it still needs to pass regional council—it would bring the total budget for the force to $749.4 million.

It would see spending on Peel Police increase a staggering 77 percent in just five years under Duraiappah. This dwarfs the increases requested by neighbouring police forces during the same time period. It’s more than double the budget increase Durham Regional Police recorded during that time, 29.7 percent; and dwarfs Toronto—Canada’s largest municipal police force—which recorded a 15.5 percent increase between 2019 and 2024 (its 2025 budget has not been made public). 

“The quality of service and the needs of the public are not being met here,” Duraiappah told the police board last week. “I hate for this region to be five years from now looking back and saying they didn’t do enough…The community deserves better.”

So why hasn’t the Chief done better? As news stories about disturbing homicides, grizzly domestic violence crimes and unsolved drug cases in Brampton and Mississauga dominate headlines, he has continuously claimed he needs more money, and when it’s handed over with no questions, things only seem to get worse.

As has become routine at Peel’s Police Board, members quietly listened to the Chief on Friday, failed to ask one question of substance to help taxpayers understand how a more than 21 percent increase could be justified, then rubber-stamped the request. 

For 2024, Chief Nishan Duraiappah received an unprecedented 14 percent budget increase. He’s looking for even more in 2025.

(Peel Regional Police)

Since his arrival in 2019, Chief Duraiappah has vowed to change the way the PRP looks at its budget. After years of the police board approving budget increases for the force under previous chief Jennifer Evans with limited results, Duraippah claimed he would find new ways to fight crime in the growing cities without fueling the unsustainable increases that had become the norm prior to his arrival. He continues to make the claim. 

“You’ve got my commitment, and our commitment as a team to find other ways,” he told the police board last week.

A unit to handle intimate partner and family violence was finally created and there has been a recognition of the need to expand the incredibly successful Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Teams (MCRRT) that attend calls when residents are suffering a mental health crisis. 

Duraippah’s claims about finding other ways are belied by his budgets. The latest one asks for 300 more officers. 

Numerous studies have shown that hiring more officers (the opposite of finding “other ways”) has no correlation with reduced crime rates.

A study of local police funding published in 2023 analyzed the budgets and crime rates of Canada’s 20 largest municipalities between 2010 and 2021, including Peel Region, and found no consistent correlation between municipalities throwing more money at their police forces and a reduction in criminal activity. 

It underscored that “because of the current lack of clarity in what determines police budgets and how they affect crime, conducting evaluations of police budgets and their cost-effectiveness is valuable.”

Melanie Seabrook, a researcher at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study, told The Pointer there is abundant evidence to show investing in social services that keep people housed and healthy is a far better pathway to reducing crime. 

“Existing research really has demonstrated that socio-economic insecurity is a predictor of crime rates and also all sorts of other crises,” she said. “The evidence is a demonstration that under-resourcing of all these other support systems, like social services; housing and client services; education; and the need to reinvest in those services if we want to better support people in their lives and help to prevent these longer term impacts like increased crime and increased personal crisis that the police are currently responding to and overburdened with.”

This is known by both the members of the Peel police board and Chief Duraiappah. He has advocated publicly for the funding of upstream services to reduce the burden on his officers that results from a lack of funding into services for mental health and addiction, housing and healthcare—services which are grossly underfunded in Peel Region.

The mayors of both cities, Carolyn Parrish and Patrick Brown, sit on the Peel Police Board and were at the meeting Friday when the budget was rubber stamped.

As members of regional council they have repeatedly been told by Peel staff about the dire need for more funding to support housing and other social services. But while councillors come up with the same excuses to ignore funding these critical needs, when the rising police budget comes before them, there is barely a question. This leaves little money for the critical upstream supports that can dramatically prevent crimes from happening in the first place.

Critics have long pointed to the way police departments and chiefs have played politics with elected officials, warning them in various ways that if they don’t give the force what officers want, other candidates for office might get the powerful support of police come election time, when public safety is always a top issue of concern among voters.

“I drive around, you see homelessness, you see people with mental health, drug addiction, all over Brampton. Transportation is awful, our roads are bad…but at the same time we’re giving police officers all of this money,” Idris Orughu, a Peel resident and vocal advocate for the region’s Black communities, said after Friday’s record-breaking budget request. “When I look at the results I get, I’m not happy as a taxpayer.”

It’s a feeling shared by many residents and acknowledged by Chief Duraiappah, who noted the incredibly slow response times for his officers to certain calls has led to questions being raised about the effectiveness of his organization. 

“There is a crisis occurring,” he said. “The quality of service and the needs of the public are not being met here.”

His answer to this crisis is the hiring of an additional 300 police officers, which will put more boots on the ground and help improve response times and address the increasing crime, he insists. 

The evidence over the last 5 years does not support this approach. 

An analysis of PRP’s solvency rates for all types of crime in Brampton and Mississauga show that while the force has received more money and more officers every year since 2019, its ability to solve these crimes has diminished. 

In 2019, there were a total of 41,268 Criminal Code violations in Peel. Officers solved 49.3 percent of them. The following year, 35 new officers were approved by the board, and despite recording nearly 5,000 less violations, Peel officers only solved 47.2 percent of them. The trend continued the following year. In 2021, 27 new officers were hired and there were nearly 1,000 less crimes, but only 43.9 percent of them were solved. Factoring in the pandemic, and potential onboarding delays or the effect of having more inexperienced officers on the road, perhaps some of this decline could be forgiven. However, the trend continued as the COVID-19 pandemic was left behind. In 2022, 26 new officers were approved, but Peel officers only solved 39.8 percent of the violations they recorded. Finally, in 2023, 70 new officers were approved, the largest number in years, but solvency rates dropped again, this time to 36.7 percent of the 53,057 violations. This trend is seen in all types of crime. Solvency rates for Crimes Against Persons have dropped from 77.9 percent in 2019 to 68.7 percent last year. Crimes Against Property solvency rates dropped from 29.8 percent in 2019 to 17 percent last year, potentially driven in large part by the increase in auto thefts across the region. It remains to be seen what impact the additional 135 officers approved in 2024 will have on this statistic. 

It’s evidence that the outdated model of policing is not working. 

“The notion that in 2024 we have to keep operating with the same standard that we operated policing with in 1972, to me, it’s ludicrous,” Orughu says. 

(The Pointer)

This disturbing trend comes at a time when Peel is seeing more violent and more complex crimes that PRP officers are scrambling to address. Comparing the first nine months of 2023 and 2024, home invasions have surged 306 percent; carjackings have increased by 51 percent; assault is up 10 percent and Peel has seen an 80 percent increase in shootings. 

(Peel Regional Police)

“People in the community that I have spoken with are frustrated by the lack of accountability and the lack of transparency and don’t believe that anything has or will change at this point,” David Bosveld, a dedicated community advocate for police reform told The Pointer. 

“(The) 300 officers and the corresponding cost will not address safety concerns or violent crime in Peel. The Region should direct the money long term to support community organizations, housing, mental health resources and poverty reduction to attack the root of social issues that research demonstrates over and over are not solved by police officers.”

Members of Peel’s police services board appeared unphased by the staggering increase being requested by the Chief last Friday. The proposal was approved with plenty of thanks doled out to the Chief and will now go to regional council. 

Despite the widespread recognition of the current cost of living crisis which has seen homelessness surge across Peel; food bank use skyrocket, including by those who hold down full time jobs; and the inflationary pressures being felt by households across the country, none of the board members seemed concerned about the burden the budget would place on taxpayers. 

Mayor Patrick Brown said he was “proud to support this budget” and questioned the Chief on why the number of new hires could not be increased to 600 new officers, revealing the Brampton mayor’s questionable fitness for the job. He has been repeatedly told there is a capacity limit to the number of new officers that can be onboarded (even 300 officers might not be realistic). It was a reckless request by a career politician who has often been criticized for abusing taxpayers just to score political points with future voters. Chief Duraiappah said it would be “practically impossible” to onboard that many new officers. The 300 he is asking for would be the most ever hired in a single year.

Duraiappah was selected Chief shortly after Brown joined the board in 2019 following his election at the end of 2018. The two have been friends for years. Brown has throughout his career as a politician faced criticism for his excessive spending and abuse of taxpayers. In 2022 he took advantage of a councillor’s absence at a meeting to cancel a half-dozen investigations ordered by a majority of Brampton councillors after staff reports showed Brown had once again abused taxpayers through a number of questionable decisions around the use of public funds. 

He was also disqualified from the 2022 federal Conservative Party leadership race for allegedly violating rules around finances and had earlier been called out for using staff from Brampton City Hall to work on his leadership campaign. 

“I have no choice but to support this,” Parrish said Friday. She questioned whether additional services could be provided to the Malton community, a notoriously underserved area of Mississauga which Parrish represented as a councillor before winning the by-election to fill the role for the remainder of Bonnie Crombie’s term, after she stepped down to lead the Ontario Liberals. While there were no firm commitments, the Chief acknowledged the need and that requests had been made since 2019, raising questions about what he has done in Malton, where residents have been advocating for better policing since a mass shooting there that year. All the new money he has secured has come with few details about how it was being used to address the most critical gaps in policing across the two cities.

Parrish revealed that during a closed session meeting with Mississauga councillors, Robert Serpe, the executive director of the police services board, told councillors “there’s nothing, whatsoever, they could do” about the budget increase request.

It’s unclear why Serpe, who had no experience in policing or administering an organization like the police board when he moved from a communications role in the previous Brampton mayor’s office and eventually into his current job, would give such a politicized response suggesting board members effectively had to approve the budget increase.

Parrish also expressed concern that PRP would be returning in 2026 with another request for more officers, which she admitted “is a concern of mine too, because some of us have to get reelected,” appearing to suggest her decision making, which is supposed to provide the best governance of the board possible on behalf of taxpayers, is instead dictated by calculations to ensure she is reelected.

In a bizarre turn, Chair of the board Nando Iannicca, put words in Mayor Parrish’s mouth, attempting to clarify her comments for her. 

“I think you were a little unfair to yourself…when you said you’re concerned about votes and elections,” he began. “You’ve never been that person, I don’t think that’s what you meant to say. I think what you’ve always said, you’re concerned about sending such a hefty tax bill to your taxpayers in Mississauga, knowing that these are tough times…That’s certainly what you’ve conveyed to me, you’ve never been a vote counter. So I think you sold yourself out. I think you misspoke and I wanted to correct that record.”

Parrish did not add any further comments.

Mayor Carolyn Parrish and Patrick Brown failed to express concern for the impact a 21.3 percent budget increase for Peel Regional Police will have on resident tax bills.

(The Pointer Files)

Parrish’s silence on the historically large police budget contrasted her recent comments at Mississauga City Hall when she went to great lengths to explain why excessive cost of living pressures faced by residents made it impossible for her to accept a local share contribution request from Trillium Health Partners to help build the new Mississauga Hospital. Parrish rejected a staff proposal that would have added $12 a year for 23 years to the property tax bill of a property owner of an average size home in the city. 

Along with the need to address slow response times, Chief Duraiappah made it clear that Peel’s increasing population is a driving factor for the historic request. 

“The growth rate does drive a lot of our forecasting,” he said. 

There is no evidence provided by the police force to support the reasoning that these additional officers are the best method to help deal with any issues created by the growing population. It does not appear the Peel Regional Police, or the board, has considered how saving money on the police side could free up dollars for other social services in Peel—an approach that has been proven to help reduce crime. 

If they did decide to pursue this path, any reduction in mental health calls or intimate partner violence incidents realized by these investments would free up officers for other types of crime.

Peel Region is not the only region in Ontario forecasted to see significant growth in the coming years. According to projections from the Ontario government, along with Peel Region, Halton and Waterloo are expected to record a more than 50 percent increase in their population by 2051. However, the budget increases for 2025 in these regions are much less than what PRP is asking for but still very high compared to previous increases (almost 11 percent in Waterloo and 13.8 percent in Halton).

The lack of pushback against an increase that taxpayers were never consulted on is a slap in the face to many residents. 

“Taxpayers should be outraged at the audacious request from PRP and the hasty approval of the PRP Board and should expect Regional Council to demand a reduction in the increase, or no increase at all.  At this rate, PRP will surpass Toronto Police budget in no time at all,” Bosveld says. 

While Peel’s budget has increased 77 percent since 2019, Toronto police’s has only increased 15.5 percent.

David Bosveld has consistently pushed for reform within the Peel Regional Police, including promoting efforts to eliminate systemic racism. He believes the 2025 budget request is excessive.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer Files)

Questions are also being raised about the budget for the police services board itself, which is proposed at $1,521,300 for next year. A significant chunk of that budget is the salary for Serpe, the executive director, which according to the 2023 Sunshine List was $262,100 last year, along with $32,204 in benefits. The 2023 benefits represent a 923 percent increase over the year before, when his benefits were $3,148. Sources have told The Pointer this dramatic increase was for a vehicle he now drives paid for by taxpayers. Serpe’s salary has increased 51.4 percent since 2018. His counterpart for the Toronto Police Services Board, Dubi Kanengisser, the executive director and chief of staff, earned $190,109 in salary and $856.70 in benefits last year.

Bosveld says this is a microcosm of the larger issue with the Peel Police budget.

“The ED, Robert Serpe has been averaging 9 percent (8.9) over the last six years including a whopper of 16.3 percent in 2023 plus a $32k benefit payment. How does the ED of the police board make more than a Regional Councillor by far? And where is the rest of the $1.52 million dollars being used?” Bosveld said. “We know that this budget has continued to grow at an unsustainable rate since this leadership group replaced the previous leadership and justification for these costs has not been provided to the taxpayers of Peel Region which is very concerning.”

Protests in 2020 demanded change to the way Peel Police handle their budgeting. It does not appear much has changed since then.

(The Pointer Files) 

In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing national push for police reform and review of the way law enforcement agencies are funded, Chief Duraiappah promised that change was coming. 

This is not the change Peel residents were hoping for. Response times for Priority 1 calls, those that require an immediate police presence, currently sit between 13 and 14 minutes. That time increases to 40-plus minutes for Priority 2 calls. Priority 3 and 4 calls see residents waiting multiple hours or even the next day. For something like a stolen car—a crime that has increased by more than 142 percent since 2017—the victim can be waiting up to 9 hours for a police officer to arrive.

For members of Peel’s Black communities, the frustration is compounded by fear as they await promised changes following the highly publicized signing of an agreement with the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2020 to stamp out rampant systemic racism within the organization. 

“Given the regular reports of disparities in use of force that harms Black Peel residents; a Human Rights complaint from a senior officer in the service; a judge setting a drunk driver walking free due to police misconduct and dishonesty; and new reports of an off duty officer participating in a protest that turned violent and being suspended it is clear that the culture change that was promised by the new Chief five years ago has not taken root,” Bosveld says. “And yet PRP receive a blank cheque to spend year after year.”

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