‘A Chevy to a Lexus’: ‘Unsustainable’ 23.3% Peel Police budget hike sparks backlash & Mayor Carolyn Parrish’s resignation from board

A budget demand by Peel’s police chief, described as “unsustainable” and “ludicrous”, has created controversy and drama, with Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish resigning late last week from the board that is supposed to govern the force and ensure taxpayers are getting good value for their money.

Without any financial explanation or auditing to justify the scale of the request laid before them, Peel Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah presented regional councillors with a 21.3 percent operating budget increase request for 2025—23.3 percent in total, including the capital increase. The demand translates to an additional $144.1 million for the year ahead and will support the hiring of 300 officers, 10 communicators and 55 civilian positions.

The request, which has drawn widespread criticism and accusations of flagrant abuse, is nearly equivalent to the increase over ten years, between 2012 and 2022, when spending on police rose by 23.6 percent, during a period when Duraiappah, who was given the role in late 2019, had not yet put his fingerprints on the budget which had been largely planned a few years into his tenure, before his arrival.

Despite Duraiappah’s lack of experience, he was hired shortly after the election of his friend Patrick Brown as Brampton’s mayor who immediately joined the Peel Police Board in 2019. He had never held the role of chief anywhere before and had only been promoted to deputy chief at a much smaller police service, in Halton Region, a few years earlier.

He took over the third largest municipal police department in Canada.

The budget demand by Duraiappah, which not only received Brown’s praise but saw the Brampton mayor call for a much bigger increase, eventually led to Parrish’s resignation Friday. 

Described by her fellow Region of Peel councillors the day before as “unsustainable”, the 23.3 percent provisional increase—it needs final approval by Peel’s council—comes a year after the chief demanded, and was given a 14 percent hike for 2024, an almost 40 percent increase over two years. 

A year ago, when asking for the unprecedented double-digit increase, characterizing it as an extreme request, Duraiappah told the police board last year it was “the largest ask we have ever, ever made”. A year later, that largest ask ever, pales in comparison to his latest demand.

Peel Police headquarters in Mississauga. 

(The Pointer files)

And just like last year, the police board that is supposed to hold the chief accountable to taxpayers, once again rubber stamped his request, barely asking any questions at the beginning of the month, when every board member except for Parrish supported the 23.3 percent increase which critics say is egregious and unsustainable. The Mississauga mayor offered little resistance herself, other than deciding to abstain from the vote.

The lack of questioning by the board, which did not ask for any financial justification, not even an internal audit or other controls to ensure the 23.3 percent boost is justified and does not include irresponsible spending, was in contrast to what unfolded Thursday when Duraiappah had to appear before regional council as part of its 2025 budget process. 

Perhaps after making her decision to resign ahead of the Peel Police Service Board meeting the next day, Friday, when Parrish notified members of her decision before that morning’s board meeting, the Mississauga mayor was not in the same acquiescent mood that she displayed when the budget request was rubber stamped at the November 1 police board meeting.

“I think it's unfair for you to go for this big increase this year, and I didn't vote for it,” Parrish told Duraiappah to his face Thursday, surrounded by her regional council colleagues, including Brown. “I was the only one that didn't, because you're going from a Chevy to a Lexus in three years,” Parrish said during the regional meeting. “I can remember when you were first hired, and you came here and said, numbers aren't necessarily how you fix the crime, it's technology and it's where you deploy your people. And now you're saying numbers are the crucial part of it. So I'm a little disappointed.”

In a letter dated November 22, Parrish said she was stepping down from her position on the Board “effective immediately” because she “cannot wear two hats”; one to protect Mississauga taxpayers as their mayor, while sitting on a police board that she characterized as being powerless to do the same. She said the move to step down from the board was, “In light of the required compliance with PPSB decisions, including supporting a budget increase of 21.3 percent this year (23.3 percent including the capital increase).” 

On Friday afternoon Parrish confirmed to The Pointer she had resigned that morning but would not comment further. 

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish resigned from the Peel Police Board on Friday after the chief demanded a 23.3 percent budget increase.

(The Pointer files)

Parrish also revealed at the November 1 police board meeting that Robert Serpe, executive director of the board (a bureaucratic role that is not to involve any political advice or consideration), had earlier in the week claimed, “there’s nothing, whatsoever, they could do” about the budget increase request. After Chief Duraiappah presented the budget to board members at the November 1 board meeting, Parrish, citing what Serpe had told her, claimed, “So there’s no point in arguing, there’s no point in saying we can’t support this. It’s going through.” 

It’s unclear why Serpe would have told Parrish the budget had to be approved, and why that discussion between the board’s executive director and one of its key members was not done in public, at the meeting.

Serpe did not respond to The Pointer’s questions. He had no experience in policing or running a municipal agency prior to being given the job as executive director of the police board, after working as a communications staffer for previous Brampton mayor Susan Fennell.

Police board members are expected to not only scrutinize the annual budget request presented by the chief, as the governance body that oversees non-operational decision making, the police board can adopt policies or take specific one-time action to ensure fiscal accountability to taxpayers, for example by requesting audits with clear details so the public can better understand what a police force is asking to use their money for. 

If lavish perks such as personal vehicles, international travel and unnecessary benefits are being handed out, a proper review can help end abusive practices. If unjustified staffing decisions are being made or vendor contracts that do not offer good value for money are being signed, these practices can also be corrected.

Under Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act, the overarching legislation that governs police forces and the boards that oversee them, police boards are supposed to create a strategic plan that ensures a force’s policies and budget provide adequate policing for the population it patrols, with clear “quantitative and qualitative” performance objectives. 

This is supposed to guarantee money is being spent in the right way to meet “community-based crime prevention initiatives”, “investigation services”, to ensure “community satisfaction with the policing”, “clearance rates for violent crime”, “clearance rates for property crime”, “clearance rates for youth crime” along with many other objectives the board is supposed to provide governance over. 

The police board, under the Act, is also supposed to conduct a review of the “chief of police’s performance at least annually.”

At the November 1 police board meeting, when Chief Duraiappah presented his budget, there was no explanation of how his request for a 23.3 percent increase was supported by a detailed strategic plan done as part of the board’s legal obligation to create one to align priorities and justify spending in coordination with the plan. 

There were also no questions raised by board members about the requirement to review Duraiappah’s performance at least once a year, as he demands 23.3 percent more money from taxpayers.

As The Pointer recently reported, the force’s own data show that crime solvency rates have declined over his time at the helm, despite significant budget increases.

Regional councillors can send the chief’s budget request back, and if amendments are not made they have the opportunity to refuse any increases but the police board can then apply to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission to reach a final decision on the requested budget.

Regional councillors on Thursday raised concerns over Duraiappah’s budget demands which they are being asked to approve.

“I do have some concerns in terms of how we've rolled this out,” Mississauga Councillor Alvin Tedjo said, voicing skepticism because “this is, for some of us now, the third time we've come here and approved this budget in this term. We're essentially doubling some of these asks year over year, and not being able to forecast that, I think is very challenging for us as the council and as a region, to be able to plan accordingly when we're looking at the larger tax base.”

It is unclear why the 2023 business plan presented two years ago by Duraiappah, which included forecasts for 2024, 2025 and 2026, looks nothing like the budget he is now demanding.

He has almost tripled the operating budget increase he had projected for 2025, from an expected 8.3 percent to 21.3 percent now.

Tedjo voiced concerns about how elected officials are supposed to plan for a wide range of critical needs when the chief suddenly asks for a wild, previously unexpected increase, leaving councillors scrambling to balance a regional budget whose large increase is mostly due to a 23.3 percent hike for police, with little hard data to show the money is needed or would even help bring down crime.  

Mississauga Councillor Stephen Dasko is one of Peel’s local elected officials who has expressed frustration over unsustainable police budget increases. 

(The Pointer files)  

Echoing his colleagues' concerns, Mississauga Councillor Stephen Dasko told Duraiappah, “just know that year after year after year, I'm reaching the point where it's just unsustainable to keep doing this with the current model. And, as I've mentioned before, I think some other things have to give at some point.”

While concerns were raised, Peel councillors gave no indication they would be sending the budget back to the Peel Police Services Board for any revisions.

At the November 1 police board meeting, Patrick Brown said he wanted an even bigger increase, to add 600 new officers in one year, approximately 25 percent of the uniform complement.

On Thursday, the day before she resigned from the board, Parrish said she doesn’t know how the chief plans to get the 300 new officers included in the budget request “through the police college,” while critics have said the force does not have the capacity to bring anywhere near that many new officers on board.

A recent study found there is no correlation between pouring more funding into police budgets and reducing crime rates. 

The 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 handing more taxpayer dollars to police forces and a reduction in criminal activity.

“What that means is that an increase in police funding didn't necessarily relate to a decrease in crime,” Melanie Seabrook, a researcher at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study, told The Pointer. While the data available over the last decade is valuable, it is not enough to show the full picture of what spending on policing truly looks like. 

“It's not super transparent, and there really is very little data available on what these police budgets are spent on. So we can access gross expenditures on police services as a whole, but we don't know where this money is actually going, what types of police services are being funded through these budgets, and so it's really difficult to then research, but also for transparency with the public in terms of what their police services are providing them.”

“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 community advocate for police reform, told The Pointer after the budget request. 

“(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.”

Idris Orughu, a Peel resident and vocal advocate for the region’s Black communities, called the budget request “ludicrous”, describing the same approach of throwing more money at police officers that has failed for decades, using the same unproven plan “that we operated policing with in 1972”.

Peel’s police board has provided next to no clarity or transparency around what hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers are going toward, as this year’s budget approval at the board mirrored the process for decades, with the chief presenting his demands and board members agreeing with very few questions asked.

It was a little different at the regional council meeting Thursday.

Duraiappah repeated the need to get the force “back to a breathing point” — a phrase he has used repeatedly, telling councillors, “My absolute desire would be to get ourselves back to breathing room, where we can have day to day divisional patrol officers in the course of the day.” He added that, “without a doubt, this is trying to get my day to day platoons back up strengthened.”

Responding to councillors’ concerns about throwing money at more officers when policing experts say it is a failed approach, asking the chief for more data and analysis to justify the need for 300 more officers in one year, he admitted there is little proof for his plan. “Sometimes it's a bit like snake oil. It may not actually be the real litmus test of, ‘are you serving the community appropriately based on its need?’”

Meanwhile, Brown, who has repeatedly since becoming mayor talked about having to freeze all other budget areas and has not pushed for municipal funding of solutions to prevent crime before it happens, instead again asked why the number of new hires could not be increased to 600 new officers. Chief Duraiappah acknowledged that it would be “practically impossible” to onboard that many new uniform staff. 

With Brown unphased by the massive tax increase just to fund the police budget (about a 4 percent hike on the 2025 property bill for Mississauga and Brampton residents) Parrish has been telling the members around her own council table that one of the concerns she has raised with the Province, as the PCs rearrange the Region of Peel and its services, is to look at the current funding split with the City of Brampton for Peel Police.

According to a Mississauga spokesperson, the City’s share is roughly 62 percent and Brampton’s share covers about 38 percent of the force’s budget, based on 2024 assessment values. Based on the 2025 calculation, the City of Mississauga will pay $472.36 million of the provisional 2025 police budget and Brampton will pay $289.76 million, $182.6 million less than Mississauga. The spokesperson said a more accurate and fair funding model would see Mississauga pay $86.3 million less, leaving Brown to explain to Brampton residents how he would cover that amount.

Parrish told councillors during Mississauga budget deliberations on November 18, when highlighting her request to have a more even funding split between the two cities for policing, that, “If the answer [from the Province] is no, then I think we have to take it into our own hands and move motions at the Region (where Mississauga’s council members hold 12 of the 24 elected seats; and Brampton only has 9).” 

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock 

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