Four of the top 10 most overstaffed Canadian police forces are in Ontario, notes the Fraser Institute in a report that calls into question the sharply rising cost of policing across Canada.

The right-wing think-tank says Windsor, St. Catharines-Niagara, Thunder Bay and Peterborough are among the 10 most overstaffed departments. But four other Ontario cities – Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Kingston and Sudbury – have among the most understaffed forces.

Policing costs have become a key issue for many municipalities in Ontario, which face rising costs for emergency services such as police, fire and paramedics, in part because of recent wage arbitration awards many local communities cannot afford. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has long pressed the Liberal government to reform the province's arbitration system – which is used to settle contract disputes to help them control rising salary costs.

However, there is no indication the government plans to change the system, which sees most contract disputes turned over to arbitrators for resolution since emergency workers are banned from striking.

In one eyebrow-raising arbitration award, Ontario Provincial Police officers got a wage hike of 13.55 per cent over four years, including 8.55 per cent this year.

The Fraser Institute, which espouses small government and lower taxes, says that between 1986 and 2012, policing costs per person in Canada rose 45.5 per cent, while the number of Criminal Code violations for each police officer – a measure of police workload – dropped by 36.8 per cent.

"As municipalities across the country struggle with limited resources more analysis should focus on the nature and volume of police calls, the arbitration process involving police unions, policing technology and styles and other factors that determine police staffing levels," says Livio Di Matteo, a senior Fraser Institute fellow who authored the report.

"While more police can lead to lower crime rates, at some point increased spending on additional police officers has little impact on crime reduction," added Di Matteo, an economics professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

Last month, the OPP introduced a new billing model to better distribute the cost of policing in Ontario communities without their own local police departments. While some communities got lower costs, others got hit with a higher tab and may be forced to raise property taxes, cut services or find other revenues to offset the rising police costs.

Ontario home to among four most overstaffed police services: think-tank

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