Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): My question today is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Minister, according to the PAO today, it's quite obvious that we're in desperate need of police resources. You're now 26 months into your mandate, and there are a lot of communities desperately looking for assistance under the 1,000 cop program.

The city of Barrie, as you know, is one of the fastest-growing communities per capita in our province. Chief Wayne Frechette and the Barrie Police Services Board are responsible for the safety of the citizens of this very rapidly growing city. The city has applied for 34 net new officers under your Safer Communities-1,000 Officers Partnership program.

Minister, can you assure us, to the best of your ability, that the city of Barrie will receive the approval and funding they need for those 34 officers that they have very, very faithfully applied for?

Hon. Monte Kwinter (Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services): I think the member should understand that when we put out the call for these officers, we got considerably more responses than the 1,000 officers we have committed to. What we have to do is evaluate them, (a) to find out if they meet our criteria, and (b) to find out if in fact we have them available.

You should know that what we have done is very significant. Your government's community policing programming was supposed to lapse in five years. We have not only extended that, we've extended it in perpetuity. By the time we are finished with this program, we will have provided $67.1 million a year in perpetuity.

Now, whether Barrie, Ottawa or any other community is going to get what they ask for, I think it would be unrealistic because there aren't enough police officers to go around. But we will apportion them fairly and transparently and make sure that every police service is dealt with in a fair and upright manner.

Mr. Dunlop: They wouldn't have applied for them if they didn't need them. That's the problem.

We've learned that the region of York, under the leadership of Chief Armand La Barge, who is also the president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, and the police services board in York region have applied for the most in the province. They've applied for 148 community policing officers and 143 of the specific program officers under your 1,000 cop announcement.

Minister, of the 291 net new officers -- and that's, of course, more than even the city of Toronto applied for -- 160 of those would fall into the retroactive hiring practice. The question really is more on funding now. When can York region expect to see their application for the 291 new officers approved, but, more importantly, when will they actually receive funding or get their cheque for the 160 officers that they have retroactively hired since October 2003?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I'm sure the member knows how the process works. What has happened is that various police services -- and I have to stress that funding of police officers is a metro or a municipal responsibility. What we are doing is helping them out with this program, as you did when you were in government with your community policing program. So it isn't our responsibility to fund all the policing in Ontario. What we have done is that we want to help those municipalities that don't have the fiscal capability of doing it. So we are doing that, and we are going to be providing that funding.

Also, I'm sure you know, because it's exactly the same process you used, all of this funding is done in arrears. We have to make sure that these people were actually hired and that they meet our criteria. They then bill us for their share, and we pay them in arrears. That's the way it was done before; that is the way it's going to be done now.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): New question.

Mr. Howard Hampton (Kenora-Rainy River): My question is for the Acting Premier. Yesterday yet another Ontario citizen was shot on the street, the latest victim of a rising wave of gun violence. Ontario citizens are afraid. Eighty per cent of Ontarians feel that gun violence is a growing problem. But what do they see? They see a McGuinty government that is apparently more concerned with banning pit bulls than addressing the crisis of gun violence.
My question is this: Can you explain why the number of police officers on our streets, measured on a per capita basis, is declining under the McGuinty government?

Hon. Gerard Kennedy (Minister of Education): The Attorney General.

Hon. Michael Bryant (Attorney General): I'm happy, in a supplementary, to provide more information for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. But let's be clear: Notwithstanding anything that was just said, this government is investing more money in police services than that government ever invested in police services. This government is putting into place 1,000 new police officers. They made the promise to do it; we're doing it. Make no mistake about it: The investments that are going into public safety, policing and prosecutors, doing everything we can to prevent violence, are in fact at a level that puts public safety first. The suggestion that anybody in this House thinks that somehow dogs are more important than the 44 dead Torontonians, than the 70 people shot, is absolutely outrageous. And you should be --

The Speaker: Thank you. Supplementary.

Mr. Hampton: People have heard the McGuinty government announce, reannounce and reannounce again more police officers, but they don't see it happening.

I want to quote someone who said this two years ago: "The number of police officers per capita in Ontario has dropped more than 8% in the past 10 years. We need more police officers to keep our communities safe." Who said that? Dalton McGuinty.

What has happened after two years of the McGuinty government? Measured on a per capita basis, the number of police officers on the street is now down by 9%. You're not keeping pace, not even with the Conservatives.

Now municipalities are saying they are cash-strapped. You force them to pay two thirds of the cost of new police officers while you pay only one third of the cost. Will the Acting Premier guarantee cash-strapped municipalities today that if they cannot pick up the full two thirds of the cost that you demand, they will still get new police officers under the McGuinty government?

Hon. Mr. Bryant: The Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
I just want to bring to the attention of the leader of the third party that between 1990 and 1995, based on police officers per 100,000, the NDP government decreased the number of police officers by 5.246%.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I can tell you that in 1990 the NDP had 20,685 police in Ontario; in 2004, the year we were in government, 23,214. Those are the numbers, and I challenge you to challenge those numbers.
Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Stop the clock.
New question.