Law Times

PAGE 2 NEWS Ontario votes 2011 Municipalities await action on court security O BY MICHAEL McKIERNAN Law Times ntario is shortchanging municipalities through a plan to upload court security costs to the province, one city's mayor says. During a speech to the As- sociation of Municipalities of Ontario's conference in Lon- don, Ont., last month, Premier Dalton McGuinty reiterated his promise to take back responsi- bility for court security costs, in- cluding prisoner transportation, up to a value of $125 million per year. Th e government will phase in the plan starting in 2012 with a cap of $17.5 million that will escalate annually to $125 mil- lion by 2018. But Mayor Mike Bradley of Sarnia, Ont., says cities should never have had to pay for court security when the province runs the justice system. He adds that the long timeline will do little to relieve the strain on already- stretched municipal budgets. "I thought it was a bad deal. It stretches way too long. And who knows if this is going to stand after October? If there's a new government, they can say it's not their promise. And even with the McGuinty govern- ment, there's no guarantee that they're not going to say at some point that they'll have to post- pone these commitments. It's not a legal agreement." Th e government made the initial promise in 2008 as part of a joint deal between the prov- ince, the association, and the City of Toronto to upload about $1.5 billion in services down- loaded to municipalities in the 1990s by 2018. So far, the province is picking up $947 million of that tab, but in an opaque speech to the asso- ciation the day after McGuinty spoke, Conservative Leader Tim Hudak appeared to cast doubt on the schedule agreed to by the current government. He agreed to honour actions already taken but was noncommittal on the remaining phases. If Hudak does freeze the uploading at the current level, the province would pick up none of the court security costs. "Th at's exactly what we warned [the association] about," says Bradley, who withdrew his city from the organization in protest at what he saw as its soft line on provincial download- ing in the 1990s. "We're still walking along crippled by that downloading, and what this has done is to set up some real uncertainty now heading into 2012 on the uploading." Security costs at Sarnia's two courts, which are paid for by Lambton County, have bal- looned from around $200,000 when the province stopped covering them to around $800,000 this year, according to Bradley. He notes that in- creasing safety demands from the judiciary and a boost in the number of court users have contributed to the rise. At the same time, he's not convinced that the $125 million promised by the province will be enough to cover the total bill. "Th e City of Toronto alone can gobble up a lot of that mon- ey," says Bradley. "I think a lot of people are under the belief that the total cost of court security is going to be picked up in 2012, and that's not the case. Th ey should have taken it back totally. To me, it's just a matter of fi nan- cial fairness." In Toronto, estimates put court security costs for 2010 at around $50 million, up from $16 million in the 1990s. Th e trend towards increases is evident UNDERSTAND THE LATEST LAW INVOLVED IN CLAIMS AGAINST THE CROWN NEW EDITION LIABILITY OF THE CROWN, 4TH EDITION PETER W. HOGG, PATRICK J. MONAHAN AND WADE K. WRIGHT 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Find reliable guidance in filing claims involving public authorities with Liability of the Crown, 4th Edition — your complete resource to researching the law in this area. This new edition focuses on the extent to which the Crown, in the sense of the executive branch of government, is liable to pay damages or give other redress to persons injured by the exercise of government power. Liability of the Crown, 4th Edition contains a comprehensive review of the law pertaining to the liability of the Crown and its agents in tort, contractually, and pursuant to statute. Each chapter of this seminal work has been completely rewritten to take into account the numerous significant developments in the field that have taken place since this book was last published. This fourth edition includes new chapters on restitution, taking (expropriation), trust, estoppel and Crown as creditor, as well as a concluding summarizing chapter. PREPARE YOURSELF WITH THE EXPERTISE AND INSIGHT OF RENOWNED EXPERTS Gain the vast expertise and insight of three renowned experts in the field, and in particular, that of renowned constitutional law scholar, Peter C. Hogg. You will be confident that you are interpreting the materials correctly, thereby saving time and better serving your clients. across the province, despite wide variations in security standards fr om municipality to municipal- ity. Ontario is currently the only Canadian province that makes no contribution to court security costs. Pat Vanini, executive director of the association, is confi dent that the money promised by the province will be enough to cover the total bill. Her organization is working with the government to establish the full cost of court se- curity and set the standard levels in the future. "Th e cost depends on what happens on the regulatory side," she says. "A court in the far northeast would probably not and probably should not have the same standard of security as a court in the city of Toronto. We're trying to create a model that is much more fl exible and is based on what type of cases are going on in a particular place." Vanini says the deal reached with the province on court se- curity costs will have a large impact on her members. "We're thankful for this agreement. Nobody really anticipated that property tax dollars would pay for provincial services. In mu- nicipal government, we have an infrastructure defi cit in terms of roads and bridges, transit, sew- ers, and other services to prop- erty. When we're paying for court security and these social programs, we have less capacity for those things the property tax base was always supposed to be paying for. Th is is about making sure we put the right tax on the right tax base." September 5, 2011 • Law timeS AVAILABLE RISK- FREE FOR 30 DAYS Order online at www.carswell.com Call Toll-Free: 1-800-387-5164 In Toronto: 416-609-3800 ORDER # 983635-64364 $225 Hardcover approx. 560 pages July 2011 978-0-7798-3635-2 Shipping and handling are extra. Price subject to change without notice and subject to applicable taxes. Untitled-4 1 www.lawtimesnews.com 11-08-31 10:29 AM

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