Ottawa Police sworn and civilian members have approved a new contract with the City.
The deal includes unlimited benefits for psychological treatment, but it's also hiking wages to a significant level.
First-class Constables will be given salaries above $100,000 a year, starting July 1, 2019, putting them on the Province’s much-scrutinized “Sunshine List.”
The contract is retroactive, and covers a period of time between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2019.
President of the Ottawa Police Association Matt Skof tells CFRA’s Beyond the News that the salary increase is getting a lot of attention, but it's well within the norm.
“The increases are within two per cent or below that,” Skof says. “So, they’re following the edicts that have been put out by City Hall over the last five years.”
Skof considers it an “investment” into not only the police service, but society as well. He also adds that he feels the $100,000 threshold of the Sunshine List is outdated in 2017, when public sector salaries are up in other areas as well.
“That number, when it was set, is nowhere near the number it would be now, if you had taken account of the cost of housing and et cetera into effect.”
Skof says the bigger news is the mental health and scheduling changes. He says he hopes acknowledging the mental health needs of officers will be a "game changer" for policing across the country.
“The chair [of the police services board] and the organization are recognizing the importance of breaking out of a very negative traditional mold of police officers being exempt of the need for sleep,” Skof says. “As education around mental well-being becomes more prolific, you start looking at the practices that have been in place for almost a century of officers having this commitment of court during the day, but the requirement of a 24-hour shift cycle. Having to tackle this, culturally has been very difficult.
“This is an incredible credit to all three parties at the table to look outside that. What we’ve come up with, I think, is going to be a game changer in the culture of policing, not just in Ottawa, but I think this will have an impact across the country.”