Ontario officers have guaranteed PTSD benefits. Now the police brass wants to change that
1,529 officer PTSD claims between 2016 and 2020 cost Ontario more than $134M
A proposal to claw back benefits for hundreds of Ontario police officers too psychologically traumatized to work would force many of them to hide their illnesses to stay on the job — which would put officers, their colleagues and potentially the public at risk, say police unions and veteran law enforcement officers.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) has proposed changes to a 2016 provincial law that guarantees first responders no longer have to prove their psychological injuries are the result of a single event at work.
Between January 2016 and November 2020, 1,529 claims were made for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among officers in Ontario at a cost of $134 million, according to the OACP. Over half of the claimants were still drawing benefits two years after their injuries.
The proposed changes include creating a formal process for police departments to dispute officers' PTSD claims and a reduction in the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) benefits for officers sidelined by operational stress, which would reduce the benefit to a percentage of their full pay, similar to long-term disability.
The idea behind the proposed changes, OCAP said in its resolutions, is to create "incentive for an employee to return to work" and reduce the growing cost of caring for hundreds of traumatized officers because "the current status quo cannot be sustained from both a financial and non-financial point of view."
'I yearn to go back to the streets': injured officer
The resolutions have been met with disbelief and disgust by many in the rank and file. Many didn't want to speak on the record for fear of reprisals from their colleagues and a police brass that many see as out of touch.
"Incentivize me by cutting pay? I don't know how that would possibly work," said Steve Stokan, a constable with the London Police Service who has tried unsuccessfully to return to work three times since his PTSD diagnosis in 2016.
"I yearn to go back to the streets. It's sad, I feel guilty, and terrible and shamed that [my colleagues] have to carry my load while I'm off trying to heal, and it bothers me every day," said Stokan.
"Each time I return, my symptoms come back with greater ferocity, and I am now working on accepting what has occurred to me and move on with my life."
With court time, paid duty and overtime, Stokan used to make the Ontario sunshine list, earning more than $100,000 a year as a police constable. Since his diagnosis, he now takes home $62,000 in WSIB benefits.
He estimates being off work costs him roughly $25,000 a year, and with three sons in university, his wife has had to get a second job to help pay the family's bills.
Stokan said if the OACP proposal becomes part of Ontario's legislative agenda, it could be disastrous for the mental health of hundreds of officers who have been psychologically traumatized on the job.
"Officers wouldn't go off work. They wouldn't disclose. They wouldn't get help. We would have situations that occur that would be unhealthy for the officers and society in general.
"It's going to force them back to work sooner when they're not healed," he said. "They'll crash the second time. On my third failed return to work, I became very suicidal. I was devastated that I was losing my career."
Unions say move will have 'tragic effects'
Police unions say the proposal is "repulsive" and a step backwards from decades of progress that labour leaders and mental health advocates have made in trying to break the stigma around mental illness among officers, recognizing their professions make them far more prone to mental illness than the general population.
"These amendments seem to want to undo a lot of that work," said Mark Baxter, president of the Police Association of Ontario, a labour organization representing some 25,000 uniformed officers and almost 12,000 civilian employees in 46 associations.
"If you're cutting salary from someone who is vulnerable, who is dealing with mental health issues, now they're going to struggle to provide for their family — that's just an enormous amount of unnecessary stress," said Baxter.
"I think that's repulsive and disgusting in light of everything we know about PTSD and operational stress injuries.
"We already have a high incidence of police officer suicides in this province, and I think this is going to have tragic effects."
In 2018, nine deaths by suicide happened among serving and retired Ontario police officers, according to a 2019 report by the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner.
A 2018 report published by the Centre for Additiction and Mental Health (CAMH) said police are more likely to exhibit suicidal behaviour, with higher rates of suicidal ideation and planning for municipal, provincial and RCMP compared to the general population.
The report also said Canadian officers are three to five times more likely to report symptoms of mental illness compared to the general population, and one in three has mental health symptoms in the clinical diagnostic range for PTSD.
OACP president on pay issue
While unions and officers say the reduction in post-injury pay would further traumatize officers, OACP president Gary Conn, Chatham-Kent's police chief, appeared to contradict himself, first saying the association isn't proposing a reduction in pay for injured officers, then saying it would.
"I would say there has been some miscommunication, some misunderstanding in regards to the word 'incentive,'" said Conn.
"There's no pay cut," he told CBC News. "No cuts to the benefit neither."
Conn said OACP is proposing to gradually reduce the money sidelined officers receive, to 85 per cent of their full salary while they're off duty healing from their injuries, and then gradually ramping their pay up again as they return to full-time work.
"What we're trying to do is enhance the services that [injured officers] are being provided, or lack thereof.
"Hopefully we can clarify that when we get all the parties to the table," he said. "I think I talked about a graduated, stepped entitlement that would be a more accurate representation and not necessarily an incentive."
OACP is asking for police, firefighter and paramedic unions as well as officials from CAMH, police services boards and municipalities to meet at an unspecified date to discuss the proposal and recommend legislative changes to the Ontario government.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/o ... -1.6119084