Item - 2025.EX23.4

City Council considered the following Items together:

EX23.4 headed “Management Update: Auditor General Recommendations on 9-1-1 Operations and Responses to Calls for Service by the Toronto Police Service”; and

EX23.5 headed “2025 Update on SafeTO Implementation”.

The Executive Committee recommends that:

1. City Council request the Toronto Police Service Board to direct the Chief, Toronto Police Service to work in collaboration with the City of Toronto, to implement measures to maximize the number of 9-1-1 calls diverted to the Toronto Community Crisis Service that meet the criteria for Toronto Community Crisis Service response, and for such measures to include:

a. enhancing call diversion data shared with the City;

b. enhancing Toronto Community Crisis Service training programs and resources for Toronto Police Service Communications Services staff; and

c. establishing targets for Toronto Community Crisis Service call diversion, with an aim to increase call diversion year over year.

2. City Council direct the Executive Director, Social Development to work with the Toronto Police Service to launch by the fourth quarter of 2025 a public-facing dashboard on Toronto Community Crisis Service calls received, call outcomes and other key program data points.

3. City Council direct the Executive Director, Social Development to report to the Executive Committee by the first quarter of 2026 with an action plan to achieve the target of at least 16,000 transferred calls per year from 9-1-1 to Toronto Community Crisis Service. 

4. City Council forward the Item to the Toronto Police Service Board to inform continued action and next steps on the Auditor General’s recommendations.

The Executive Committee considered Items EX23.4 and EX23.5 together.

This report provides an update to City Council on a series of recommendations made by the Auditor General (AG) to improve 9-1-1 operations and responses to calls for service by the Toronto Police Service (TPS). The status of these recommendations is subject to formal review and verification by the Auditor General.

In July 2022, City Council adopted two reports from the AG, which focused on:

1) Enhancing the efficiency of 9-1-1 operations (AU13.5)

2) Supporting more effective responses to calls for service (AU13.6)

In total, the AG posed 51 recommendations across the two reports to improve and modernize the TPS. Of these, 16 recommendations involved the City Manager's Office and other City Divisions, including Toronto Paramedic Services, Toronto Fire Services (TFS), Social Development, Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS), Customer Experience Division (CXD), and others.

As directed by Council, the Deputy City Manager, Community and Social Services (DCM-CSS) has played a key role in coordinating collaboration among TPS and relevant City Divisions to advance AG recommendations, including co-development of status updates to Council. The first of these updates was adopted by Council in fall 2023 (see EX9.2).

The City and TPS have continued to work closely to drive AG recommendations forward. A detailed update on each of the 16 shared AG recommendations can be found in Appendix 1 of this report. Pending Council approval, this update report will be forwarded to the Toronto Police Service Board, where it will be reviewed alongside a comprehensive update from the TPS on all 51 AG recommendations. 

As assessed in consultation with the City's Internal Audit Division, 13 of the 16 AG recommendations are in-progress (with seven near completion), two are implemented and ongoing, and one has not yet started.

Key milestones achieved since the last report to Council include the city-wide expansion of the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS), a key component of the City's Ten-year Community Safety & Well-being Plan (SafeTO) that has contributed to a marked decrease in ‘person in crisis calls’ to the TPS. Since launching in 2022, the TCCS has responded to more than 25,000 calls, provided more than 6,000 referrals, and connected more than 1,000 service users to wraparound case management supports, while maintaining a call diversion rate of 78% (proportion of 9-1-1 calls received by the Service and completed without police involvement).  

TPS and City Divisions have also collaborated to co-develop, launch, and evaluate 'Make the Right Call,' a multilingual, multimedia scenario-based campaign focused on educating the public about appropriate emergency and non-emergency responses. The campaign garnered more than 20,000,000 social media impressions, drove demonstrable increases in calls to the TPS non-emergency line and 2-1-1, and will return to market in June 2025 as an ‘evergreen' communications tool to continue influencing public awareness and behaviour change.

The revived Non-emergency Call/Response Steering Committee (NECRSC), currently chaired by CXD with participation from TPS and City Divisions, has enabled the City to review and refine call diversion strategies and enhance information sharing. This includes new staff training, improvements to the 3-1-1 knowledge base to streamline call diversions, and a new warm transfer protocol between 3-1-1 and the TPS non-emergency line that ensures callers are connected to the appropriate organization.

Regarding areas for continued collaboration, the 9-1-1 Committee continues to meet quarterly to support collaboration among TPS, TFS, and Paramedic Services. This includes ongoing preparation for migration of operations to Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1), which will improve interconnectivity and the efficiency of call transfers. TFS migrated onto the NG9-1-1 network in December 2023, the first municipal emergency service in Canada to do so, and both TPS and Paramedic Services will achieve migration by the end of 2025, well in advance of the March 2027 deadline set by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

As part of an overarching communications strategy, Social Development and SPEC will also be launching a new anti-stigma campaign in Q4 2025 to address public perceptions of people experiencing mental health crises, in consultation with TPS and community stakeholders. 

Overall, this report reflects that collaboration between the City and TPS remains strong, and will continue to advance the 16 AG recommendations. The next status update on AU13.5 and AU13.6 will be provided to City Council in 2027, following the cutoff date for migration to NG9-1-1 and in alignment with the next SafeTO implementation update.