In February, eight Toronto Police Service (TPS) officers were charged in Project South — one of the largest cases of police corruption in Canadian history — with officers charged for leaking confidential police information to organized crime, facilitating shootings, extortion and a plot to murder a corrections officer. Seven of the eight don’t live in Toronto. The organized crime networks they are accused of serving operated in Vaughan, Mississauga and Brampton.
A 2019 Globe and Mail investigation found that three-quarters of Toronto’s roughly 5,000 uniformed officers lived outside Toronto, many in outer suburbs where organized crime networks embedded in the tow truck and drug industries operate. This was framed as a housing affordability problem.
“At a certain point there is a tipping point, where the police become less a part of the community and more like a well-intentioned occupying force. I’d say once you get over half you’re likely to start encountering problems.”
— Michael Kempa, University of Ottawa criminologist, 2019
Who are these officers actually accountable to?
2002: The prequel
TPS Constable Andrew Kostorowski is charged for running illegal police database searches for a tow truck driver connected to a criminal syndicate, in order to help them steal cars and stage collisions. It’s the first documented case of a Toronto officer selling police access to the tow truck industry. It won’t be the last.
The 2002 TPS budget: $575 million
Spring-Summer 2020: Fatal spring and uprising
Within weeks of each other, three people in mental health crises die in encounters with Greater Toronto Area (GTA) police. Regis Korchinski-Paquet, 29, falls from her Toronto balcony while TPS officers are inside, blocking her family from entering. D’Andre Campbell, 26, is shot by Peel Regional Police after his family calls 911 wanting help, not an armed response. Ejaz Choudry, 62, is shot dead in his Mississauga apartment by Constable Jason Sandilands after his family begs officers to let them speak to him first. There are no charges in these cases, and the SIU has not charged a single Peel officer in connection with a death in custody in at least a decade.
Led by a coalition including Black Lives Matter Toronto, tens of thousands take the streets to demand that 50% of the police budget be diverted to community services.
June 2020: Council votes 16-8 anyway
An Angus Reid poll reveals that 38% of GTA residents support cutting the police budget. A modest 10% cut of around $107 million is proposed in council, but it fails 16 to 8. Mayor John Tory counters with increased funding for a non-police mental health crisis response team and body cameras. A TPS internal audit later finds officers turning the cameras off, muting audio and obstructing the lens during use of force incidents.
The 2020 TPS budget: $1.08 billion
June 2020: Same plot, different officer
TPS Constable Ronald Joseph is charged with stealing an encrypted police radio, cloning it and selling it to a tow truck criminal network so they could use police transmissions to race to crash sites and fake accidents for insurance payouts. He also owned two tow trucks and a car rental company, and was accused of collecting kickbacks from the network — almost the same crime Kostorowski pleaded guilty to eighteen years earlier. Most charges are eventually withdrawn due to court delays. From his 2020 arrest until he pleads guilty to three counts of attempted fraud and one count of public mischief in 2024, he continues to receive an annual salary of over $100,000. He is eventually given a conditional sentence with twelve months of house arrest, followed by six months with a GPS ankle monitor.
2016–2022: Closing ranks
TPS Constable Michael Theriault beats 19-year-old Dafonte Miller with a metal pipe in 2016, leaving him blind in one eye. After Toronto police fail to notify the province’s police watchdog for four months, Miller’s lawyer ends up doing it himself. Theriault is convicted of assault and sentenced to nine months in jail. He loses two appeals and in 2022 resigns the morning his disciplinary hearing is scheduled. Four Durham officers who showed “pro-police bias” in their investigation of the incident are later found guilty of misconduct. One officer is penalized 60 hours of unpaid work.
The 2022 TPS budget: $1.10 billion
2023–2026: The Ontario Human Rights Commission reports. Then nothing
After a six-and-a-half year inquiry, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OCHR) finds that Black people in Toronto were nearly 20 times more likely than white people to be fatally shot by police, and that race was the determining factor in use of force incidents even after controlling for neighbourhood crime rates, mental illness and the presence of a weapon. Chief Ramer apologizes. The Police Services Board unanimously passes 81 reform recommendations. The OHRC then releases a final report in 2023 with over 100 more, including drafting a policy on racial profiling and destroying the historical database of “street check” records collected on people stopped without suspicion. In response, the Board says that nearly half of the recommendations require clarification. Two years later, they claim that 30 of them have been fully implemented, but their representative declines fifteen times at a public committee meeting to say which ones.
The 2023 TPS budget: $1.17 billion
August 2023: Suing over ‘carding’ that never stopped
The Black Legal Action Centre launches a class action lawsuit against TPS and four chiefs for stopping people without suspicion and keeping their personal information in police databases indefinitely. Lead plaintiff Ayaan Farah lost her airline job after being stopped, flagged as known to police and having her security clearance revoked. In January 2026, a court certifies the lawsuit, even though, in its defence, TPS had argued that carding never existed as a practice.
2021–2026: The Zameer case
In July 2021, Umar Zameer is in the Nathan Phillips Square parking garage with his pregnant wife and toddler when four plainclothes officers bang on his car without identifying themselves. Thinking his family is being attacked, he drives off and strikes and kills Detective Constable Jeffrey Northrup. At trial, three officers testify Northrup was standing upright with arms raised when he was hit — a version that both the prosecution’s and the defence’s own experts say is impossible. The judge tells the jury to consider whether the officers fabricated their accounts together. Zameer is acquitted in 2024.
Outside the courthouse, TPS Chief Demkiw says he shares the feelings of members who were “hoping for a different outcome.” He later apologizes and commissions the OPP to re-examine the officers’ testimony. In March 2026, the OPP clears all three officers using a reconstruction that places Northrup in front of Zameer’s vehicle, prepared by an unnamed expert who was never cross-examined. Their report contradicts what both sides presented at trial. Demkiw declares the officers vindicated and Premier Doug Ford says the judge should apologize. Ontario’s Chief Justice calls the request inappropriate and unethical.
“The only apology that is owed is from the chief of police and the premier for attempting to undermine the sanctity of jury trials.”
— Nader Hasan, Umar Zameer’s lawyer
February 2026: The budget passes, then Project South drops
The Toronto Police Services Board approves a $93-million increase, bringing the TPS budget to $1.43 billion, with a unanimous vote and almost no debate. Two months later, York Regional Police announce Project South: seven active TPS officers and one retired constable are charged for selling confidential information from police databases to a criminal network with deep roots in the towing industry. An echo of Kostorowski and Joseph’s schemes, except the information was also used for extortion and shootings, including the attempted murder of a corrections officer. The conspiracy had been discovered the previous June. None of it was disclosed until after the budget was approved.
“I don’t want to paint with a broad brush or tarnish the police. We have phenomenal police officers. When they get sworn in and they get their badge, they have a duty, and it’s very disappointing to hear what’s been going on, but I don’t want the public to lose trust in our great police, because they are incredible. There’s always, as you say, [in] any organization, there’s always a few bad apples.”
— Ontario Premier Doug Ford, February 2026
A few bad apples.
This article appeared in the 2026 Apr/May issue.