Liberals: More police in Peel

Ontario now has an additional 1,000 police officers on the street, including nearly 100 new officers in Peel Region. The Peel Regional Police received extra services to combat guns and gangs. All this while Mississauga has been, for the seventh consecutive year, Canada's safest city. And our Streetsville, Meadowvale and Lisgar communities are in the safest part of Canada's safest city.

• Ontario added $51 million to new funding to combat guns and gang violence in Ontario;
• Passed new legislation making the reporting of gunshot wounds mandatory;
• Passed tough new legislation to assist the Peel Regional Police to identify and shut down marijuana grow-ops;
• Expanded the number of crown attorneys working on the guns and gangs task force, and created Ontario's first major crime court designed for large, complex gang-related trials;
• Tough new laws passed to crack down on street racing, impound and destroy souped-up vehicles, seize cars used in street racing on the spot, suspend driver's licenses of racers, and stiffen penalties upon conviction;
• Passed ground-breaking legislation and prepared plans to enable Ontario to respond to crises such as SARS or avian flu.

Tories: Cut safety funding

• Cut $181 million in funding from the Ministry of Public Safety;
• Cut $6 million from the Ministry of the Attorney General;
• Abandoned the poor and created a desperate generation by gutting Community and Social Services funding;
• Hate crimes increased 93 percent during the Harris-Eves years;
• Between 1995 and 1997, number of police officers in Ontario fell by 544, a per-capita decline of 8 percent over ten years;
• At the end of the Harris-Eves years, there were 10,000 outstanding arrest warrants, many for serious and violent offences;
• Killed legislation to get tough on drunk driving;
• Failed to release funds earmarked for victims, and failed to implement a significant victims' rights initiative;
• Proposed getting tough on judges, not on crime, by publishing judges' decision records.

NDP: Incompetent & unreliable

• Voted against legislation to require mandatory disclosure of gunshot wounds;
• While in government in the 1990s, cut 90 sergeant positions, and about half of the 700 clerical jobs throughout Ontario;
• "The NDP government is just dumping constantly on police officers." Metro Police Association president Art Lymer, after police begin a work-to-rule campaign in October of 1992.