By: Pat Daley

Joke (supposedly a true story from somewhere in the southern U.S.) circulating around the Internet:
State Trooper: You were going well over the speed limit, ma'am.
Driver: Do you have to write a ticket, officer? Can't I just buy a ticket to one of your balls?
State Trooper: Sorry, ma'am. State troopers don't have any balls.

  But seriously, folks, police do have balls. Police associations also organize marathon runs, tub dunks, and telephone campaigns to raise money for all kinds of good causes from cancer research to recreation programs for children and youth. In that way, they're not so different from most other unions.
  Watching once again Victor Malarek's bone-chilling interview with Toronto Police Association (TPA) President Craig Brommell, I realized this isn't the first time a Canadian labour leader had been demonized in the media. In fact, I found myself hoping that the general abhorrence of TPA's True Blue campaign doesn't turn into an attack on the "union" itself.
  Police officers deserve the same right as any other workers to organize themselves to bargain collectively for improved wages and working conditions. Unions also have the right to run political campaigns for or against the candidates of their choice.
  But the TPA has stepped over the line. I've never been called by a teachers' federation or the steelworkers' union asking for financial contributions to their campaign to defeat the bad guys. For my vote, maybe, but not my money. Those campaigns are rightly financed by the union dues that come off members' pay cheques.
  Political parties raise money from the public, but they also have to make public the names of people who contribute over a certain amount.
  Maybe we can't blame the cops for blurring the line. In today's Ontario, the government allows police forces to do some direct fundraising through "option 4 policing."
  Option 4 policing was discussed in the Ontario legislature in May 1998, and has been a cash cow for at least one municipal police force, which was able to raise $2,200 in one afternoon. How did they accomplish this, you may well ask. Simple: by distributing a notice along with the standard provincial speeding ticket, inviting payment to the local police services board instead. According to NDP MPP Peter Kormos, the notice tells drivers that if they "attend at the local police station within 48 hours with the ticket and pay $55 cash, exact change, payable to the local police services board, the ticket will be torn up,"
  The problem is insufficient financial resources. If TPA doesn't have enough money to pay for its political campaign, here's a suggestion: tough guy Brommell can face his membership and ask for a dues increase.

Pat Daley is a freelance writer and editor in Athlone in Simcoe County, Ontario.