Landlord-tenant disputes, 'chaotic' ice storm, thefts kept officers busy in Bradford and Innisfil last month, department says For the first time, local police saw more than 3,000 calls for service in a single month. Outgoing South Simcoe Police Service Deputy Chief Sheryl Sutton presented the service’s monthly operational update as part of the police services board meeting at the South Division station in Bradford on April 23. The report showed the local police saw 3,069 calls for service in March, setting a record and jumping from 2,284 in the same month last year. That followed updated statistics released by the service on April 10, which revised January’s previously record-setting number of calls to 2,778 from 3,543. Those requests for officers to attend “keep creeping up” each year, with local police responding to 8,273 incidents in the first three months of 2025, about 1,400 more than the 6,867 over the same time in 2024, according to the updated data. Similar to the previous month, Sutton explained landlord and tenant disputes continued to be a “significant” factor, with 41 incidents as of the end of March this year, compared to 24 by the same time last year. That included another 14 incidents this March. Board chair Chris Gariepy expected the issue will likely get worse before it gets better, as the impact of American tariffs on the economy could see people unemployed but unwilling to leave their apartments. “We’re in bad shape right now,” he said. Board member and Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin explained the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) — where she also chairs the small urban caucus — has advocated to both Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General as well as the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to deal with the backlog of unresolved disputes at the Landlord and Tenant Board. “There are homes sitting empty because people are terrified of renting them to people,” she said. The delays at the tribunal have caused issues locally, but also been felt around the province, and Bradford council also passed a motion March 4 calling on the provincial government to protect renters and small-scale landlords. Board members acknowledged it can take months and cost thousands of dollars to resolve issues at the tribunal. Meanwhile, Sutton said the service continues to monitor the situation locally. “There’s no quick fix for any of it, and the police, we’re really just there to keep the peace,” she said. That has an impact on police budgets, as Dollin noted officers could be addressing other issues if they weren’t tied up with landlord-tenant disputes, which Chief John Van Dyke explained can take “a long time” to handle. March also saw a spike in stolen vehicles, which jumped to 14, compared to just five in February, and Sutton reiterated that those thefts tend to be cyclic. “It’s usually from the GTA, these auto theft gangs come up to our area and we’ll have an increase over a couple-night period,” she said. On a positive note, by the end of March, thefts from vehicles sat at 11 compared to 26 in the same time last year, while thefts under $5,000 were at 121 compared to 166 last year. An ice storm during the last weekend in March also kept officers busy with one platoon responding to 81 calls in a single 12-hour shift. “It was very busy on the road that night, but they did a fantastic job of managing the resources as best they can,” Sutton said. “It was a little bit chaotic.” That likely contributed to the increase in collisions that month to 166, compared with 119 during the same month last year. The same storm may have also contributed to a spike in offload times for mental-health calls at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH), where officers had to wait an average of 4.7 hours in March. “We’ve been doing quite well with our transfers of care and this is truly an anomaly,” Sutton said. “We haven’t seen a 4.7(-hour) wait time at any of our hospitals in years.” By comparison, the average offload time at Southlake Health was just 1.3 hours in March, and in February just 1.5 hours at RVH. Under certain circumstances, officers who encounter people in crisis may take them to hospital for assessment, but must remain with them until they are admitted. This month’s meeting is expected to be the last for Sutton, who announced her retirement from a 36-year career in policing in February, and has remained with the service to help the transition to incoming Deputy Chief Chris Landry, who officially began his new role on April 22.