This column was published in the National Post.

Wouldn’t it be nice to collect a pay cheque while you’re on the golf course or out on the ski slopes? What if you could collect a pay cheque to watch Netflix all day, or just to sleep?

Does this sound like winning the lottery?

No, it’s just what you get if you’re convicted of attempted murder as a police officer in Ontario.

On Monday January 25, a Toronto jury came back with a verdict that Constable James Forcillo was guilty of attempted murder in the 2013 shooting death of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim. Forcillo fatally shot Yatim, who was armed with a switchblade on an empty streetcar. Five-and-a-half seconds after Yatim had collapsed to the floor of the streetcar from the first three shots, Forcillo fired six more shots at Yatim, hitting him five times.

When Constable Forcillo fired the shots, he was earning a $103,967 annual salary.

Following the charges, Forcillo was placed on paid leave for seven months. After seven months, he was back on the job, working in an administrative role at Crime Stoppers. Now that’s he’s been convicted, he will continue to collect a salary although he won’t be working.

Ontario is the only province in Canada that allows charged – let alone convicted – police officers to continue to receive pay. Under the Police Services Act, officers facing criminal charges must be suspended with pay until they resign, are terminated or reintegrated, in a process that can take years.

Convicted officers, like Forcillo, can remain suspended with pay until they are sentenced to a term of imprisonment. After sentenced to imprisonment, it is at the discretion of the Chief or Police Board to suspend the officer without out pay. But even then, the officer keep his job. And if an officer is convicted of a serious criminal offense and receives a conditional discharge (no prison time) the option of unpaid leave is not even available.

An officer can only be fired after a decision by a disciplinary tribunal, which can take years. Consider, for example, the case of a Durham regional constable Glen Turpin, who was fired after seven years of paid leave. Turpin was charged was charged with assault, threatening bodily harm and excessive force, and twice convicted on the charges. However, he remained on paid leave, amassing $600,000 in salary before he was eventually fired.

The paid leave system has become a laughing stock in Ontario. Consider the case of former Waterloo Regional Police officer Craig Markham, who was suspended for pay for three years related to breach of trust charges. Markham sent an email to the police service’s solicitor in March 2015 stating “I am very thankful and fortunate to have received such a nice gift from WRPS over the last three years.” He also bragged about being “down south” playing golf and “hanging out on the beach using some of that WRPS sick bank payout.”

The paid leave system for police who have been criminally charged costs Ontario taxpayers dearly. In 2014, the Ministry of Community Safety estimated that $1.13 million in salaries was paid to 18 officers under suspension. In 2015, for the months January to August the cost was $1.04 million.

But the broader problem is one of public trust. In almost any other field, if you commit a criminal offence in the course of your job – defraud your employer, steal from the till, assault a customer – you will be fired for cause. But if you’re a police officer in Ontario, special rules apply.

Police should be held to a higher standard in Ontario. Or at the very least, to the same standard they are held to in other provinces. It’s time to reform the Police Services Act to give police chiefs the power to suspend officers without pay when they are charged with criminal offences. Until then, we will keep watching officers like Turpin, Markham and now Forcillo, getting paid not to work.