Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders has told front line officers he’s had enough of them wearing non-uniform hats while on the job to protest cuts, but the head of the union representing them says the display will continue.

Police spokesperson Mark Pugash said the order went out that as of 6 a.m. Tuesday; all officers must be in “approved uniforms only.”

Last week, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack asked officers to start wearing hats with the letters “TPA” written on them, to protest what they call a lack of progress by police administrators on meeting promises made this year, including hiring 80 new constables.

On Friday, Saunders replied in a video memo distributed to all staff that the service was working to hire new officers and had received more than 100 applications for the open positions.

But McCormack told CP24 his membership has told him they have no plans to remove the hats.

“What our officers and civilians are telling us is they want to continue to wear the caps as a sign of solidarity as a sign of unity until we have an actual (solution.)”

Officers who continue to wear the hats could be subject to a note inserted into their personnel file, which could impact promotion considerations in the future, CP24 crime specialist Steve Ryan said.  

“There are some ramifications about discipline but again this has become such an important issue for our membership – when we have people waiting five or six minutes on (the phone) on 911 calls,” McCormack said.

The TPA job action measures are in response to a modernization plan adopted by Toronto police, which calls for the overall size of the force to shrink from 5,224 officers today to as few as 4,767 by the end of 2019.