Police Service Agreements
Provincial Compliance Requirements
As previously noted, section 18(2) of Ontario Regulation 3/99, under the PSA, allowed a board to enter into an agreement, pursuant to section 7 of the PSA, to provide the services of a POU through another police service or on a combined, or regional, or co-operative basis. This is a sensible legislative approach that means a smaller police service does not have to operationalize its own POU, so long as it has the necessary agreement in place to access a POU from another police service when public order maintenance is required.
The ability to enter into an agreement with another police service board, or the OPP to provide public order maintenance is continued, with modification, under section 14 of the CSPA and its regulations.
The IoP’s Findings
Currently in Ontario, public order maintenance is delivered through 11 dedicated POUs provided across the province by 10 municipal services and the OPP. At the time of this inspection, one additional municipal police service was actively working towards creating their own POU and will become the twelfth in the province. This translates into 32 municipal police services in Ontario that rely on another police service to deliver this function through a police service agreement. Of those services, 28 rely on the OPP for POU services, with the remaining have an agreement with another municipal service. Of the police services that rely on the OPP for POU capacity, none of the 28 police services are charged back for the OPP’s assistance.
The IoP confirmed that each of the 28 municipal police service boards had entered into an agreement (under the PSA) with the OPP to have the services of a POU provided to their police service. This agreement, referred to as the Framework Agreement, commenced in 2001, for a term of five years, with an option for renewal for another five years. In 2013-2014, the OPP issued letters to all boards that had this agreement to indicate that the OPP would continue to provide the services listed within, including that of a POU. The IoP received confirmation that the OPP will continue to provide these services until revised police service agreements are implemented in accordance with the new requirements of section 14 the CSPA. Some of the 11 operational POUs police services also maintained an agreement with other boards or with the OPP to augment their own local capabilities.[1]
As Ontario has now transitioned to the CSPA, the IoP stresses the importance for the 33 municipal police services relying on another services’ POU have their boards review their policies and policing agreements, with particular attention to ensure compliance with the new requirements for policing agreements under section 14 of the CSPA, and put the necessary new agreements, board policy, and Chief’s procedure(s) in place to ensure they continue to have a legal mechanism for the provision of public order, whether through another board or the OPP Commissioner. This same analysis and updating also applies to those police services that do have their own POUs, but also have agreements with other police services for assistance to augment their own police services capabilities. The requirements for these CSPA section 14 agreements are outlined in subsection 14(6), with further details found under Ontario Regulation 398/23 – Alternative Provision of Police Functions.
While undertaking a review of their existing policies, boards also need to recognize the increased demands for public order when entering an agreement to receive services or to deliver services to another board. This is particularly noteworthy for the 28 police services that relied on the framework agreement with the OPP under the PSA. The IoP was advised that the OPP is developing a new approach to assess and evaluate the potential impacts of any new agreements on its ability to meet its own and others’ demands. The IoP commends this, as it will provide both the OPP and those police services that currently rely on the OPP for public order support a realistic supply versus demand picture. Alongside the OPP’s ongoing evaluation, boards should also consider potential capacity issues given how many services the OPP supports from a public order perspective. Boards, in close consultation with their Chief, may wish to consider other police services as alternative options to the OPP when considering entering into an agreement for POU services. By law, boards are required to ensure adequate and effective policing for the local community the police service delivers policing to. An adequate level and effective operation of public order maintenance (or under the CSPA, maintaining the public peace) is one of the core policing functions boards are responsible for ensuring the adequate and effective delivery of. This includes adhering to the standards set out in Ontario Regulation 392/23 Adequate and Effective Policing (General) for minimum complement capacity and ability to deploy in a reasonable time. A proper assessment of how well previous arrangements are meeting evolving needs in this area, as well as the Chief’s operational perspective, will assist boards in evaluating whether current arrangements should be maintained, or new/enhanced arrangements should be considered. Given the IG’s mandate to monitor the delivery of adequate and effective policing across the province, this will inevitably be an area that the IoP will continue to pay attention to – including by obtaining and analyzing data related to POU demand, POU supply and the ability of the provincial POU model to meet the whole-of-province need.
The increased demand in public order has also seen police services more proactively addressing issues arising from multi-jurisdictional and prolonged public order events, which has led to the Ontario Public Order Hub model to support the coordination and facilitation of information sharing among all of Ontario’s POUs.
[1] It should be noted that section 19 of the CSPA has a mechanism whereby any board may request temporary assistance from another board, the Commissioner, or an entity that employs First Nations officers.