Recruitment and Training

Provincial Compliance Requirements

Section 18(3) of PSA Ontario Regulation 3/99 requires every POU to consist of a unit supervisor and at least four squads of seven officers, including a squad leader.

In addition, section 33(c)(iii) of the Regulation requires every police service to have a skills development and learning plan that addresses members of a POU. 

Complement requirements for POUs have increased under the CSPA Ontario Regulation 392/23 and its regulations, with standardized initial and ongoing training now prescribed under regulation. Further details concerning these requirements are included under the Deployment section of this report.

The IoP’s Findings 

At the time of the inspection, police services with a POU appeared to have a sufficient number of trained POU members, with many services indicating ongoing efforts to expand on their own complement of POU members. Basic POU member training is now mandated under the CSPA to be delivered by qualified instructors through the Ontario Police College (OPC). Previous training was provided by the individual police services and was developed with input from the OPOAC. Importantly, this previous training was part of the foundation of the new OPC curriculum. 

All the POUs work closely together with respect to training. A basic public order training class will be hosted by a police service and will quite often consist of members from different police services. In addition, the OPOAC supports the communication of training details to support ongoing training needs. 

Additionally, another finding indicates that through the inspection that there are smaller to mid-size police services that, although they do not maintain their own POUs, are providing a limited number of members with POU training. Those police services do not have the resources to provide a complete POU on their own but utilize trained members to complement other police services that do have a POU. We remind boards and services that, while combining resources with another service is permitted, the combined POU must comply with legislation, including training and equipment standards.