THUNDER BAY — The Nishnawbe Aski Police Service says it is in a unique situation, as many police forces across Ontario say they’re struggling with recruitment.
Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner announced a province-wide hiring campaign along with representatives from a number of policing agencies in the province earlier in July. Kerzner called the current situation a “crisis.”
Nishnawbe Aski police became a fully legislated police service in December 2024, meaning it makes NAPS accountable under the same laws as municipal police services in Ontario, and gives it access to regular funding from the province.
However, this follows just over 30 years of what the police service calls historic underfunding.
“Signing into this act effectively more than doubled our frontline compliment to 517 officers,” NAPS media relations coordinator Scott Paradis wrote in an email to Newswatch. “This means while we do share the same recruitment challenges of other police services, we also face the unique hurdle of correcting historic underfunding issues.”
That is being helped, Paradis said, by an agreement the Indigenous-led force has entered into with the Ontario Police College which sets aside 20 seats per intake for NAPS.
“At four a year, this means we could potentially welcome 80 new officers a year,” Paradis said. “Despite all of the recruitment challenges, our recruitment unit has been successful at hiring nearly 20 recruits per intake since the (police college) provided us with the guaranteed 20 seats.”
Darren Montour, the president of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario as well as the Chief of Police at Six Nations Police Service, has said Indigenous forces — whether formally legislated like NAPS has become or not — routinely face challenges regarding recruitment, as they are often responsible for covering very large geographic territories.
“They are policing these areas sometimes with one officer," Montour said during the July 7 virtual media conference.
City police in Thunder Bay have also spoken about the challenges they say they’re facing; the local police service board — the group of civilians tasked with overseeing the force — has asked the City of Thunder Bay’s intergovernmental affairs committee to raise the issue — one of several — to provincial leaders at this summer’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference.
According to the minutes of the police service board’s May 2025 meeting, a summary of its recruitment concern said that “Thunder Bay is facing difficulty competing with other services (e.g., NAPS) in attracting and retaining officers.”
The Nishnawbe Aski Police Service is the largest Indigenous-led force in Canada and covers 34 First Nations, all in Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory across Ontario’s far north.
“Recruitment issues have been long and ongoing challenges for NAPS,” Paradis said, adding that making up a full complement now that they’re legislated “does present us with a new obstacle.”
-With files from Katie Nicholls.