THUNDER BAY — The provincial government recognizes the need for more police officers across the province and is launching a coordinated recruitment effort with services across Ontario.
Ontario's Solicitor General, Michael Kerzner, announced a combined effort with several policing agencies to hire more officers, describing it as a "crisis" aimed at addressing the shortage of frontline officers.
The campaign, called Answer The Call, is designed to encourage those who have considered a career in policing to take the leap.
During the virtual announcement, Kerzner said that the number of police officers graduating in Ontario has increased from 1,200 to over 2,100 since 2022.
Darren Montour is the president of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario as well as the Chief of Police at Six Nations Police Service. He spoke about how northern Ontario is directly affected by the lack of officers.
"I look at my colleagues in NAPS (Nishnawbe Aski Police Services), Treaty Three Police, Lac Seul (Police Service) and Anishnabek Police Service and the recruiting challenges they have to police in these large geographical areas. They are policing these areas sometimes with one officer," Montrour said on the virtual call.
In mainstream policing, he continued, when a call comes through there are usually a minimum of two officers who respond. But often in remote communities, there's only one officer available.
"The goal is to recruit officers; those who are Indigenous and non-Indigenous who want to police those communities," he added.
"We're all hiring."
City police have already noted they are struggling to hire or retain officers, especially since NAPS became an officially legislated police service last December.
Police Chief Darcy Fleury recently commented that they have 10 sworn officer positions they are looking to fill.
Newswatch contacted NAPS and OPP for comment, but was not provided one at the time of publishing.
