Some Simcoe County municipalities, feeling handcuffed by the recent news of a major increase to Ontario Provincial Police costs next year, voted this week to have the County of Simcoe investigate the possibility of a new county-wide police service.
At their committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 12, on the agenda was a letter from the Town of Wasaga Beach calling on the county to undertake a feasibility study for a county force to explore their options outside of the OPP model.
“Most of us are facing this same issue with respect to the OPP and the increases we’re seeing this year,” said Wasaga Beach Mayor Brian Smith during the meeting. “This is quite clearly not sustainable.”
“Policing is never going to be cheap but we have to look at better solutions than we have today,” he said.
Of the County of Simcoe’s 16 member municipalities and two separated cities, the only municipalities not covered by OPP are Barrie (served by the Barrie Police Service), Bradford West Gwillimbury and Innisfil (served by South Simcoe Police Service).
The news of a major OPP contract cost increase came as a shock to many towns using the OPP services when new contracts came to councils late last month, including Collingwood where there's a 37 per cent increase to the OPP bill this year. Orillia is expecting a 25 per cent increase while Midland is expecting a 26 per cent increase.
Erin Cranton of the OPP’s corporate communications bureau said in a recent email that the OPP recognizes there are concerns about the cost of policing services next year.
She said under the current OPP billing model, all municipalities are paying the same base services cost per property, plus additional costs for calls for service, overtime, accommodations, cleaning services, prisoner transportation, court security and enhancements.
Cranton estimates the cost for policing per average household across Ontario for 2025 will be $399.
She said costs for components such as court security, prisoner transportation and in some cases, calls for service all decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic as many court proceedings were done virtually. As costs tend to take two years to reconcile, this meant that for the past two years costs were down, but are now coming back up the further away the lockdown pandemic days become.
“While this is the highest per property cost since the implementation of the OPP billing model in 2015, this cost continues to compare favourably to other police services in Ontario,” she said.
During discussion at the county table on Tuesday, Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin said the South Simcoe police are “amazing,” however this year’s cost-per-household Bradford and Innisfil are expecting to shoulder works out to $733.66.
“While I understand my friends in the house here are dealing with double-digit increases ... you’re still significantly lower than South Simcoe police,” said Dollin.
Midland Mayor Bill Gordon — who himself served as a police officer with the former Midland Police Service for 25 years — reminded council that Midland had its own municipal police force until a 2017 decision by council chose to disband it in 2018 to transition to the OPP as a cost-saving measure.
“They got into the predatory practice of taking over municipal police services,” said Gordon. “For now, the OPP is highest paid, until Toronto does their negotiation. This is the way the cycle works. We’re not going to escape that.”
“Policing is going to continue to be expensive. This billing model is unfair and has been since inception,” he said.
At the end of discussion, the committee voted to refer the matter back to county staff to gather their input before deciding whether to pull the trigger on a regional police force feasibility study.
The committee also voted in favour of having Warden Basil Clarke send a letter to the solicitor general regarding the OPP billing increase for Simcoe County municipalities serviced by the OPP, which would also be forwarded to the ministry of municipal affairs and housing requesting they initiate a review of the OPP billing formula.
Decisions made during a committee of the whole meeting need to be ratified at the next county council meeting before going into effect.
— With files from Derek Howard and Michael Owen
