KAWARTHA LAKES-Chief John Hagarty has been at the helm of the Kawartha Lakes Police Service for 12 years and has spent 35 years in policing. For much of that time the Police Services Act has not changed. “The main thing for me is the Police Services Act is an old, outdated act, I think it still talked about the Solicitor General which hasn’t exsisted for some time.” Hagarty told Kawartha 411. “I’m not seeing it as a win or a loss, it’s respecting that the act needed to be modernized in that modernization there’s certainly going to be changes and the changes I am seeing I am not, at this time, concerned about them at all.”
The Ontario governement announced last week it was tabling legislation with sweeping changes to policing laws in the province. Hagarty says the Chiefs have been calling for change for about four about five years. “It was really a call from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police to the Ontario governement to modernize the Police Services Act and that got the ball rolling.” The result was a 417 page report outlining the proposed changes.
Chief Hagarty says he hasn’t yet gone over the entire report with a fine tooth comb but so far so good. “What I have seen is the attempts to modernize the act, the attempts to empower greater transparency and accountability by moving parts of it out,” he says. “The Special Investigations Unit gets moved out of the the Police Services Act which now sounds like it’s called the Safer Ontario Act.”
The changes are the first real updates to the Police Act in 25 years. The province is going to enhance police accountability to the public by creating a new Inspector General of Police with a mandate to oversee and monitor police services and police service boards. All board members would be required to complete training, including diversity training. Reporting requirements for boards would also be strengthened. “The public complaints system is being adjusted and given more powers and re-titled, more powers to investigate many things involving polcing including polcie services boards and police chiefs and some of that on the Inspector Generals own accord, so some of those are good things.” Hagarty says. Currently, the OIPRD hears complaints about police from across the province and typically sends the majority of its complaints back to the police service. It would be renamed the Ontario Policing Complaints Agency.
The province is also updating the police disciplinary process, including setting new rules for suspension without pay for police officers accused of serious criminal wrongdoing. “One of the more known highlights is this whole issue of suspension with our without pay and that finally has been adjusted so I’m pleased to see that. he says. “I had some ability to suspend without pay if the officer was incarcerated for example or part of their conditions of release where they couldn’t carry a firearm but now its been expanded which is appropriate, but I would say that in the 12 years I’ve been the Police Chief a scenario hasn’t presented iteself where I would consider suspending an officer without pay, even applying the new criteria.” Ontario is the only province in Canada that cannot currently suspend officers without pay.
Hagarty is also pleased that there may be more community involvement in policing in the future. “What I’m not surprised about is the ministry has been nudging police services the last few years to move into more of a community safety and well being planning and so that’s being enshrined in the new act, before we were required to develop strategic or business plans and they had some components in it that we had to address,well now in the legislation its really forcing us, I dont mean that as a negative, its really forcing the municipality to get involved and consult with the LHINS, Â mental health, school boards, community and social services, council, the board and other prescribed persons to make sure that we are integrating our response in our community and not just be on the sidelines. That’s a good thing”
The new act will also, for the first time clearly define police responsibilities as those that can only be performed by an officer. That could mean the privatiziation of some of the services police currently provide. Â “The boards can consider having forensic identification work and other specialty services contracted out which I think could be helpful.” There is also some new rules around the public complaints process and bringing Special Constables into the mix.
“I think the main thing that Im happy about it is that its clear the Ontario government listened to the Chiefs in the Province of Ontario, certainly not everything we wanted, other groups like the Association of Municipalities of Ontario or the Police Assocation of Ontario would have probably wanted more restrictions, less Police Chief involvment in decision making of police services, more municipal control of police budgets and that kind of thing but I dont see anything like that in this legislation.”
