Ottawa police seek new training facility as Algonquin College lease ends

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) will be losing access to its training facility at Algonquin College in 2026 and is looking for a new place to train recruits.

In an interview with CBC News, OPS Deputy Chief Steve Bell said police started discussions at the beginning of the year to renew its existing lease with the college for another five-year term.

At that point, Bell said the college served police with a notice of termination that would have OPS vacate its professional development centre located in an Algonquin college building in 2026.

The facility, which OPS has been using for 23 years, includes classrooms, office space, a firing range, a simulations lab, and a defensive tactics studio.

Bell said it was "a surprise" to hear the college wanted to terminate the lease.

"We've been there a long time, that is the main area where we do all of our training in, so it's a very big focal point for the Ottawa Police Service. We heavily rely on that area," he said.

The college told police it needed the extra space, Bell said.

Bruce Hickey, communications manager with Algonquin College, said the school had no comment on the issue.

The move to end OPS's lease on the facility comes as the college is finalizing its 10-year master campus development plan, which is looking at current buildings and spaces to see if they meet the growth needs of the college.

That plan will be presented to the college's board of governors for approval in February 2025.

Matthew Cox, president of the Ottawa Police Association, said new OPS recruits initially attend the facility at Algonquin College prior to attending the Ontario Police College in Aylmer, Ont.

Search for new facility

While OPS looks for a new training space, Bell said police are negotiating with Algonquin College in the hope of retaining access to the firing range in the facility for an additional five years.

He added other ranges can be found in and around the city, but none could handle OPS's high demand.

The possibility of needing to build a new firing range came up Wednesday when OPS tabled its 2025 draft budget.

"We always identify risks to the budget, things that may happen that we can't quantify or don't know that are going to occur, and one of those risks is that we will need to invest capital money into building a temporary solution for a firing range," Bell said.

"We know that that would come in 2025 and would be quite costly for the taxpayers."

Another possibility is to use the new police headquarters being built in Barrhaven as a potential training space. Construction on the $115-million building, dubbed the South Facility, began in 2023 and is expected to be completed in 2026.

Bell said the site includes seven acres of undeveloped land but added it's too early to make a decision on building a new training facility there.

Bell said officers use the centre on a yearly basis to qualify in use-of-force training in order to maintain their status as a police officer.

Special constables with Carleton University and OC Transpo also use the Algonquin College facility for use-of-force training.

Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs, a spokesperson with OC Transpo, said in an email that the 2026 closure of the centre will have no effect on OC Transpo's training program as it is growing its in-house certification initiatives.

Cox said in the long run, he sees the need for OPS to have it's own training space, independent of Algonquin College.

"We've probably outgrown that space," he said.