Northerners split on province's plans to hire 200 new OPP officers amid calls to defund the police

The Ontario government plans to spend $25 million to hire 200 additional Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) has garnered a mixed bag of reaction from people in the northern reaches of the province.

The new recruits are meant to provide frontline officers with additional resources they need "to better protect communities, while safeguarding their mental health and well-being," the province said in a news release Thursday.

At a news conference alongside Doug Ford, Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said decisions on exactly which detachments the officers will be stationed at will be for the commissioner to decide, but she said northern regions of the province have suffered from "chronic understaffing."

TiCarra Paquet, the co-president of Black Lives Matter Sudbury, says more police isn't the right response to alleviating issues surrounding mental health, within the police force itself, or the community. 

'My cousin fell to her death'

In May, Paquet's cousin, 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet, fell from the 24th floor of a Toronto apartment building while police were on site. 

"My cousin, she fell to her death off of a 24-floor balcony in Toronto. And the police were initially called to mitigate a domestic dispute. Now, if let's say a social worker was the first responder... perhaps she'd still be here now," she said.

Since then, Paquet, along with other community members in Sudbury have been making calls to defund the police. 

She said despite her organization's calls to action, she's not surprised by the province's plans for more recruits.

Police, their services are needed after a crime has already been committed. They are not crime prevention.— TiCarra Paquet, Black Lives Matter Sudbury

"It calls into question the Ford government ... as to why they're spending this money on more police rather than, for instance, the school board or more teachers, or raising teacher's salaries." 

Paquet said she'd rather see an investment into creating opportunities in the region for people to thrive.

"Police, their services are needed after a crime has already been committed. They are not crime prevention," Paquet said.

"I think we need to start investing in the north, creating opportunities. We can't expect to have police there ... after a crime has already happened. We need to get to the root, the source and that's creating opportunities for people."

'The amount of work that our officers were doing'

Thomas Carrique, commissioner of the OPP says the province's investment has come after a number of internal and external views into the OPP. It also follows a report on officers' mental health and occupational stress. 

"One of the consistent things that came up time and time again was the amount of work that our officers were doing, the staffing they were facing."  

"In particular, the large geographic and rural areas of the northern part of the province," he said, "So they do require some help up there."  

We need to be funded so we can provide those services to make we have a safe and secure province.— Thomas Carrique, Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police

Carrique said it's difficult to say where the 200 hires will be dispersed throughout the province. However, so far, the plan is to assign about 40 recruits to the northern region over the next couple of months. This is not necessarily the final allotment for the north.

Carrique said he disagrees with the concept of defunding the police. 

"I very much believe in a whole system's approach in public safety and community wellbeing. And in my opinion, the success of which relies on the strategic collaboration with community partners.

"It's absolutely necessary to ensure that all of the stakeholders have adequate funding that they are obligated to provide. Policing, we have many legal obligations and mandated responsibilities and we need to be funded so we can provide those services to make we have a safe and secure province." 

'More Indigenous officers'

George Couchie, of Nipissing First Nation, is a retired OPP officer. He says the province's plan is welcome news in a region where First Nations police services are severely underfunded. 

"Hopefully they can hire more Indigenous officers, not just for the north, but all over Ontario," Couchie said.

"We need to hire these officers and then train them properly so they can have an understanding of the communities that they're going to be working in." 

I always tell young officers we need to be more compassionate when we're dealing with the public.— George Couchie, retired Ontario Provincial Police officer

Couchie said defunding the police, as many have suggested in recent months, could have negative impacts on communities in the north dealing with high rates of incarceration, drug problems and homelessness.

"First Nation police services are underfunded and ... they don't have enough officers. We're trying to make our communities healthy and it's really training those officers again, to learn of the history of the communities, have an understanding I think that will go a long way." 

"I always tell young officers we need to be more compassionate when we're dealing with the public." 

Couchie said teaching officers about Indigenous history, colonialism and residential schools can go a long way in preparing recruits for the communities they serve, should the northern region receive additional officers. 

"It's that tie that those officers need to make within these communities," he said, "We need healthy officers that are going into those communities to help people."