Ontario spends $75M for guns and gangs enforcement — but Thunder Bay city police force not included

Despite gang and gun activity being a major issue in the city, the Thunder Bay Police Service is not part of a new Ontario Guns and Gangs Enforcement Strategy.

The OPP-led initiative was formally announced Tuesday. It's being funded by about $75 million from the province — that funding was announced last fall — and will allow police services across the province to better share information about gun and gang investigations, said OPP Det. Insp. Lee Fulford.

"Establishing the Joint Forces operation just allows for easier collaboration, more formalized collaboration," Fulford said. "Now there's single points of contact and stuff like that, that will be able to better assist and better deal with intelligence coming from Toronto into the northwest, enable us to to better have strategic tactical enforcement priorities."

Fulford said better information sharing is vital when dealing with street gangs that are operating throughout the province.

"Street gang migration has been a challenge for police services for many years now," he said. "There's always been new criminal enterprises emerging within the communities."

"We have seen a proliferation of the street gangs from larger urban areas into our rural and northern communities," he said. "They operate in a very large network and they're considered criminal organizations and they operate across the entire province. They're very opportunistic."

"And they're able to build strong criminal networks and influence the spread across large geographic areas."

Thunder Bay police to continue to seek funding

In the northwest, the Anishinabek and Nishnawbe Aski police services are part of the project, but Thunder Bay police aren't participating directly.

"We will continue to seek funding and partnership opportunities that will help improve public safety and community wellbeing in Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario," acting city police Chief Dan Taddeo said in a statement. "However, the depth of social and law enforcement issues in Thunder Bay present unique challenges."

"When partnership opportunities present themselves, we must carefully evaluate how our resources may fit in and what local impacts that could have. This is the critical balance needed to ensure we are not overextending our resources by committing officers outside of the City of Thunder Bay."

Both Fulford and Taddeo said, however, guns and gangs enforcement efforts across Ontario will have an impact on Thunder Bay.

Gang crackdowns in Toronto should have impact

"That's what we're hopeful for, is wherever we are operating in the provinces, this new joint forces team should have an impact across the rest of the province," Fulford said. "If we're enforcing in the GTA and we're taking gangs out that are operating in the northwest, it should have an impact."

Taddeo said it's been long known that people from across Ontario come to Thunder Bay to participate in the drug trade.

"We are also aware the most vulnerable people in this community are disproportionately affected by the impacts of drug trafficking," he said. "For that reason, we applaud any initiative aiming to disrupt drug-trafficking and gang activity. It is not unreasonable to assume an arrest in Toronto, Timmins or Sudbury could prevent an out-of-district drug trafficker from setting up roots in Thunder Bay."

Meanwhile, Taddeo stated the Thunder Bay Police Service is also working to set up its own joint force operation, focusing on gangs and guns in northern Ontario.

He stated Thunder Bay police also "maintain numerous local partnerships, with agencies inside and outside of law enforcement, that actively combat issues of organized crime and human trafficking."

A media release states some of the provincial funding will also go to support the OPP-led Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit, as well as to creating more of a police presence at border crossings, to help stem the flow of illegal weapons into Ontario from the United States.