Learn about the roles, standards and responsibilities of police services to ensure the safety of our communities.
Effective policing is vital so we can all live in safety in our communities. To give Ontarians the security they need and expect, the Community Safety and Policing Act ( CSPA ) and its regulations:
Ontario’s police services:
Ontario has a Declaration of Principles written into its statute. Ontario’s police are committed to the following eight principles:
Municipalities can provide police services for their citizens in several ways. They can:
There are 43 municipal police services in Ontario, in addition to the OPP , for a total of 44. There are also nine self-administered First Nations police services in Ontario.
The Ministry of the Solicitor General has a wide range of responsibilities for policing in Ontario. Under the CSPA , the ministry is responsible for the following:
The standards that police services must meet are set out in the act and regulations such as the Adequate and Effective Policing (General) regulation.
The Policing Standards Manual will be updated to align with the requirements in the CSPA to provide guidance for municipalities, police services boards, and police services on the Act and its regulations.
The CSPA includes police oversight and discipline processes to ensure more accountability for the policing sector, improve fairness for officers and increase public confidence and trust in the police discipline process. Ontario has three police oversight bodies and one administrative body related to discipline.
Ensures compliance with and enforces the CSPA and its regulations. Responds to public complaints about police service delivery and allegations of police board member misconduct. Examines performance of police services and boards.
Responsible for investigating public complaints about police officers, reviewing issues of a systemic nature, and investigating complaints in the public interest.
Administers police discipline adjudications, budget-related arbitrations, and labour-related conciliation and arbitration.
Investigates incidents involving police officials where there is a serious injury, death, allegation of sexual assault or discharge of firearm by an official at a person.
Ontario’s Inspector General of Policing is supported by the Inspectorate of Policing, an arm’s-length division of the Ministry of the Solicitor General. The Inspector General provides oversight over policing across the province, while ensuring and enforcing compliance with the CSPA and its regulations.
The Inspector General is responsible for:
The Inspector General has regulatory oversight of:
The Inspector General is required to publicly report on their activities, including publishing inspection reports and an annual report.
Under the Anti-Racism Act , the ministry is required to collect data on an officer’s perception of the race of an individual on whom force was used and a use of force report was completed.
The police must complete Use of Force Reports required through the Use of Force and Weapons regulation. Examples of when a report is required include when a police officer:
Police must include their perception of the person’s race, age and gender in the report. It also includes information about the individuals involved and contextual information related to the incident. The ministry does not collect individuals’ names in the report.
Designated staff in the police service review the reports and their chief of police, or designate, must submit information from the report to the ministry. The information gathered by the ministry is used to support the objectives of the Anti-Racism Act to:
The ministry also uses the information to inform and enhance police practices, standards and training.
For questions about police use of force reporting, contact the ministry’s Public Safety Division by email at: publicsafetydivision@ontario.ca. For questions about race data collection, contact the Anti-Racism Strategy and Analysis Unit at: SolGen.ARSAU@ontario.ca
Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario (CISO) is a partnership between the Ontario government and the law enforcement community. It brings together police services and provincial and federal government agencies to identify and tackle organized crime across the province.
The CISO is part of a Canadian network of similar organizations that make up Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC).
CISO links organizations that are responsible for:
These connections make it possible for police and government to work together effectively to fight organized crime.
It also provides specialized intelligence training to police officers and funding to support major organized crime investigations targeting: