Next council to decide if London, Ont. needs its own special constables early next year

City council spent more than two hours debating whether London should explore hiring its own law enforcement team of "special constables.”

The upcoming municipal election might ultimately determine if London City Hall deploys special constables in the future to fill a law enforcement gap between London police and municipal bylaw compliance officers.

A final decision will come a couple months into the next term of council.

On Tuesday, council directed city staff to prepare a report by Q1 of 2027 about potential implementation models, timelines, costs, and other operational considerations for launching a permanent City of London Special Constables program.

Council also supported an amendment by Coun. Corrine Rahman to skip a recommended two-year pilot project and instead have staff report back about how to implement a permanent program.

Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis supported consideration of a permanent program because it might justify a reduction in the cost of city hall’s contracts with private security firms, “I want staff to actually come back to us and say, ‘Here’s how we transition from these contracts with private security companies into special constables who can actually enforce things like trespass, [and] our bylaws as well.’”

Rahman’s motion also directed the upcoming staff report to examine if traffic enforcement, particularly in school zones, could be a responsibility of special constables.

Coun. Susan Stevenson expressed concern that London police and the London Police Association (LPA) had not been consulted about adding traffic enforcement activities to the role of special constables, “The vagueness of what we’re putting forward is going to potentially breed all kinds of conversations between now and what we’re hearing next spring.”

Last October, the consultant’s report identified four potential core responsibilities of City of London Special Constables:

• Protect Community Informed Response (CIR) teams during encampment engagement and clean-up
• Disorder Management (detain, remove, and charge offenders on city property, at city hall, municipal facilities, parks, and parking lots)
• Mental Health Intervention (power to apprehend and transport individuals in crisis)
• Traffic Management (parades and construction)

Coun. Hadleigh McAlister emphasized he wants the staff report to consider the joint deployment of Coordinated Informed Response (CIR) teams and special constables when encampments are cleared, “I think our CIR team absolutely needs backup. I have heard from them loud and clear [that] they need support in the field. Having those special constables will address a lot of the issues that they are experiencing.”

Special constables would not be allowed to carry firearms or conducted energy weapons (Tasers), but would be equipped with “defensive” items including a Kevlar vest, handcuffs, a baton, and OC spray (pepper spray).

City of London Special Constables would have the ability to enforce four provincial Acts:

• Trespass to Property Act
• Mental Health Act
• Liquor Licence Act
• Municipal Bylaws

“I am not convinced here today, after all that’s been said and done, that this is the way forward,” said Coun. Anna Hopkins.

Mayor Josh Morgan emphasized that no decision will be made until next year, “What we have is a different type of option available to the municipality that could serve the community in a different way, in an enhanced way, [and] in a number of different areas that our staff will write a report about. We may agree with all the aspects of that report. We may agree with some of them, [or] we may not like any of it, but we have the opportunity to move forward today on seeing what that looks like.”

City Manager Sandra Datars-Bere told council that it is unlikely that the staff report will be ready for a decision prior to consideration of the 2027 Municipal Budget Update.

“I couldn’t say to you today that we would actually have all the information back and council making its deliberations in time for us to include it in the 2027 [Budget] Update, but, I hear what you’re saying in terms of, ‘Can we can we move this quicker?’” Datars-Bere said. “I think there’s a lot of work. Given the feedback we’ve received today, there’s a lot of interest in ensuring that if we’re going to do this, we do it correctly.”

Council voted 10-5 in favour of requesting a staff report in Q1 of 2027 (Trosow, Ferreira, Franke, Stevenson, and Hopkins opposed).