New campaign aims to boost police recruitment across Ontario

Ontario's new "Answer the Call" campaign unites police services to recruit officers amid provincewide staffing shortages. Angela Gemmill reports.

There is a video circulating on social media that helps to inspire potential candidates to consider a career in policing.

It’s part of a new joint initiative from police leadership and the provincial government meant to help recruit more police officers all across Ontario. ‘Answer the Call’ helps to level the playing field for communities regardless of their size or location.

“Right now, police services across the province are facing recruitment challenges that ultimately impact the evolving nature of staffing requirements and the public safety needs and expectations of our communities, said Deputy Chief Roger Wilkie, with Halton Regional Police Service, and former president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

A unified approach to police recruitment

The new campaign was developed through a first of its kind collaboration between the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Ontario Association of Police Service Boards, Police Association of Ontario, Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police Association, and Toronto Police Association. The campaign is also supported and backed by the Government of Ontario.

In the past recruitment was conducted by individual police services, all competing for the same pool of candidates. That meant certain locations were at a disadvantage.

“This is designed to supplement existing recruitment platforms and strategies, but the reality is not a lot of the smaller, remote communities have the ability to run robust recruitment campaigns,” Wilkie said.

“So, this really has been an ‘All of Us’ collaborative model that will support the needs of every community in Ontario,” he added.

Levelling the playing field for smaller communities

The recruitment campaign will support more than 50 police services across Ontario, including Indigenous communities.

“Now we’re on the same playing field as municipal, provincial policing services,” said Chief Darren Montour, Chief of Police with Six Nations Police Service, and President of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario.

“Going forward we hope that those individuals in those communities growing up see a role model in policing when they were a child. And they want to carry that on and mentor those young people in their community coming up,” he added.