There will be many opinions of course, but I believe that the proposed new OPP detachment is a great idea, providing the province steps up to fund a significant portion of the estimated $20 million cost.
At this stage details are few, as council has only this week approved staff engaging in discussions and negotiations with the OPP regarding a potential new detachment, so we only have a rough idea of the potential cost. There are no details yet regarding the potential lease payments that the OPP pay in return for use of the building and property, nor what funding would be provided by the province.
Many folks that I have talked to have already balked at the $20 million price tag that has been attached to this proposal in the early going, and I can’t blame them. We have a growing list of projects that need funding in this municipality.
A few years back council received a report outlining some $12 million in required repairs and upgrades to our only community arena – nothing has advanced largely because funds are difficult to cobble together for such a large project in a small municipality, and provincial funding has not been made available.
Not too far into the future, this municipality will need to fund an expansion of the municipal wastewater treatment plant, a project that could cost many tens of millions of dollars. Provincial funding could be available for that project when the time arrives, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
So to add a potential $20 million OPP detachment to the list of projects that need to be funded rightly scares some folks. But as staff mentioned both in their report and during discussion at council on Monday, the proposed project would be heavily reliant on provincial funding.
If a new OPP detachment is to be built in this municipality, significant funding should come from the province, though these days there is no guarantee of that happening.
Provincial funding, even for projects which they should fund is not a given, as has been shown recently in the municipality’s attempts to secure simple ‘connecting link’ funding in order to rehabilitate Sykes Street, which is a provincial highway for which the province is supposed to provide up to 90 percent funding to maintain. The province rejected Meaford’s application for funding in 2023, and they rejected the funding request again this year, leaving Meaford scrambling to repair what they can with the funds they can cobble together.
Policing is a crucial service of course, and it is also a service which most understand is costly. This municipality currently spends more than $2 million per year for policing, a hefty chunk of our annual budget.
Though we live in a safe community by most any measure, many have expressed a desire to see increased police presence in our community. Some feel that we don’t see police officers often enough given what this municipality pays each year. I have occasionally reminded folks that we live in a very large municipality by area. This municipality covers an area of some 587 square kilometres, and we have more than 400 kilometres of roads; we would need a lot of police officers in order for them to be seen as frequently as some might desire.
That said, it is always fair to question whether we receive value for money with any service that is funded by our property tax dollars. Modern policing is not cheap. The policing of the 1970s or ’80s was very different than the policing of today. I know, in part because my stepfather was a Toronto police officer back then, and from the cruisers they drove to the limited (if any) protective gear that they wore, to the old wooden-handled revolvers on their hips, it was a much simpler and less costly era. Technological advancements, innovations in protective gear and weaponry, and computers among the many gadgets to be found in police cruisers (my stepfather’s cruiser had only a hand-held radar detector and a communications radio, it was otherwise a pretty stock vehicle), and with advancements in crime scene investigations, policing has become a very expensive business indeed.
There are many benefits for having a new OPP detachment built in this municipality, including, potentially, increased visibility of police in our municipality.
Council was told on Monday that a new and larger department could result in more OPP officers reporting to the Meaford detachment, which would likely mean greater police presence even when those officers are heading from Meaford to neighbouring municipalities.
It is also worth noting that this community might benefit from increased police presence in the years to come should the proposed pumped storage project move forward, a mega project that would bring hundreds of workers into this community along with untold numbers of transport trucks and industrial vehicles.
As staff noted in their report to council, which was presented during Monday’s meeting, “This potential project would provide the opportunity for an enhanced level of OPP presence and operations for the entire Municipality. The enhanced facility and infrastructure would allow for officers to report directly to a Meaford Detachment, additional equipment and vehicles would potentially be available and ultimately more detachment-specific officers could be realized to enhance Community Safety and preventative, proactive enforcement.”
More officers reporting to the Meaford detachment could also mean more officers choosing to live in this municipality, and that can be seen as both good for our local economy, and for the overall safety of this municipality.
I will be interested to see how the negotiations with the OPP progress, and what the actual potential costs might be to this municipality, and to the Ontario taxpayers. I am also interested to learn what a lease agreement for a brand new detachment building would look like, and how long it would take this municipality to recover whatever funding we will ultimately be expected to provide. Those are questions for down the road however, so we must be patient, and first allow the process of discussions and negotiations unfold. Then we will have more detail, and a better idea of what the financial impact on our municipality would be, and what funding the province will provide.
