News
Ontario increasing supports to improve community safety

Apr. 11, 2022, Mississauga, Ont. – The Ontario government will be investing more than $267 million over three years to provide police services across the province with significant new resources to safeguard their local communities.

90 police service boards are receiving funding through the Community Safety and Policing Grant Program for 147 public safety initiatives focusing on local and provincial priorities such as gun and gang violence, sexual violence and harassment, human trafficking, mental health and addictions and hate-motivated crime. Many projects will be undertaken in collaboration with community partners.

The $267 million investment in the Community Safety and Policing Grant Program includes:

Approximately $225 million through the local priorities stream to help police services address priority issues such as enhanced police intelligence sharing, expanding mental health supports, preventing crime in schools, combatting bullying, sexual violence, human trafficking, cyber-crime, enhancing road safety and acquiring new technology.

$43 million to address provincewide priorities such as training for police officers so they are better equipped to handle sexual violence and harassment investigations, identify signs of human trafficking and interact with victims of human trafficking: crime prevention initiatives for at-risk youth and other vulnerable groups and equipment purchases that support policing operations and activities such as enhanced software/technology.

Peel Regional Police Service is receiving grant funding for Project Care and the expansion of the service’s Intimate Partner Violence Unit; Project Aegis and the creation of an analytics bureau to gather centralized data and ensure policing programs are achieving their desired outcomes; and the Traffic Enforcement Unit and Community Street Crime Unit within the Caledon Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police.

Peel Regional Police Service will also receive $1.5 million over three years to support the fight against local gang violence. Through the Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy, with support from the federal government, Ontario has invested $188.5 million to combat gun and gang violence since 2018.