Northern municipalities call on province to ease policing costs

[Michael Jack]

Sault sees largest increase, but all five in NOLUM are making records, ‘outstripping ability to pay’ — smaller communities hit even harder

The soaring cost of policing has been a major challenge for Sault Ste. Marie lately. Its police budget saw an almost $3 million deficit for 2024, followed by an almost $2 million deficit projected for 2025.

Police Services Board members were recently told that the latter is anticipated to be closer to $1.5 million. Further reductions in the budget deficit are possible, but that will depend on several factors and can’t be guaranteed.

Its approved budget for 2026 is over $44 million, representing an 11% increase from the previous year. Several factors have contributed to steep increases, including a consistent need for overtime staffing, several complex criminal investigations, and a relatively high proportion of frontline officers on leave.

The budget deficits have also led to turmoil in police governance, leading to the resignations of both provincial representatives of the Police Services Board, John Bruno and Ian MacKenzie, both of whom cited political interference, among other things, for their departures.

The board experienced several other departures in the last few years, including city councillors Sonny Spina and Lisa Vezeau-Allen, and community member Eva Dabutch. Amid apparent failures of governance and back-to-back budget deficits, city council agreed in May to explore the financial feasibility of switching to the Ontario Provincial Police, an effort later thwarted by Ontario’s Solicitor General, Michael Kerzner.

While some of these challenges in policing may be unique to Sault Ste. Marie, the city is far from alone.

Municipalities across Northern Ontario are sounding the alarm about unsustainable costs and calling upon the provincial government to step up with additional funding.

This August, the group of Northern Ontario Large Urban Mayors presented to Solicitor General Kerzner, requesting “a review of municipal policing costs in the five large Northern Ontario cities to agree on a cost-sharing formula.” They argued that the cost of policing “has outstripped the municipalities’ ability to pay for these services.”

According to statistics presented by NOLUM, their five municipalities have seen record police budget increases in the past five years. Sault Ste. Marie has seen the largest increases, cumulatively exceeding 44% during that period, with an average increase of almost 9% per year.

Similarly, the proportion of municipal budgets dedicated to policing continued to see record increases. In 2024, policing in North Bay accounted for almost a quarter of its total budget, with Sudbury close behind at around 22%. NOLUM highlighted additional challenges, including a lack of municipal oversight over police budgeting, additional costs tied to compliance with updated oversight regulations, and a collective bargaining and arbitration system outside of municipal authority.

Unsustainable police budgets are hitting smaller communities in Northern Ontario even harder. The Mayor of Kenora, Andrew Poirier, says the issue is “nothing new for us” and notes that he’s the third mayor in a row who argues for a new cost-sharing model for policing in the region.

In a community of approximately 15,000, with an additional non-incorporated area outside of its municipal boundaries, he said the local OPP detachment can field somewhere between 18,000 to 19,000 calls for service in a year. Adding further pressure, the summer months can double or even triple the community’s population, even if the appreciated tourism is temporary. “We can’t sustain these costs,” he explained.

Kenora has responded to the challenge by “negotiating temporary rebates,” but this reactive approach “just doesn’t work,” says Poirier, because the city’s leadership and administration “can’t plan year in and year out like that.” The major problem, according to him, is the way OPP costs are currently calculated. He’s optimistic that a solution will be found and he’s been meeting with Solicitor General Kerzner and the OPP to discuss potential solutions.

As for what’s contributing to increased policing costs in a community like Kenora, Poirier highlighted some of the same social issues gripping almost every municipality in the country: homelessness, mental health challenges, and substance abuse.
“We’re facing all those issues and then some,” he said, and added Kenora experiences “transient populations” due to its geography. In addition to being close to the provincial border and being a part of the Trans-Canada Highway, Kenora has a district courthouse and jail that can attract those caught up in the justice system. Poirier doesn’t want to blame specific members of the community, but these factors nonetheless affect the community’s experience.
Officials from other municipalities experience similar pressures managing OPP costs.

The Chief Administrative Officer of Dryden, Roger Nesbitt, said his community “has been burdened with the highest per property policing cost in the province now for many years” and described it as “a long story.”

He explained that in 2024, policing represented more than 18% of Dryden’s operating costs. When compared to its revenue from property taxes from the same year, policing costs account for over 35%, excluding other emergency services such as ambulance and fire services. According to Nesbitt, such costs mean that Dryden “struggles to make adequate infrastructure investment, both in existing and building new, municipal reserves are depleted, other services suffer, and the municipality struggles to pay competitive employee wages.”

In 2022, Dryden transitioned from a municipal police service to the OPP for cost savings, something Nesbitt describes as “absolutely the right decision,” and costs are expected to further decrease over time. Nonetheless, Nesbitt says his community “will still be among the highest cost OPP policed municipalities,” a reality affecting several other communities that has prompted additional pressure on the province.

In late 2024, Ontario provided additional funding to northern and rural municipalities that are contending with increased OPP costs, partially a result of collective agreement negotiations that concluded that summer. To address the increase of OPP salaries, Ontario offered different levels of rebates from 2023 to 2025. The province also said it would examine the OPP billing model to find a sustainable solution for municipalities that were struggling.

In late September of this year, Ontario amended regulations that affect OPP billing, changing discount formulas that are expected to provide relief when bills are expected in November. The changes include an 11% cap on potential cost increases for 2026 and a lower threshold for calculating future discounts among municipalities with disproportionately higher calls for service and overtime.

Nesbitt welcomes the changes for Dryden, a community that’s an outlier for calculating OPP costs, and he “expects a very material reduction in annual policing costs for 2026.” However, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario responded to the changes with a desire for more change. It argues that “these changes do not provide a long-term solution to the growing policing cost pressures municipalities across Ontario are facing.” Further, based on its “preliminary analysis,” the changes in calculating OPP discounts will affect “very few municipalities.”

The Ministry of the Solicitor General acknowledged the receipt of questions about policing costs in Northern Ontario but did not respond to a request for comment.

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