OTTAWA -- The Ontario Government is being urged to give police chiefs and police services boards the power to suspend officers without pay when they've been charged or convicted of serious crimes.
Council will vote Oct. 14 on a motion from Mayor Jim Watson, seconded by Ottawa Police Services Board Chair Diane Deans, to ask Ontario to change the Police Services Act.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police passed a resolution calling on Ontario to change the Police Services Act to allow for the suspension without pay of police officers in situations where they have been charged with serious Criminal Code of Canada and other federal offences not related to their performance of duty.
In the motion, Watson says, "public reports of police officers continuing to receive their full pay, even while facing charges of serious and even criminal misconduct, can diminish public respect for, and confidence in, the integrity of police services across the province."
The motion also calls on Ontario to amend the legislative scheme governing police services so as to streamline the process for the termination of a police officer who is found guilty of serious or criminal misconduct.
The previous Liberal Government introduced the Safer Ontario Act in 2018 to modernize policing in the province, including provisions for the suspension without pay for police officers who are charged with serious offences. Watson's motion says the act was not passed into law.
