'We had to come out fighting': Leamington takes on the OPP and renegotiates a better contract

Three years after cancelling their policing contract, the town has signed a new deal with the provincial police.

Mayor Hilda MacDonald doesn’t pull any punches when describing how the situation unfolded between the town and the upper brass of the provincial police force.

“I told them, ‘you people pushed us into this corner and we had to come out fighting,’ we had no options,” said MacDonald. “The blame lies at the feet of the upper echelons of the OPP because of the unwillingness to have the conversation. That has changed.”

The Timeline:

• June 2019: The town cancelled the OPP contract when they were denied an itemized list of spending. “There was an unwillingness to communicate,” MacDonald said. “We said, ‘we want to have extra officers on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the migrant workers just because you got an influx of 8,000 people.’ And they said ‘No, you don't need that.’
• September 2020: The town issues request for quotes from other police forces
• December 2020: Chatham-Kent Police Services (CKPS) and Windsor Police Service (WPS) submit quotes
• May 2021: Leamington council considers and rejects both proposals “Well, the quotes came back substantially more money,” MacDonald said it was a financial burden they couldn’t place on taxpayers so they reopened discussions with OPP
• July 12, 2022: Leamington council approves new three-year contract with the OPP

“It took us to say, ‘wait a minute, we're cancelling the contract’ to make them (OPP) pay attention, MacDonald said.

OPP policing was already budgeted to go up six per cent, across the province.

Regardless, MacDonald says the new contract is less than what both CKPS and WPS had quoted in the RFQ process.

Now, MacDonald says the OPP has asked for six months to create some “focused patrols” (i.e. a dedicated unit for the core or a traffic unit).

“Levels of complaints will drive where those focus patrols will go,” MacDonald said. “So if there are complaints about speeding, and traffic violations on Robson Road, you will see focus patrols there.”

Then in six months, town council will get to decide if they want to pay more money to create permanent units for the police.

“It's our fundamental right to have a safe community. But we also then have to weigh the cost of it, and can we negotiate some things and I feel like we’ve achieved that,” said MacDonald.

Drew Dilkens, the chair of the Windsor Police Services Board declined to comment.

CTV News has reached out to the OPP and CKPS for comment.

This is a developing story, more details to come.