Ontario funds CCTV camera project in Ajax, Clarington, Niagara Falls, Pickering, Oshawa, St. Catharines and Whitby
Published January 26, 2022 at 3:16 pm
The Province is funding a police service project to install “overt” cameras throughout the Region, as part of Ontario’s Closed circuit television community safety grant, to expand access to the technology for cops in nine communities.
Ontario will be investing $6 million dollars in the program between 2020 and 2023. Police service apply to each fiscal year separately, and must contribute half of project cost up to $200,000.
Over $1 million has been earmarked for the 2021-2022 fiscal year across nine services, with Durham set to receive over $170,000 to install what the statement calls an, “increasingly critical surveillance tool to identify crime and gun and gang suspects.”
DRPS is partnering with community members to install the camera to across the Region “placed in a way that is noticeable to the public,” to act as a deterrent as well as a recorder.
The project comes with crime on the rise in the Region, as reported by Interim Chief Todd Tollauer.
Niagara Police joined the the project as well, “St. Catharines and Niagara Falls have become hot spots for criminal activity as a growing number of Greater Toronto Area (GTA) gangs engage,”
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“The expansion of CCTV capacity and coverage will help NRPS to identify these individuals, gather license plate numbers and bring them to justice,” they continued.
The Barrie, Bracebridge, Fort Frances, Gananoque, Nishnawbe Aski, Toronto and Windsor police services have all applied for the program.
This project is one of numerous safety grants awarded to Durham Regional Police, such as $300,000 for projects related to their Human Trafficking Unit (HTU), $2.08 million to Gun and Gang Enforcement Unit, $2.4 million for Vision Zero and $2.6 million for a Domestic Violence unit as well as $1.9 million into a DRPS school liaison program.
Niagara has seen much the same with over $850,000 put into their HTU, $2.3 million in a school liaison project, nearly a million in a mobile crisis rapid response team and $2.5 million toward a new real-time operations centre.
A full list of provincial projects is available online. There are 25 active programs, a $2.5 million investment over 2020-2022.
The open call for 2023 CCTV funding will open in the fall.
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