In this bill, there is a change which effectively ends the OPP Governance Advisory Council, which was set up to ensure that needs and priorities of various populations in Ontario are served by the OPP. When our researchers dug in, we couldn’t see any reason for the elimination of this council, given that having import on those issues would be to the advantage of the people of this province.

Can one of the speakers today tell us why this council is being taken away?

I want to thank the member for the question. One of the things we’re doing that I think is very good for the local municipalities is to have them have greater representation on the OPP police detachment boards. The contemplation is that the government will have 20% representation and the municipalities that make up the composition of the detachment boards will have the other 80%. This will give a lot of input to the local municipality to offer the council as a detachment board would.

This is the direction that I think will help the municipalities.

I just want to say in response that the chiefs of police are heroes to their communities and represent the communities—and to be a leadership figure to everyone that serves in their police service. So I just wanted to comment slightly differently to the question, but acknowledge the importance that the chiefs of police play in public safety throughout our province.