Sault Ste. Marie just the latest northern Ontario municipality to consider the OPP in order to save money

Many towns and cities across northeastern Ontario have their eye on Sault Ste. Marie, as that city considers a switch to provincial police.

Sault city council asked this week for a report detailing how much it might save if it disbanded its city police force and hired the OPP.

Several small towns across the region have made that move over the years.

Wawa swapped its local police for the OPP in 2011, hoping to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

But Mayor Melanie Pilon says costs have been rising sharply in recent years, with an initial 68 per cent increase for 2025 softened by one-time funding from the provincial government.

"Policing is very expensive, but it's something that every community needs to have and that's why it's a much larger conversation that we need to have, about how the province can take on the lion's share of these costs," said Pilon. 

The West Nipissing police service was disbanded in 2019 when the municipality hired the OPP.

Mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon says so far it's been cheaper for taxpayers and the savings allowed them to build a new police station. 

"You know, when you're running an independent organization with just 20 officers, everything's a lot more expensive. We do find that so far the transition has been great for us."

Thorne Rochon says she is worried about the "significant" increase in the policing bill this past year.

West Nipissing was one of several towns that got a grant from the province to cover the difference, but she says she does "worry" about how much protecting the community will cost in 2026. 

Josh Teresinski, the president of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Association, says he's not concerned about city council's plans to explore what it would cost to switch to the OPP.

"I'm pretty confident," he said.

"I don't want to say 100 per cent but, when you look at just the numbers right off the bat with the collective agreement and the benefits, your starting point with officers and civilian staff goes up right at the beginning."

The association represents 68 civilian employees and 168 police officers.

Teresinski says if the city were to disband the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and sign an agreement with the OPP, it would be the civilian members who would be at the greatest risk of losing their jobs.

"Our local dispatch, they may transfer them over, but they'd have to move out of the Sault to North Bay, as I believe that is where their dispatch is," he said.

Teresinski says he understands the councillors' motivation to find savings by potentially switching to another police service, but he says those costs should be similar once the accounting is done.

"I'm excited to see what their costing is and I'm pretty confident that it's going to be around the same cost as long as they're open and transparent about what the public is going to get," he said.