The Ottawa Police Service’s new district model will cost taxpayers $11.4 million over three years, most of which will go towards hiring and training new full-time officers.
According to
an Ottawa Police Services Board report
, the new model will split Ottawa into four geographical districts: north, central, east and west. Each district will be led by a superintendent who will be responsible for neighbourhood policing and frontline operations.
Each district will also have integrated neighbourhood teams comprised of community intake relationship specialists (CIRS) — who will serve as “embedded, trusted contacts” to help create community safety plans and solutions — crime and research analysts, youth officers and community officers — who will apply their specialized policing expertise to build trust and foster collaboration with various community partners.
The goal, the OPS said, is to work in tandem with residents, local organizations and stakeholders to identify and prioritize solutions tailored to local concerns.
Policing needs in Vanier may be different from policing needs in Centretown and Barrhaven, for example.
“We are a growing city with many areas that have significant new neighbourhoods being developed, and the Ottawa Police Service hasn’t grown over the years to keep pace with the growth that has occurred and the growth that is coming. We’re simply not ready for it,”
OPS Chief Eric Stubbs
told Postmedia in an interview.
“We are a very large city, and we have one of the largest policing jurisdictions for any municipal agency across Canada … I could simply see that we don’t have a delivery model that addressed all the unique needs across the city.”
A key part of the new district model is the development of a community safety and well-being framework dedicated to crime prevention education and awareness, as well as relationship management and strategic partnerships.
The goal is to “train and empower community leaders to foster safer, more resilient communities,” the report said.
The new framework will focus on four levels of intervention: social development, prevention, risk intervention and incident response, the report added. It will also focus on collaboration and partnership with community partners, key stakeholders and residents.
“We can have geographic ownership and responsibilities can be shared, so we can start building those specific community partnerships and strengthening those and bringing the community into the solution, bringing the community into the celebration of success,” Acting Supt. Kevin Maloney told Postmedia.
“This aligns exactly with the strategic direction from the board and our obligations, community safety and well-being aspects from the province.”
How much will it cost taxpayers?
The new district model comes with a significant price tag to Ottawa taxpayers.
Around 63 full-time police officers will need to be hired and additional training will be needed to fully implement the program, the report said.
This will cost around $11.4 million over three years, according to data in the report. The OPS said it plans to hire 15 new officers in 2026 ($2.68 million), 29 new officers in 2027 ($5.56 million) and 19 new officers in 2028 ($3.2 million).
“When you start up a whole new unit, you do need to bring or create new positions. Within that, there is some command structures that need to be built out,” Maloney said.
“We are also enhancing the capability of our community policing officers. … When you combine all these together, it comes out to about $11.4 million, but we stretch that out over three years.
“We’re not doing everything all at once. We know things just aren’t ready yet, so we don’t need to have the positions in place in 2026. We need them ready for 2027.”
The hiring process is part of the OPS’ three-year staff stabilization strategy. Around $8.1 million was
budgeted in 2025
to hire more officers to fill vacancies due to retirement and long-term leaves among the police force.
Stubbs said the strategy aims to grow the force’s size to adequately serve the city’s growing population.
“The staff stabilization plan is tied to the district model in a number of respects, in terms of ensuring we have the organizational structure at the top to implement the model in each district,” he said.
But Maloney said the investment in staffing for the new district model will place pressure on other areas of the organization.
According to the report, the OPS’ specialized units are facing increasing complexity and rising caseloads. Prioritizing district model implementation may limit the OPS’ ability to respond to these needs in the short term.
The report also said the model may take more than three years to implement if broader organizational demands are factored into future budget decisions.
“The program is basically taking an existing structure, redesigning it, bringing in the pieces that are needed to make it viable, but not expanding it or growing on it. That’s another piece altogether, which is going to have its own expenses,” Maloney said.
Have community members been consulted?
Both Maloney and Stubbs said they talked to city councillors, community partners and frontline workers while developing the district model.
Stubbs said city councillors and community associations have expressed a desire for stronger police presence in their wards.
“We have finite resources. We always will, but if we hear from the councillors and the community in these individual neighbourhoods, we can tailor a response and a strategy for that particular neighbourhood for that area,” he said.
Maloney said the OPS referenced other community safety frameworks from police jurisdictions in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom when building their own.
He and his team also looked at existing data and talked to academics to make sure the new framework has evidence-based policies, he said.
“We changed our practices. We’re returning to that more community-based policing methodology and bringing it and enhancing it, but also infusing it throughout various aspects of the organization,” Maloney added.
But Stubbs said this model isn’t unique to the OPS. Other Canadian cities, like Vancouver and Toronto, have a similar framework and district model.
“Every big city will have districts and zones and areas. Every single one of them. They don’t just tell constables to go police somewhere and hopefully we cover all of the city. There’s structure in every city,” the police chief said.
“Now what do they do in those areas? It’s getting down to making sure we have the resources and the structure to properly engage with our community.”
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