Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) will be sending officers to Ottawa to assist with the ongoing protests in the city.
“In a world of pandemics and communicable diseases, our members continue to put themselves into action and to perform great work,” Chief Larkin said at a police services board meeting on Wednesday.
Officers are expected to be deployed from Friday to Wednesday.
“Our public safety team has been supporting efforts of the Toronto Police Service and Windsor Police Service through ongoing deployment. This takes a significant amount of work and collaboration. What we are seeing in the city of Ottawa is unprecedented,” Larkin said.
“These are challenging times, I’m proud of our members. We were at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, and we were there with tremendous professionalism.”
Last Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a State of Emergency due to the ongoing protests and blockades across Ontario.
“There have been ongoing challenges locally, provincially and nationally, with protests and occupations over the last month or so. We continue to recognize the significant amount of work happening across our province,” Larkin said.
“It is difficult to balance the very delicate approach of freedom of expression, freedom of protest, and counter protesting.”
Larkin said that, of course, the situation has had an impact on overall resources and overall policing in the region.
“The Emergency Act has been invoked for the first time which will allow additional policing enforcement pieces. We are still reviewing the exact measures, but the act will assist the public safety team, not only locally but across the province,” Larkin said.
“Locally, our service has been managing pop-up demonstrations over the last 24 months during the ongoing pandemic. I believe they have done this with tremendous professionalism, particularly, over the last two weeks. Officers have managed pop-ups in the City of Cambridge and in the city of Waterloo with tremendous skill and professionalism.”
