Ontario Police College About the College

The Ontario Police College (OPC) provides training designed to prepare police officers to safely and effectively perform their duties, while meeting the needs of Ontario's diverse communities.

Note: The OPC is a post-hire institution and does not offer services to the general public.

The primary clients of the OPC are police and civilian members of all police services in Ontario, including municipal and regional police services and the O.P.P. (OPP). Other clients include government employees from provincial and municipal enforcement agencies and occasionally, clients from other provinces and abroad.

The college has 125 full- and part-time employees including instructors and support staff. The 45 permanent instructors are supplemented by police officers from various police services, usually for two-year periods.

History

In the early 1950s, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) proposed the idea of a central provincial police academy.

In 1959 the Attorney General appointed an advisory committee on police training and in 1962 announced the formal establishment of the college. OPC offered its first classes beginning January 7, 1963 in the temporary wartime training quarters of an abandoned Royal Canadian Air Force base near Aylmer, Ontario. It was not until 1976 that the college moved to its present facilities at that site. The operations of the OPC became the responsibility of the Ministry of the Solicitor General in 1972, now the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.