Yesterday Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Marie-France Lalonde and Attorney General Yasir Naqvi introduced the government's proposed community safety and policing reforms. Key reforms include:
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Giving municipalities a larger role in defining and addressing local policing needs
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Creating a new Inspector General of Police, whose mandate would be to oversee and monitor police services and police service boards
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Expanding and clarifying the mandates of Ontario's three police oversight bodies
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Establishing strong penalties for officers who do not comply with investigations
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Creating strict time lines for police oversight investigations and public reporting
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Requiring that more information about the results of investigations and disciplinary hearings are released by oversight bodies
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Establishing, through regulation, the community safety responsibilities that can only be performed by sworn police officers
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Creating a new Missing Persons Act
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Improving the Coroner's Act and Ontario's inquest system
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Creating a provincial accreditation framework that would require forensic labs to be accredited