No need to reinvent the wheel to police capital, says Coun. Dudas

The release of the Public Order Emergency Commission report shined a light on how the National Capital Region is policed, and the findings were not too kind to the region's various security services.

In the report, Commissioner Paul Rouleau described the sharing of jurisdiction between Ottawa Police, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) as “at best, inefficient.” Rouleau goes on to say “even when integrated command and control existed, the jurisdictional divisions made the police response in Ottawa unnecessarily complicated.”

On The Sam Laprade Show with guest host Derick Fage, Ottawa City Councillor for Orléans West-Innes Laura Dudas said the overlapping of jurisdictions should have been top of mind well before the convoy posed any problems.

As the national capital, Ottawa has very different policing requirements than any other large city. However, Ottawa isn't the only national capital that has to deal with the issue.

“We don't have to reinvent the the jurisdictional wheel, so to speak,” said Dudas.

Washington D.C. is but one example where concurrent jurisdiction is used, giving the United States Capital Police, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police, United States Secret Service and other security agencies to share jurisdiction over a 200 block radius around the Capitol complex.

“That means that they're legislatively required to work together and they are jointly responsible for that geographic area,” said Dudas. “That is something that we we're missing.”

Despite raising the issue in the wake of the 'Freedom Convoy', calling on the province and federal government to begin a formal discussion on the matter with unanimous support from her colleagues on City Council, Dudas still has not heard of any meaningful conversations taking place.

“The fact is, a lot of this has been talk to date. What we need is action,” said Dudas. “We've got the reports, we've got recommendations, now's the time to actually establish a different model that protects our city, our taxpayers, and our residents.”