About Us

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) is responsible for receiving, managing and overseeing all public complaints about municipal, regional and provincial police in Ontario. As an independent civilian oversight agency, we make sure that public complaints about police are dealt with in a manner that is transparent, effective and fair to both the public and the police.

In 2007, the Ontario legislature passed The Independent Police Review Act to create the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. The act amended the Police Services Act (PSA) and established new guidelines for public complaints. The act requires that the Director must never have been a police officer and that staff of the OIPRD cannot be serving police officers. This means that all employees of the OIPRD are civilians.

The OIPRD began work on October 19, 2009. The OIPRD is an arm’s-length agency of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and we make our decisions independently of the police, the government and the public.

Our Purpose and Goals

The OIPRD’s vision is to enhance confidence in the public complaints system through excellence in the independent and impartial oversight of police.

Our mission is to provide effective management and oversight of public complaints, promote accountability of police services across Ontario and increase confidence in the public complaints system.

We do this through:

  1. Overseeing public complaints through to their conclusion
  2. Investigating complaints
  3. Encouraging the resolution of complaints through alternative dispute resolutions
  4. Providing education and outreach to both the public and police
  5. Auditing how the complaints system is administered
  6. Conducting systemic reviews

In fulfilling our commitments we are guided by these principles:

  • Accountability — improving the transparency and accountability of the public complaints system and maintaining accountability for our actions to our stakeholders
  • Integrity — providing professional, objective, timely services to all stakeholders, respecting the privacy and dignity of stakeholders and treating them fairly
  • Independence — overseeing investigations by police services in a fair, transparent and effective manner and conducting independent investigations thoroughly and fairly
  • Accessibility — building public awareness about the complaints system and being accessible to the public so that complaints about police can be made
  • Inclusion – being responsive to, and inclusive of, diversity in delivering OIPRD services

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

The MOU is an administrative agreement between the Attorney General and the OIPRD that reflects the accountability framework and guides the mutual understanding of responsibilities of both the Attorney General and the Independent Police Review Director.