Media Room
Media Inquiries:
Members of the media can use our dedicated media phone line or email address to contact the OIPRD. Please indicate if you are working to deadline.
Phone : 416-314-4517
Email : oiprdmedia@ontario.ca
Facts about the OIPRD:
- The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) opened on October 19, 2009
- The Ontario Police Services Act, 1990 sets out the OIPRD’s mandate as well as its authority and obligations to operate the public complaints system for Ontario
- OIPRD receives, manages and oversees public complaints about sworn police officers employed by all municipal and regional police services and the Ontario Provincial Police
- OIPRD receives more than 3,000 complaints annually
- OIPRD has a staff of approximately 60
Director Gerry McNeilly:
- Director McNeilly was appointed Ontario’s first Independent Police Review Director in June 2008 for a five-year term. His term was renewed for a further five years in June 2013.
- Director McNeilly’s biography
Confidentiality
The OIPRD is mandated to protect the privacy of all individuals involved in the complaints process. Under the Police Services Act, the OIPRD cannot provide third parties with any information about complaints or complainants. For this reasons, we do not comment on or release information about individual public complaints.
Links:
Police Services Act
OIPRD Rules of Procedue, 2016
OIPRD Annual Report 2016–17
Safer Ontario Act, 2018
Systemic Reviews
The OIPRD has the power to conduct systemic reviews. A systemic review examines the procedures, practices and policies, and any root causes that may promote or perpetuate systemic issues within a police service. The purpose of a systemic review is to determine whether systemic failings have occurred and identify issues to be addressed in order to make recommendations for change, rather than assign individual fault. A systemic review will sometimes be done at the same time as a conduct investigation, although they involve separate procedures.
Ongoing systemic reviews:
- Thunder Bay Police Service Practices as they Relate to Indigenous People, specifically Indigenous death and missing person investigations
- Police Practices for Strip Searches
- Police Interactions with People in Crisis and Use of Force
Completed systemic reviews:
- Interim Report on Police Interactions with People in Crisis and Use of Force
- Casting the Net: A Review of Ontario Provincial Police Practices for DNA Canvasses
- Policing the Right to Protest: The G20 Systemic Review Report
