Provincial funding for WRPS
Posted Feb 7, 2011 12:14:50 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Waterloo Regional Police are certainly not looking the gift horse in the mouth when it comes to funding from Queen’s Park for their mounted patrol and more.
Attorney General Chris Bentley visited the police headquarters in Cambridge today to announce over $138,000 in funding for the WRPS mounted patrol and canine unit.
Police Chief Matt Torigian tells 570 News the funding will pay for about 80 per cent of the start up costs of the mounted unit, and pay for the purchase of another police dog.
The funding specifically covers the cost of the new dog, and the vehicles and trailers used to move the animals.
Torigian says their canine unit caught the suspects in the recent Cash Max robberies, who were later connected to high-profile jewelry store robberies in the Region.
And the mounted unit, he says, also plays a strong role in on-the-street policing work, including the capture of a male suspect in the case of a female assaulted during Oktoberfest.
The canine and mounted patrol expenses have already been made, but Torigian says this is new funding to cover those expenses.
The funding comes from the province’s Civil Remedies Act, which covers the seizure of properties, vehicles, and more, used for the purpose of crime.
Those assets are then sold off and the money goes to special funds for victims of crime, and funding projects of the various police services in Ontario.
Bentley calls the Civil Remedies Act a kind of “Robin Hood legislation,”
After his announcement, Bentley stayed for a photo op, taking a short ride through the parking lot on King, one of the WRPS horses.
