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Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police is the third-largest deployed police force in North America, with jurisdiction over all Ontario except in municipalities having their own police. This modern organization of more than 5000 men and women maintains some 200 branch and field offices, patrols all provincial highways, and maintains a Criminal Investigation Branch. The OPP, with headquarters in Toronto, was created on 13 October 1909, by the appointment of 51 officers from Ontario frontier police forces, government detectives, and from provincial constables in the northern part of the province.
In 1974, the OPP became the first deployed police force in Canada to recruit, train, equip and assign women to perform the same duties as their male counterparts at equal remuneration. The Provincial Police academy at Brampton provides force training, and the OPP operates such specialized units as anti-rackets, intelligence, security, canine, underwater, helicopter, computer services, tactics and rescue, marine, auxiliary police, technical identification and Indian policing. Air patrols serve the remote communities of northern Ontario. Since 1964, the ranking officers of the OPP have been granted the Queen's Commission.
