Police in northeastern Ontario falling behind their bodycam timelines

Several police services in northeastern Ontario have discussed equipping their officers with bodycams, but are falling behind on timelines to make it happen.

In North Bay, Deputy Chief Michael Daz says he doesn't expect a pilot project for bodycams to get off the ground until at least 2025.

Daz says the North Bay Police Service will need to hire more staff to manage all the footage that comes in from bodycams.

"It isn't as simple as turning on a camera and then just having a video," he said.

"There's work that has to be done in terms of storing that data and then being able to comply with legislation and disclosure requirements that are tight timelines to make sure that they [videos] can be properly redacted."

At a September 2023 board meeting, Sault Ste. Marie Police Chief Hugh Stevenson expressed support for a bodycam program.

"Many communities actually have body-worn cameras already instituted. And as a result of that, we're going for a package that we can fund over 10 years," he said.

But the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service does not yet have a firm timeline for when police will start using bodycams.

The Greater Sudbury Police Service says it will start testing bodycams next year, and is expected to give an update on the pilot project at its next board meeting, on Oct. 16.

Mixed results

Christopher Schneider is a professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, who has written several books on policing and technology, including bodycams.

He says the technology has a mixed record.

"In some circumstances, use of force goes down," he said.

"Some circumstances there's no statistical or discernible difference between officers wearing cameras or not. And in other circumstances, oddly, there have been findings that police use of force has actually increased with officers who wear body-worn cameras."

Schneider says bodycam programs can cost tens of millions of dollars to run.

"It's not something that can just be mobilized immediately," he said.

"And this is one of the reasons why the delay has been so slow. It's more than just slapping cameras on cops and putting them out on the streets."