The inaugural meeting of the new Southern Georgian Bay OPP detachment board met in Tay Township council chambers on Monday, establishing who would do what and getting a glimpse of some policing to come for the area.
With board appointments set to expire in mid-November, 2026, Penetanguishene Mayor Doug Rawson was elected to chair the board with Midland Mayor Bill Gordon serving as vice-chair.
The 13-member detachment board was formed as part of the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019, with the five mayors of Midland, Penetanguishene, the Townships of Tay, Tiny and the District Municipality of Muskoka (Township of Georgian Bay) involved.
Additionally, each of those regions would have one community representative; as of the meeting three seats had yet to be filled with one member nearly included. To round out the 13 members, three provincial appointees also sat on the board; Tay CAO Andrea Fay led the meeting as its interim administrator and secretary.
The meeting was a dry affair lasting just 30 minutes in total with the majority of its duration passing motions to establish and operate the board. Rawson noted that a primary reason the board was delayed in starting up was due to detachment board insurance, which was approved in the agenda.
Southern Georgian Bay OPP Detachment Commander Insp. Todd Pittman provided a welcome and introduction to the board.
“It’s a pleasure to be able to work with each of you,” said Pittman to the board. “Ultimately, I see our goal here as working together to achieve community safety, overall well-being, and to really bring an impact to our communities.
“Public safety is not just the role of police alone – although we do play a very important role – but it’s a collective role of all community members to be involved in the health, safety, and security of their communities,” Pittman added.
Later in the meeting, Pittman provided information on the launch of the provincial bail compliance dashboard, a new tool which would provide information between police services on violent repeat offenders of high-profile.
“The nice part of the dashboard is that it now gives us situational awareness regarding offenders that move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,” Pittman told MidlandToday. Police services share data which is entered into the dashboard, he said, noting that the information would not be directly intertwined with other database systems like OPP license plate readers.
Following the meeting, Rawson said that he was excited to get the board started as they had been waiting a year for it to happen.
“The services we provide (within the detachment board) have no borders,” said Rawson. “It doesn’t matter if it’s recreation, planning, library services, or what Insp. Pittman talked about with community wellness; there are no borders.
“The more we collaborate and work together, we’re going to make this the best region in the province to live, work and play. The more we’re unified in that approach to making that environment, the better,” Rawson added.
The next meeting was tentatively scheduled for the last Monday of February for the board. A link to the agenda can be found on the detachment board website.