21 Officers recognized at February 1st Badge Ceremony

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, February 1^st 2023   3:30pm

(Ottawa) — The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) welcomed 21 new recruits at a Badge Ceremony today.

The newest recruit class comes with a wealth of prior experience that includes outreach work with youth or at the Ottawa Mission, work within Canada’s military, developing programming for residents with special needs, law and engineering degrees, or previous work with the OPS as a Special Constable or an auxiliary volunteer.

“One of our recruits set up a charity in 2020 to help provide care packages for those experiencing homelessness,” said Chief Eric Stubbs. “These men and women come with a wealth of experience that can only help us better serve the residents of this city.”

While many of the new recruits were born and raised in Ottawa, others have immigrated to Canada from Hungary, the Netherlands, Somalia, Haiti, Brazil, and Botswana. Several more have decided to move from the GTA and make Ottawa their permanent home.

“They also speak a number of different languages,” said Outreach and Recruitment Sergeant Maria Keen. “In this class alone they speak English, French, Hungarian, Arabic, Somali, Spanish, Portuguese, Gujarati, and Hindi. This is a great addition to our Service and will allow our officers to respond to residents in the languages they use in their own homes.”

These newest officers have passed their provincial training at the Ontario Police College. They will be in patrol cars throughout the city starting in February with their field training officer.

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