3 police services in Ontario held funerals for officers recently. Only one will say how much it cost
CBC
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala was shot and killed on Dec. 27, 2022 in Haldimand County, some 45 kilometres southwest of Hamilton.
South Simcoe Police Service Const. Morgan Russell and Const. Devon Northrup died after responding to a call about a disturbance on Oct. 11, 2022 in Innisfil, Ont.
A month before, Toronto Police Service Const. Andrew Hong died on Sept. 12 in what police called an unprovoked "ambush" during his lunch break at a Tim Hortons in Mississauga, Ont.
The funeral services for all four brought thousands of people together, including many fellow emergency and frontline workers, to honour and say goodbye to the officers who had died while on the job.
"Seldom do we fully appreciate the weight of being there for us in our darkest hours. All we can do now is to be there in yours," Ontario Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell said at Pierzchala's funeral in Barrie on Jan. 4.
"The devastating loss comes at any already difficult time. We've never lost so many police officers in this province."
Of the four, the funeral for Pierzchala is the only one with costs that have been made publicly available. Policing experts have differing views over whether those costs should be disclosed.
Through a Freedom of Information request, CBC Hamilton obtained a breakdown of the money OPP spent on Pierzchala's funeral.
The documents reveal OPP spent $241,179.43 on the funeral.
Of that, $191,792.56 was spent on staffing, overtime and premium pay. The remaining $49,386.87 went toward transportation, arena costs, meals and accommodations.
Toronto and South Simcoe declined to disclose the costs for the funerals they held for their officers.
Bill Dickson, OPP spokesperson, said Pierzchala was a "true hero who made the ultimate sacrifice" and said the money for the funeral was not allocated for in the OPP's budget. It's unclear where exactly OPP found the funds used.
Darryl Davies, a criminology professor at Carlton University, said people should know how much the TPS and SSPS funerals cost.
"If there's public money involved, obviously it should be disclosed ... I don't see why any police agency in Ontario would have a problem with that," he said.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.
A congregation in Carman, Man., is coming to grips with the loss of their Anglican Lutheran church, a fixture in the community that was ravaged by a fire on Thursday.
Kayla DeMong fought tears as she described the dire conditions on the front lines, pleading for more help from the province as staff at the harm reduction site she leads try to keep up with the recent spike in overdoses.
A B.C. woman who has been detained by U.S. immigration officials for 11 days, after trying to enter the country, will be released on Friday, according to her father.
Toronto is doubling the number of automated speed cameras on city streets.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling and unable to implement the government's plan to break up the health authority, became "infatuated" with her internal investigation into private surgical contracts and made "incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety" before she was fired in January.
Hudson's Bay Company filed for creditor protection last week, saying it's struggling to pay landlords, vendors and employees — and it's a process that could lead to the sale or closure of Canada's oldest company.
Still sleepy from this week's time change?
RCMP say a man died while in police custody on Wednesday in downtown Yellowknife, and Alberta RCMP are investigating the incident.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal officials left an hours-long meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying they feel more positive about the Canada-U.S. trading relationship after weeks of bad blood and heated rhetoric.