Ontario’s Minister of Labour announced that police can give naloxone without fear of an automatic criminal investigation.
Minister Laurie Scott, who’s also the MPP Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, made the announcement yesterday that the Ontario Government is going to amend regulations in the current Police Services Act.
These amendments make it so police chiefs are no longer required to automatically report to the Special Investigations Unit that one of their officers have used a naloxone kit on someone that dies or suffers a serious injury, assuming there was no other interaction with the person that could have caused the injury or death.
Scott says “our government is making these changes to ensure police do not face unfair repercussions when they are doing their job as first responders and trying to save lives.” She went on to say “this change will help save countless lives while making sure police officers can do their duty without the fear of facing a criminal investigation.”
“Today’s announcement is one of the first steps to fulfill our election commitment to support our police officers and fix Ontario’s broken policing legislation,” said MPP Scott. “We are continuing our work with law enforcement to keep our streets and communities safe and respect the ongoing work of frontline policing services.”