Meeting was called to order by President Yvonne at 7:10, with 35 members and 3 guests (John Hatch - speaker, Laurie Newman – his spouse, and Mary McCowan) in attendance.

John H introduced our guest speaker, John Hatch, who recently retired at the local OPP detachment commander. He shared with us his views of the “Top Ten Policing Successes in PEC“from the past 10 years.

      THE PEC Community Safety and Well-Being Plan – completed in 2018, considered to be the Gold Standard in Ontario. The plan is based on working with community partners, to tackle societal challenges. Together they identified 5 priority areas to be worked on together to make our community safer.

      Implementation of I.M.P.A.C.T. (Integrated Mobile Police and Co-response Team) – for persons going through a mental health crisis, a trained mental health clinician attends calls for service along with a police officer. Since its inception in PEC in 2022, IMPACT has responded to over 550 mental health calls for service. In addition to 2 fulltime IMPACT Co-Response Workers, we have an IMPACT Transitional Worker, who follows up with the client to make sure they are getting the meds and treatments they need, so they don’t go into crisis again. The supports we now have in place result in fewer incidents, 171 in all of 2024.

      Implementation of D.A.I.I. (Detachment Abuse Issues Investigator) – We now have a fulltime detective whose responsibility is to review all Intimate Partner Violence incidents, making sure that everything was done correctly. The OPP in PEC responded to 222 Domestic Violence incidents in 2024.

      Implementation of B.W.C./I.C.C./&A.L.P.R. (body-worn cameras/in-car cameras/automatic license place recognition) – “a picture is worth a thousand words”

      Violent crime is trending downwards – only one incident in the past 10 years where someone died as a result of a crime (2020 drug overdose)

      Reduction in property crime -                           10 yr avg         2023            2024

Arson        2.4                   0                 0

B& E         61.8                17               20

Mischief    90.7                56               53

Highway safety – we have some of the safest highways in Ontario. Zero fatal motor vehicle collisions in both 2023 and 2024. Sadly, a 97-year-old pedestrian was killed recently in 2025.

Higher visibility and community engagement – if there is more pro-active police presence, doing foot patrols and community events, criminals are less likely to commit crime. Such proactive engagements are up from 105 in 2016 to 280 in 2020 and 726 in 2024.

Mental Health supports for OPP Officers and their families – creation of the OPP Healthy Workplace Team, annual detachment “family nights”

Community Satisfaction – In 2024, there were 11,511 service calls, 2,602 traffic stops, 726-foot patrols – and ZERO public complaints.

TAG LINE – SAFETY NEVER SLEEPS IN THE COUNTY

John was thanked by David MacKinnon.

Club Business:

Guest Mary McCowan shared with us that she recently moved back to Canada from Galveston, Texas, where she was a Rotarian. Her grade 8 son was initially lacking in confidence and had some trouble adjusting to the move, but at the end of the year he was the recipient of one of the 2 CML Snyder graduate awards given by Wellington Rotary. In her words, it was a “path-changing award” for her son and she expressed her deep appreciation to our club.

Dave Robinet invited members to submit to him any more comments or questions about the 50/50 Gold Mine proposal.

Christine has chosen the song “Man, I feel like a woman” for our karaoke entry at the Brighton Interclub BBQ, Monday Aug 11 at 6 pm.