CANADORE COLLEGE STUDENTS TURN CONSTRUCTION CLASS INTO POLICE TRAINING FACILTY

North Bay police officers hope they never have to use some of the tactics they train and prepare for, but they’re ready in case they get that call.

The building construction technician class within Canadore College’s Commerce Court campus was turned into a practice facility for the police service’s emergency response team this week.

Dressed in full tactical gear officers went over structure breaches, searches and de-escalation techniques during a standoff within a building.

The training was overseen by two members of the Peel Regional Police Service’s Tactical Team, who come to North Bay every May to help train North Bay officers.

“We recognize that their skill set is a lot higher. They do this on a regular basis, not only train, but they’re going to active calls daily. Our service being smaller, our team doesn’t get out as much and our team doesn’t get as much training,” said Acting Sergeant Stacy Jackson.

Officers spent the week at Canadore dusting off their skills and improving their techniques.

Canadore College’s construction class built a 3,500-square-feet home, equipped with stairs and a second-floor bedroom, many rooms and a catwalk.

“The catwalk offers our instructors a different advantage point to allow them to see how our officers move through the structure,” Jackson added.

“They built a set of stairs with a second-floor room as well. A set of stairs in a home is dangerous whether you’re going up or down, so it offers our members another training opportunity to improve that skillset,” he said.

“This structure also allows our officers to see different angles, different approaches and different entry points that improves their skillset for us coming to a high-risk call in the city.”

Jackson said considering North Bay is a smaller police service and Canadore College is a smaller college this is by far the best training structure he has seen.

“We don’t have every blueprint of every home or business in the city so training different structures and layouts is really important for our members.”

Jackson, a veteran police officer who has travelled and trained at different police training facilities across the province including RCMP’S live “shoot house” in Ottawa, says you can’t beat this type of training.

He says the one built at Canadore is among the best.

“This is a controlled environment and there are no distractions. Our officers are using safe shots, otherwise known as a blank round, as well as simulation rounds which when fired they shoot a small paint projectile,” Jackson said.

“One of the Peel officers has a simulation suit on, so we can shoot him with simulation, but he can shoot back. You can’t beat that type of training. If they’re not covering off their angles or entering the room properly, they will get shot.”

The partnership isn’t just benefiting North Bay police officers.

Brad Gavan, director of corporate, community, alumni partnership at Canadore College, said every year Canadore’s construction class builds a new structure and at the end of the semester, officers use what they built as a training facility for a week.

“We’re meeting academic outcomes, as well, meeting the needs of keeping our community safe that officers would otherwise have to leave town to do this training.”

Gavan said to add another element to the training, there are drones being used.

He said this partnership has been ongoing for the last three years.

Canadore students Owen Walker, Kristofor Brown and Lorie Lebel were onsite Wednesday afternoon to watch what they built be used for police training.

The trio said they started to create the structure in January and finished it a few weeks ago.

“We built a bunch of little rooms, like a maze. It was quite hard to build it, because there wasn’t a lot of space to work in,” Lebel said.

Brown added himself and his fellow students have learned a lot throughout the building process.

“The main thing I learned was all the different types of finishes and the proper way to install it,” he said.

“Knowing there was going to be people using it made us more careful when we built it. You made sure everything was up to code. Anything you were unsure of you replaced it. There is a lot of pride knowing they were going to do this.”