Toronto – Ontario Police Memorial Blog

OPMF 2023 Poster 663x1024 Ontario Police Memorial Foundation 2023 Ceremony of Remembrance

The annual Ontario Police Memorial Foundation Ceremony of Remembrance honours and pays tribute to Ontario’s fallen police officers who died in the Line of Duty – these officers are Heroes in Life, Not Death.

The 24th Annual Ceremony of Remembrance will occur on Sunday May 7, 2023, 11am at the site of the Ontario Police Memorial on Queen’s Park Crescent in downtown Toronto.

The event is open to the public. The Reading of the Honour Roll begins at 10am.

Five names will be added to the wall this year (four current and one historical)

Constable Andrew Hong, Toronto, 2022

Constable Devon Northrup, South Simcoe, 2022

Constable Morgan Russell, South Simcoe, 2022

Provincial Constable Grzegorz Pierzchala, Haldimand OPP, 2022

Constable. Vicky Lynn Wilson, Durham, 1992

These additions brings the total number of police officers killed in the line of duty honoured on the wall to 277.

Members of the policing community are invited to attend and participate in the march to honour our fallen comrades.

Further details about parade marching orders will be posted when available.

There will be a livestream of the event publicly available on the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation’s Youtube, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

OPMFStatementMandateProtestSQUARE 1024x1024 Statement Regarding Planned Protest of Mandates by First Responder Group at Ontario Police and Fire Fighter Memorials on September 13, 2021

It has come to the attention of the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation (OPMF) that a group of first responders plan to engage in a “silent protest against mandates” on Monday, September 13, 2021 at 11:45 a.m. at the site of the Ontario Police and Fire Fighters Memorials at Queen’s Park in Toronto.

The OPMF is a charitable foundation formed by the Police Association of Ontario (PAO), the Ontario Provincial Police Association (OPPA), the Toronto Police Association (TPA), the Ontario Senior Officers’ Police Association (OSOPA), and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP). The Foundation is responsible for the management of the Ontario Police Memorial, which includes adding names of fallen officers whenever required and hosting an annual Ceremony of Remembrance.

On behalf of our members, the OPMF denounces such a protest occurring at these memorial sites, which are intended to honour Ontario’s police personnel and fire fighters who have made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives in the line of duty. To be clear, our Foundation and those within our organization do not endorse and are not affiliated in any way with the group coordinating today’s protest against mandates.

The OPMF is confident the vast majority of sworn and civilian police personnel across the province are committed to doing their part to help keep their communities and fellow first responders safe and healthy. Some policies recently announced or proposed in many municipalities pertaining to COVID-19 vaccinations for first responders are an important step toward ensuring that.

Everyone has the right to peacefully protest and stand up for what they believe in, and we are certainly respectful of that right, but the police and fire fighter memorials are not the appropriate venue to hold a demonstration against a political issue such as mandates. We respectfully request that the organizers of this protest re-locate their gathering so as to preserve the purpose and integrity of what the police and fire memorials represent within our first responder communities and for the families of those who have lost loved ones in the line of duty.

In Unity,

Jason Tomlinson, President
Ontario Police Memorial Foundation