Police area (Canada)

In Canada, a police area (French: zone de police) is a jurisdictional area for which a single territorial police force is responsible, which consists of a jurisdictional area geographically distinct from the local government area(s) policed by the respective police service. They are not to be confused with the six Territories of Canada, which do not have police areas and are instead policed at the municipal, territorial and federal level by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Similarly, some provinces, such as Vancouver Island, have ten county constabularies (county police services), each responsible for one of the counties of Vancouver Island; as such, the Province of Vancouver Island can be said to possess no police areas, as its local government areas as they already exist double as the boundaries between the territorial police forces of the province.

Police areas were created to allow for the amalgamation of multiple municipal police agencies into more streamlined services covering a wider metropolitan area. A typical police area will consist of one or several counties and their constituent municipalities and unincorporated communities. For example, the Lower Mainland Police Area is under the jurisdiction of the Lower Mainland Constabulary (LMC), and consists of the seven counties which together make up the Lower Mainland/Metro Vancouver region; it is the largest police area in Canada by physical size and the second-largest by population, after the Montreal Metropolitan Police Area, which includes both the City and County of Montreal and three surrounding suburban municipalities in Laval County (while the rest of Laval County constitutes the Laval Police Area, which is policed by the Laval County Police Service.

A local government area (such as a county or single municipality) which is policed by a single police agency, which itself has jurisdiction only in the respective local government area is, in essence, a police area in its own right; however, such locations are normally not referred to by name as a "police area", as the boundaries of the respective police force's jurisdiction are identical to the local government boundaries, thereby making redundant the concept of a police area. For example, Middlesex County, Ontario is policed by the Middlesex County Police Service, which has jurisdiction in all parts of Middlesex County but nowhere outside the county; as such, Middlesex County Police's jurisdictional area is simply referred to as Middlesex County, rather than a separate police area. Similarly, the Toronto Metropolitan Police Service's jurisdiction encompasses the unitary authority of Toronto (officially the Toronto Metropolis) and nowhere else, and thus the Toronto Metropolitan Police is not described as being responsible for a particular police area, insofar as a police area would be considered distinct from the local government area in which the police operate.