Canadore College Students Help in Police Emergency Response Training

Canadore's construction, carpentry, and renovation students build a training house for officers.

A class project for Canadore College’s Construction, Carpentry, and Renovation students is helping local police emergency response teams practice their skills. The students have built an almost 3,000-square-foot house in the large carpentry shop at the Commerce Court Campus. It’s a big enough structure for the officers to train in.

Canadore students build training house for police

“We’re often looking for different structures to train in, and a lot of times we just don’t have that capability in the city,” said Acting Sergeant Stacy Jackson, North Bay Police Service. “With this program in place, it gives the students an opportunity to build a real home-style structure versus something on a smaller scale, and it gives us a different structure every year to come and train in.”

“This structure allows our officers to see different angles, different approaches, and different entry points. It improves their skillset for coming into a high-risk call. We don’t have a blueprint to every home or every business in the city, so training in a variety of structures and layouts is very important for our members.”

Students get valuable experience in one of the largest carpentry training space in Ontario

At more than 14,000 square feet, the carpentry training space at Canadore College is one of the largest in Ontario. The program curriculum includes site layout and foundation systems, wood framing, stair construction, and interior and exterior finishes. Every year, the students build a different training structure. One change this year is an upper walkway that provides a vantage point for the police to look down on their officers while they are training and for faculty to see the students’ structures from a different perspective.

“I learned a lot, and it was really nice to actually build a house, and not just smaller projects on the side,” said Building Construction Technician student Lorie Lebel. “We know that it was used for something important.”

“This partnership between Canadore College and the North Bay Police Service starts with our faculty in the construction programs and the steps they have taken to integrate this project into the curriculum.” said Brad Gavan, Director Corporate, Community, and Alumni Partnership. “The police would have to travel out of town to do this, but now they can train right here at home.”

The structure will be torn down to make way for a new design and more training opportunities next year. The tactical house project is just one facet of the relationship between Canadore and the North Bay Police Service. The Service hires many Canadore graduates from the Community Justice and Police Studies programs, and many of the faculty who teach those programs are former police officers.