Join Us

The Emergency Services Cooperative Ontario (ESCO) is a longstanding Ontario police technology cooperative led by the Waterloo Regional Police Service. ESCO, formerly known as PRIDE, has been in operation since the 1980s and has been built and sustained by its five core police partners through decades of shared capital investment, infrastructure development, and operational collaboration.

Core Partner Agencies

• Waterloo Regional Police Service (lead agency)
• Guelph Police Service
• Brantford Police Service
• Stratford Police Service
• South Simcoe Police Service

Together, these partners represent a strong crosssection of policing in Ontario, including small, medium, and larger services. This diversity has been a key strength of ESCO over its 40+ year history and helps ensure the needs and realities of agencies of all sizes are reflected in planning and service delivery.

We are aware of the uncertainty currently facing police services that have relied on OPTIC, and we recognize that many agencies may now be actively considering future options for their core digital and operational platforms. In this context, we would welcome the opportunity to engage with you to explore ESCO as a potential path forward.

ESCO Today

• ComputerAided Dispatch (CAD), including integrations to thirdparty solutions (currently Octave/Hexagon)
• Records Management Systems (RMS), including integrated thirdparty solutions (currently Niche RMS)
• NG9-1-1 solutions
• Disaster recovery for critical systems
• Business intelligence dashboards, including agencyspecific data and reporting
• Smartphone applications and custom system development
• Ident support through existing ESCO solutions
• Project management for ESCO implementations and onboarding
• Procurement advantages through shared ESCO agreements and economies of scale

We have successfully onboarded our first police client, the LaSalle Police Service, and the onboarding work included required thirdparty data licensing to support CAD mapping for implementation. The implementation was well executed with high client satisfaction.

Our Approach to Growth

As part of ESCO’s modernization, the partners made a deliberate decision that the five founding police services will remain the core governing body of ESCO, and new agencies would join ESCO as clients (not partners).

What This Means in Practice

3) A transparent, notforprofit cost model (annual) + onetime onboarding costs

ESCO operates as a notforprofit cooperative, and annual fees are structured on a costrecovery basis. Clients pay their proportionate share of actual operating costs, plus a program support fee currently set at 20%.

The intent is not to generate profit, but to reduce overall technology and service delivery costs for all agencies—partners and clients alike—through shared services, collective investment, and economies of scale.

Program Support Fee

• Risk distribution: The five core partners have assumed—and continue to carry—the financial and operational risks associated with ESCO (including capital investment in infrastructure, ownership and lifecycle management of platforms, and service continuity pressures). Clients benefit from this established environment without taking on those risks.
• Enterprise support required to deliver and sustain the model: The program support fee supports the broader capacity required to deliver services responsibly and at scale, including Finance, Legal, Procurement/vendor management, HR support, and program governance.

In addition to annual fees, new clients should anticipate onetime implementation/onboarding costs associated with standing up and integrating services.

We also want to be clear that the 20% program support fee is not fixed in perpetuity. It will be reviewed periodically and may be adjusted based on ESCO’s overall financial position.

To support effective planning, ESCO will provide clients with their annual costs for the upcoming year by the end of July, ensuring sufficient time for budgeting and financial planning.

Why This Model Works

We believe this model offers a strong and practical balance: access to a proven sharedservices environment, reduced capital burden, reduced operational risk exposure, a meaningful voice in service evolution, and continued benefit of shared scale and purchasing power.

Next Steps

Given the transition environment and the finite capacity associated with onboarding new agencies, we would encourage early engagement to ensure we can appropriately consider and plan for your service’s needs.

If helpful, we would be pleased to host an initial discussion or group briefing to walk through ESCO’s services, onboarding approach, and how we could support your service through a transition.