Between 19 and 21 August 2013, four police services from across southwestern Ontario and the Canadian Armed Forces worked together in a multi-jurisdictional cannabis eradication programme.[1] The project, dubbed O-SABOT, drew on the RCMP Kitchener, Toronto West and Toronto North detachments, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Ontario Provincial Police, the West Grey Police Service and the Hanover Police Service.[1] Officers shared information and intelligence to identify outdoor grow sites, then seized and destroyed close to 2,700 cannabis plants.[1]
Part of a national programme
Project O-SABOT is the Ontario portion of the Canada-wide eradication programme Operation SABOT, aimed at cutting the supply of cannabis to communities.[1] The release presents the joint operation as part of the RCMP Marihuana Grow Initiative launched in September 2011 to counter production run by organised crime groups.[1] The release says the group effort required the services to share information and intelligence in order to identify the grow sites.[1] It calls the joint operation an example of the collaboration envisioned under that Initiative and a needed step in building a coordinated, collective response across the country.[1]