Inspector Natalie Rifou takes top job at West Nipissing detachment
Isabel Mosseler
Tribune
Inspector Natalie Rifou (née Ouellet), the newly appointed Detachment Commander of the OPP Nipissing West, has lived all of her life in the area, and today it takes her only 8 minutes to get to work. For many residents in West Nipissing, it’s excellent news that one of “our own” has taken over the top policing position in the area as of December 16, 2024, bringing with her a deep understanding of the needs and concerns of West Nipissing from both a personal and professional standpoint. Insp. Rifou went to school here, graduated from É.s.c. Franco-Cité and began her policing career with the municipal police, the West Nipissing Police Service (WNPS), in 1999. She knows the roads, she knows the people, she knows and loves the community, she won’t be retiring any time soon, she’s raised her family here, she’s fluently bilingual, she’s invested in keeping this community safe while addressing current and future needs.
“When I first I started (in 1999) I was 20 years old,” she recounts. Her career path took a turn when the WNPS was amalgamated into the OPP in 2019. She served the WNPS first as a constable, then a road Sergeant in 2008, and as a shift supervisor along with other duties, according to a press release issued December 27 by the OPP. That earlier part of her career also encompassed being an Intelligence Officer, Major Crime Investigator and Scenes of Crime Officer. She was involved in major drug investigations. After transitioning to the OPP, it took only 12 months for her to achieve the status of Detective Sergeant with the Professional Standards Unit, to be the lead investigator of a 2-year project in the Greater Toronto area.
In 2022, Rifou was promoted to Staff Sergeant/Operations Manager at the Provincial Communications Centre in North Bay. During the last 7 months before this promotion, she was assigned to Acting Unit Commander / Inspector at the Provincial Communications Centres in Orillia and North Bay. Today, in her early 40’s, married with two children, her career has brought her back home. “I’m married and I have two kids (…) one still in high school and one’s in university. I was raised in Sturgeon Falls (…) I’ve always lived in Sturgeon.” Her parents did move and are long-time and current residents of Verner.
Rifou says she was inspired to go into policing through the example of her aunt. “My aunt was a bit of a role model for me. She was with the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec provincial police, she was a Commander. She’s since retired.” Having policing in the family is typical for those who go into policing, but having two females in the same family in similar advanced positions is not so common. Policing has changed, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of OPP Women in Uniform. Insp. Rifou commented on both the transition from a municipal service to a provincial service, and on being a woman in that service. “One of the biggest differences now that I’m part of the OPP, you have more resources that you can draw from, right? You get a major call, I can call Aviation, I can call Search [and Rescue], I can call the Tactical Response Unit (…), I can call if I need a drone. Although the OPP always have those resources available to the municipalities now, being part of the OPP, those resources, I can have them at my fingertips. I would say that would be a big plus. Also developmental opportunities (…), in four or five years that I’ve been with the OPP I’ve done a lot of things. It adds to my personal and career development. But I also like to share the things that I’ve learned with others. (…) That’s a big, big bonus as well.”
As for being a woman in a profession that has historically been a male provenance, “I’ve always been grateful to my parents who raised me no different. I have two brothers who are very close, they always treated me as an equal to them and they made me the person that I am today, a strong woman. (…) I was raised this way. It’s in me and, what I can say? I was just grateful to always be around my peers, my supervisors, always treating me as an equal. Of course there were certain occasions where it was not the case. When it was not the case, my peers stepped up to the plate and they helped me through it. So, as a woman, I don’t see a difference in the way that I do my work. I believe it’s who you are.”
She’s definitely ready to take command! “I’m just really grateful to be here, a lot of familiar faces, but a lot of new faces as well, with my members here, which is super exciting. What I can say about women in leadership is that it’s super important to not discourage, but to encourage our young women and girls to take on these roles. I know our statistics – women in policing [is] not really increasing — so I hope that I’m going to be that role model for young girls and women that want to take on this job.”
The OPP are always actively recruiting for new officers, something that has been challenging for police services across the province, she notes. “The recruiting issue really is province-wide and every police service really is going through the same thing. What’s important for us is just to continue to push [for] new recruits (…). Even in my role with the Provincial Communications Center, we were always engaged in hosting recruiting events.”
Having someone from the previous municipal force return in this capacity, with her kind of background and community engagement, means the Detachment Commander is sure to have the pulse of West Nipissing. “Knowing my community and what’s going on? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I went to school here. I know a lot of people, a lot of people know me and yes, I do know what happens in my community.” The Inspector notes some of her priorities in the coming year, and they align with current community concerns. “For West Nipissing, the homelessness in our community, that is an issue where my intent would be to have a situation table with various community groups, to try and address the situation. That’s probably one of our major concerns, along with property crime.”
On local social media pages, property crimes have been a hot issue, and there was some success in solving a series of thefts in River Valley, but this continues to be a chief concern for local residents. Rifou has no qualms about relating poverty and homelessness to substance abuse and crime. “That community of people (…) substance abuse is an issue, and they need to feed their addiction [by] committing property crimes (…) We do have the Community Street Crime Unit that’s engaged. We have (…) analysts that give us data or trends (…) We’re always looking at trends and where can we concentrate our efforts.”
