War of words heats up between police board, Gordon, former chief

The long-running squabble between the Midland Police Services Board, a current councillor who is running for mayor and the former police chief shows no signs of slowing down.

The board headed by chair George Dixon seemingly stoked the fire this week by sending out a release through the town in response to claims made in earlier public statements by Bill Gordon, retired Midland Police Service Chief Mike Osborne and the town regarding the handling of the 2018 police disbandment.

In May, a years-long conflict involving the 2018 disbandment of the Midland Police Service (MPS) was resolved. The most recent attempt in a long string to charge Osborne and Gordon of criminal wrongdoing resulted in the OPP clearing the two of allegations.

The release from the board, which also counts incumbent mayor and upcoming election candidate Stewart Strathearn as a member, details what Dixon says happened after the board issued a formal direction to Osborne to retain all records.

Dixon writes that “despite the board’s direction and without advising the board,” Osborne instructed Gordon, who managed the force’s IT services, to “locate something ...'justifying why I cannot simply give our computers with the hard drives intact – to the town when we close down..'”

The release goes on to note that neither the electronic data nor the hardware storing it belonged to Osborne or Gordon.

“Despite that, Mr. Osborne directed Mr. Gordon to destroy data and hardware without informing the Board, in contravention of his employer’s September 18, 2017 direction. Preserving all of the related records would be important for the proper outcome of various legal  proceedings involving Mr. Osborne’s conduct while chief.”

What followed, according to Dixon’s letter, is a long journey trying to get access to the former police service’s encrypted data and records.

“After the destruction of the two boxes of hard drives first came to light in 2021, Midland Town Council asked staff to request the OPP to investigate,” Dixon writes. “That investigation concluded that ‘criminal intent’ was unlikely to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and no charges would be laid.”

But Osborne said that Dixon is continuing to mix issues to “confuse onlookers and to justify his harassing and relentless attacks on behalf of himself and his MidlandCommunity.ca founders that includes Stewart Strathearn.”

According to Osborne, Dixon is “completely aware” that the destruction of defective, previously discarded hard drives/servers did not destroy data and records, and that all operational hard drives that contained all data and records, including that of the defective drives, were kept intact.

“Policies were gathered and police records experts were consulted to help me explain my legal responsibilities,” he said.

Osborne said that only the OPP has the legal right to access all documents on the drives and should be responsible for freedom of information requests.

“The Town/Mr. Dixon are breaching multiple pieces of legislation if they have the ability to access these drives containing sensitive, operational police information,” Osborne told MidlandToday.

According to Dixon, the release was only sent out in response to material that is already out in the public domain in which “Mr. Gordon claims to be the victim of a 'vendetta'.

“I believe it is important to publicly correct this type of misinformation,” Dixon said, adding that he was not a founding member of the now disbanded Midland Community group, which regularly took potshots at Gordon. (However, he along with Strathearn and Roy Ellis are listed as Midland Community ambassadors.)

“I also believe it is important for any public employer to hold its employees to account for their actions.”

Dixon didn’t respond to Osborne’s statement of a legislative breach because it’s “hypothetical,” adding that he’s not worried the release could be construed by some as a way to try to interfere in the election process.

But Gordon said the move is clearly the continuation of a vendetta against him and Osborne.

“This was fully investigated by the OPP and there was no offence committed,” Gordon said. “It seems that Mr Dixon and the town continue to hold beliefs of wrongdoing where none exists.

“It is unfortunate that these people are allowed to use their title and budgets to advance unfounded grievances and libellous allegations against me and I question the timing and motivations of Dixon and senior leadership at the Town of Midland who allow this to continue and use their platform to continue this vendetta.”

Gordon also wanted to provide some additional context surrounding the tapes and drives in question.

“The videotapes referenced were cell-block surveillance from the court house (Ministry of Attorney General jurisdiction) where MPS was responsible for court security,” Gordon said.

“The tapes were several years old and had existed long past their retention period as they were locked in old storage cabinets. The court house was upgraded to all digital surveillance by MPS several years prior and the tapes were discovered as we prepped for the hand off to OPP.”

Gordon said the tapes contained video of adults and young offenders in custody.

“OPP assumed court security duties and the digital recordings and had no need or desire for the legacy recordings so they were flagged for immediate destruction,” he said.

“The hard drives in the banker boxes were damaged or dead drives from police laptops and tablets and decommissioned servers over time and normally went to a smelter in Hamilton for secure destruction with firearms.

“The window for Ontario police agencies to do this was not open to MPS before the transition date so alternative plans were made. The matter of hard drives on live police workstations and photocopiers (not servers) being left intact at the request of a municipality (rather than being assumed by OPP) was unprecedented anywhere in the Province so I was tasked with finding recommendations and policy to deal with it although common sense required us to secure the data on these systems securely.”

Gordon said that after consulting with peers, “none of which had ever heard of an OPP transition where the data and systems went to the municipal staff,” they simply erased the workstations and data devices, but left the servers intact since the data on these devices was safely encrypted and accessible by OPP when “they decided to assume the data (their duty to protect and disclose where legally permitted).”