Peter Sloly: No longer police chief, but he's sticking with Ottawa

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It’s a question Peter Sloly fields frequently when he’s out around Ottawa these days.

“Why are you still here?”

His response couldn’t be simpler: “Why not?

“I was very clear when I took the job as chief of police back in 2019, it was a full commitment to the city,” Sloly said in an interview this past week, his first since resigning as chief amidst the convoy occupation in early 2022.

“I was not just here to fulfil a contract, I was here to move my family and raise our children in this city for all the reasons that many, many, many people do. And, so, I’m always proud to tell people that, although my time as chief of police came to an end, my time in this city as a resident, as a taxpayer, as a volunteer, will continue on.”

It would be hard to envision that Sloly’s tenure as police chief would end so dramatically and prematurely when he was named to the post back in 2019, promoting a policing philosophy that focused on building relationships and winning community trust.

His five-year contract was supposed to have ended in late 2024, but Sloly resigned in February 2022 amidst heated criticism for his handling of the convoy occupation in Ottawa’s downtown core.

In the days following his resignation, police officers from across the country flooded Ottawa and the convoy protesters were cleared.

Sloly later testified before the Public Order Emergency Commission, charged with examining the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the protest, that he stepped down because the public was losing trust in the Ottawa Police Service.

Sloly said this past week he would leave it to others to assess whether his legacy as chief would forever be associated with the convoy.

“I can tell you that, over the past year, the vast majority of people I speak to thank me for my work as chief of police. They cite their own examples of good efforts on my behalf and the men and women of the Ottawa Police Service,” he said.

“And, yes, the topic of the ‘Freedom Convoy’ comes up, but again, the vast majority of people understand that that was an unforeseen and unprecedented event, and that, like everybody in the country, we did our best to arrive at a safe and successful outcome.

“People here are like people from across the country: They’re good-natured, they’re well-informed and have been universally encouraging and appreciative of my efforts and hope that I continue to stay here in this city. And that is the plan for my wife and I going forward.”

Sloly took an unorthodox path to the chief’s job.

Born in Jamaica in 1966, Sloly’s family immigrated to Toronto when he was 10. A talented athlete, he played for the Canadian junior men’s soccer squad for two years — Nepean’s Lyndon Hooper was a teammate — and started one game for the senior men’s national team against Egypt during a 1984 tour of northern Africa.

After stepping away from pro soccer, Sloly served 27 years with the Toronto Police Service, capped by a 2009-16 stint as deputy chief. He then worked as a Deloitte security and justice consultant before being named Ottawa’s chief.

Since resigning last February, he has reactivated his boutique consulting firm Sloly Solutions Inc., and he has a paid position as the University of Toronto Massey College’s “changemaker in residence,” aimed at assisting the principal in modernizing the institution and leading change for current students.

He still serves on the United Way of East Ontario board and is a member of both the Montfort Hospital Foundation fundraising board for the Orléans Health Hub and the Ottawa Community Foundation, for which he established the Sloly Family Fund to support local and national charities.

Even though all this may have transpired earlier than expected, it’s also pretty much what he expected post-policing life would be like, at least for now.

“Yes, I anticipated coming out of a very intense position like a chief of police in a major city and I would want to give myself some time to breathe and settle and reacquaint the family and think about what the next major steps would be,” Sloly said. “So, I would call this sort of a transition period, but this is the type of work I wanted to do in that period: a little bit of consulting, a lot of volunteering and a lot of time with family and friends and rebuilding health, that type of thing.

“This will not be my final chapter, but it’s a transition to that chapter.”

Sloly said he had participated in “every single standing committee and ongoing commission” examining the “Freedom Convoy” protest and the invocation of the Emergencies Act, including the review of Ottawa’s response by the city’s auditor general.

“So, as I’ve done all my life, I’ve done my best to contribute lessons learned and best practices to whatever body municipal, provincial or federal that can advance a safer, more just and more inclusive society,” he said.

“I’ve done my best to make my contributions to each of those levels of review and look forward to seeing the outcome of the final reports and hope that they will in fact improve things for Canadians, not just here in the city, but across the country.”