Former police board chair Diane Deans knocks 'double standard' over timing of hiring of new chief
The hiring of Eric Stubbs, an assistant commissioner of the RCMP, as new chief of the Ottawa Police Service was announced Friday.
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The irony of the Ottawa Police Services Board’s decision to hire a new chief amid a storm of controversy just days before a municipal election is not lost on Diane Deans, former chair of the board.
City council ousted Deans from her role as chair after she hired an outsider, Matt Torigian, former chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, to take the helm of the Ottawa Police Service after Peter Sloly’s resignation during the “Freedom Convoy” protests in February.
Deans received criticism for going through with the hire at a time when the police service was in tumult, even though the police board is solely responsible for the hiring of the chief.
On Friday, Eli El-Chantiry, who was appointed chair of the board as Deans’ successor, announced the hiring of Eric Stubbs, an assistant commissioner with the RCMP in British Columbia, as chief-select, ignoring calls from some city councillors, mayoral candidates and even a member of the police board to wait until after the municipal election on Monday.
“I don’t think the irony of what happened here was lost on the public at all,” Deans said in an interview on Saturday, “the double standard that they have exhibited through this process and through unseating me as the chair of that police board, destabilizing the police board, and then piling forward with a different set of rules applying to them.”
Deans said she had hoped Torigian could serve as chief until the municipal election, after which a new police board, which would include three city councillors, could choose a new chief in line with their values.
“I really believe the new board will chart their own course,” Deans said. “They will set out in the early days a strategic direction that they want to take policing in Ottawa, a high-level plan for where they want to go and where their priorities area, and, really, you should match the chief to the kind of direction you want to take.”
Jeff Leiper, a member of the police services board seeking re-election as a city councillor in Kitchissippi ward, also said he disagreed with the board’s decision to announce the hiring of a new chief 72 hours before the municipal election. He said in a statement he would have preferred for the hiring to be completed after the election.
Leiper acknowledged that the hiring of the chief was the responsibility of the board, independent of city council.
“But, council appoints four members of the PSB (three councillors and one citizen representative), and the province appoints three,” he noted. “The mayor has a guaranteed seat at the table by virtue of their office as part of the four municipal appointees. The current mayor has declined to take that seat.
“My view has been that we are on the eve of an election. With policing issues in the foreground of this election, voters will have an opportunity to send candidates who reflect their priorities around policing to City Hall. A new council and mayor will bring their perspective, fresh from the doors, to the task of appointing new or returning municipal members to the Police Services Board, which may or may not have had implications for this hiring process, had the board waited.”
Leiper had been on vacation in July, he wrote, when the police services board voted to proceed with the hiring process.
“That vote was unanimous in my absence. I would have dissented as the sole vote against and I have continued to express my preference that the board hold off on a decision, but I abide by majority rule,” he wrote.
“Since the process began, I have participated in the hiring process irrespective of my disagreement on the timing. My focus through the process has been to hire a chief who I believe will best serve the public interest.”
Leiper said Stubbs had his support and he was looking forward to working with the soon-to-be chief on improving policing in Ottawa.
The timing of the appointment also continued to divide mayoral candidates.
“I’ve always maintained that the selection of a new police chief is an independent process. It is not up to the mayor and council to decide who this individual is,” Mark Sutcliffe said in a media release on Friday. “It is the independent police services board, which includes representatives from multiple levels of government as well as citizen representatives.”
Catherine McKenney had urged the police services board not to hire a new chief until after the election, but was ready to work with Stubbs.
“The concern with this process has never been about who is being hired,” McKenney said in a statement. “It is about the process unfolding days before an election and in the middle of a national inquiry. The wave of criticism from the general public has further illustrated how this process was inappropriate.”
As an assistant commissioner for the RCMP in B.C., Stubbs spent five years serving as that force’s criminal operations officer, overseeing 125 detachments across the province. His tenure included overseeing efforts to fight rising gang violence in the Lower Mainland region and controversial RCMP responses to protests.
Horizon Ottawa, a progressive advocacy group and registered third-party advertiser for the municipal election in Ottawa, criticized the selection of Stubbs.
He is supposed to renew trust in the community, a Horizon Ottawa media release said.
“While in charge of Core Criminal Operations for the B.C. RCMP, Stubbs ostensibly played a pivotal role in the multiple raids on Wet’suwet’en land since 2019 and defended the arresting of journalists during the raids,” the group wrote.
“If this is the Board’s attempt at ‘regaining our trust’ they have failed,” said Sam Hersh, a Horizon Ottawa board member. “We are unsure how a police chief who played a big role in raids of Indigenous territory is supposed to make BIPOC and other equity-seeking communities in Ottawa feel safe … quite the opposite.”
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