What do Ottawanese want to see in the next police chief? Community members weigh in at consultation session

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What do Ottawanese want to see in their next police chief?

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That was the central question posed in a community engagement session on Wednesday night.

Fewer than 50 people attended the virtual session, about half of whom did not participate because they were observing or leading the meeting.

Hector Addison, head of Hefid Solutions, who was hired by the board to conduct a community consultation process to gauge the priorities of the new police chief, told participants that the goal of the session was to encourage dialogue and hear various prospects.

“We want to hear your views,” he said.

Eli El-Chantiry, president of the Ottawa Police Services Board, several of whom attended the virtual session, said it was an important step in hiring the next chief “to give the community a voice in this process of hiring. ”

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Several session participants pointed to Ottawa’s last police chief, Peter Sloly, who had a reputation as a progressive police reformer but was ousted after police inaction during the “Freedom Convoy” protests, as an example. of someone who was “tricked into failing.”

As chief, Sloly pursued a progressive agenda, but faced pushback both within the police service, where he was seen as moving too fast, and from the community, where activists felt he was not bringing about change fast enough.

“I think Chief Sloly did a lot of things right and a lot of things went wrong,” said Andrea Blaustein, a session participant. “Part of what went wrong was not understanding the culture within OPS.”

Blaustein added that in his opinion the next boss should come from outside the service.

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“I’m not advocating for talent from within,” he said. “I mean someone who can understand it, but who hasn’t been in the middle, and I think it would be much better to get someone from the outside than from the inside.”

Sloly was an outsider, a veteran cop from Toronto with experience in the private sector, a factor that left him at a disadvantage when he arrived in Ottawa.

“The (next boss) should also know about the Ottawa region,” said Fidelia Addison, who runs Hefid in consultation with Hector, but shared her thoughts on the next boss in the session. “If he is going to bring someone from another area or region, then he has to make sure that he takes the time to educate them about the Ottawa region because this place is very diverse, very multifaceted.”

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Ultimately, several participants said, whoever becomes the next chief of the Ottawa Police Service will have to rise to the challenge of trying to lead from the ground up and execute a progressive mandate on a constrained budget.

It’s an impossible task, some participants said.

“There can be no change,” said Bailey Gauthier. “You even saw that with Sloly getting so much pushback…Even though he was the most progressive police chief Ottawa ever had, he was prepared to fail because of all the rules in place that allow that to happen. If he really wants significant change in policing structures, which is impossible because he’s built that way, but, if he really wants to go down that path anyway, it will be through legislation.”

Residents who would like to share their thoughts on Ottawa’s search for its next police chief can also do so by completing an online survey at letshearyou.ca/projects.