Ottawa Life Magazine has been writing about the problems with the Ottawa Police for the past five years. In 2011, we said that Councillor and Ottawa Police Services (OPS) Board Chair Eli El-Chantiry should resign over his all too cozy relationship with then Police Chief Vern White. El-Chantiry saw no reason why he or anyone should be concerned about him socializing with the Police Chief he was supposed to be overseeing. When current Chief Charles Bordeleau was accused of allegedly interfering in a court case involving a careless driving charge against his father-in-law, El-Chantiry did nothing. His chummy, wink wink, nod nod relationship with the police management team and complete misunderstanding of his role as OPS Chair has now crossed into gross incompetence.
The OPS Board was later forced to send the case to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) after the accusations were reported by Postmedia. When referring it for investigation, El-Chantiry said that the board was not passing judgment on what the Chief did but, acting in the interest of “openness and transparency.” He does not even seem to comprehend that the entire point of oversight is to monitor and pass judgment on a regular basis to ensure that the police are operating at the highest possible standard. Chief Bordeleau vehemently denies the accusations and El-Chantiry has further damaged the Chief’s reputation. El-Chantiry should have sent the original accusations to OIPRD and let them do their job. By not doing so, Bordeleau’s reputation has been damaged in the public eye. Bordeleau has been trying to bring change to OPS. He has a small mutinous crew of undisciplined officers on his force and continues to deal with an unacceptably high number of incidents of police misconduct by Ottawa constables, including cases of spousal abuse, driving under the influence and police improperly accessing personal data on police computers. There are also investigations underway involving 11 Ottawa police constables allegedly involved in fraudulent reporting activity. Under the current Police Services Act, Chief Bordeleau cannot terminate any of these constables. If the accusations are true, they should all be fired.
Related: Why Police Fear Evidence-Based Research.
Ottawa Centre MPP and Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Yasir Naqvi will soon introduce changes to reform the Police Services Act, but until then, Bordeleau must work with the current Act which is outdated and does not have the provisions to allow Police Chiefs to fire officers for criminal or inappropriate activity. The Ottawa Police Association, like most others, circle the wagons and protect their own, even when criminal behaviour is involved. This harms the good police officers and creates an environment where some police think they can commit crimes and are untouchable. In Ottawa, there have been five violent murders since January. All of them are gang and drug related. Otherwise, overall crime across the city is down. After the fifth murder, Chief Bordeleau issued an open letter asking the public to help the police. A day later, one of “Ottawa’s Finest,” Constable Paul Heffler, sent out a cowardly email to the entire force criticizing Chief Bordeleau. It was a breathtaking and insolent act of insubordination that should have resulted in his immediate termination with cause. Heffler, who has almost 30 years in policing, sent it knowing full well there was little at risk for him as he will soon retire on a fully indexed, taxpayer-subsidized fat cat pension. He actually wrote in his email that “there are few services and businesses that pay their employees $100,000 salaries and treat them like they are dime store security guards.” He raises an important point. Why are we paying police constables like him and others such high salaries, amongst the highest salaries of any public servants in Ontario, when private sector companies are available to cover these duties at one-third of the cost? If we did that, then the Ottawa Police would have the money to pay for intelligence gathering, equipment and extra resources they require to combat the serious and growing issue of gang violence in Ottawa. Instead, we have a head of Police oversight who is dumber than a bag of hammers and police constables who have become so arrogant and entitled that they now think they don’t even need to listen to the Chief of Police.