Hamilton police oversight board to take 'cultural competency' training

Hamilton's police oversight board will sign up for regular "cultural competency and sensitivity" training after a dispute between some of its members has dragged on for nearly a year.

The dispute arose when board member Walt Juchniewicz said that fellow police board member Madeleine Levy made a disparaging comment to him last December about Polish people's role in Auschwitz.

The dispute has also become an "open wound" between the board and the city's Polish community, said Councillor Terry Whitehead.

This was a matter that the board itself should have been able to address quickly and effectively before it got out of hand.- Linda Lamoreux, Director, OCPC

As the board struggled to put the dispute to rest in a heated hearing Thursday, members of the Polish and Muslim communities filled city hall chambers, where the board met, calling, in part, for more diversity on the police board.

The board was dealing with an Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC) recommendation the board take cultural and policy training in a letter explaining its decision not to launch a formal investigation into the matter.

The commission did, however, chastise the people involved and express regret that the whole thing has dragged on as long as it has.

"This whole process has been a distraction from the central work of the (Hamilton Police Services Board)," the commission's director, Linda Lamoreux said.

"In my view, this was a matter that the board itself should have been able to address quickly and effectively before it got out of hand."

'We should be able to have courage to say sorry'

The letter was made public Thursday amid a heated hearing.

Dozens of members of the local Polish community came to city hall to call for a public apology from Levy.      

"We should be able to have courage to say sorry when it is needed," said Wladislaw Lizon, president of the Canadian Polish Congress.

Levy was silent throughout Thursday's discussion.

Dispute goes back to December of last year

Levy did apologize to Juchniewicz for her comments in a brief Jan. 4 letter. 

But Juchniewicz wasn't satisfied that the matter had been sufficiently dealt with, and he included it in a long complaint letter to Chris Murray, the city manager.

The board responded in February by referring two matters – both Levy's comment and Juchniewicz's actions to make his complaints public – to the OCPC for review.

In the months that have followed, the Canadian Polish community members said they had tried to set up meetings with board chair Lloyd Ferguson and Levy about the matter.

Thursday, the board voted to direct Ferguson to set up a meeting with Polish representatives.

'There's an open wound as a result of what has transpired'

It wasn't inevitable that the OCPC's letter to the board would be made public.

The board discussed the letter behind closed doors before the public meeting, and began the meeting by voting to implement the recommendations to get training and meet with the Polish community.

But Terry Whitehead, another board member, wasn't satisfied with that.

"I don't support the lack of transparency in the way we arrived at this conclusion," Whitehead said.

"There's an open wound as a result of what has transpired. And the only way to heal that wound is to have constructive discussion and dialogue with this board, in the context of the community."

While the board wouldn't support Whitehead's call to discuss the finer points of the dispute and the OCPC investigation on Thursday, it agreed to invite the commission to come to a future meeting to explain how it arrived at its conclusion.

After the meeting, Pamela Machado, a lawyer for Juchniewicz, said he is dissatisfied with the OCPC decision not to formally investigate, both the comments from Levy and the Ferguson''s handling of it.

"If it's not the role of the commission to determine if the chair's doing his job, I'm not sure whose role it is," Machado said. 

'It takes some individuals to come to the table'

But Fred Eisenberger appeared to call for Levy and Juchniewicz to apologize.

"It takes some individuals to come to the table with some regret and apologies so we can get on to next steps," he said. "There's a lack of willingness to get there on all parties' sides."

Javid Mirza, president of the Muslim Association of Hamilton, spoke at the meeting in solidarity with the Polish community.

"The needs of people of the city of Hamilton are more important that anybody's ego here," he said.

He added that the board should reflect the diversity of the city it serves, and suggested the lack of diversity may have got the board into the mess it's in now. All of the board's eight members are white and only one is a woman.

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca