Police board chair says Halifax council responsible for responding to union concerns about chief of police

Any attempt to address a Halifax police union vote of non-confidence in Chief Dan Kinsella must come from the municipal council and not the police board, according to Coun. Lindell Smith who chairs the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners. 

Smith, who represents Halifax Peninsula North, said the chief is an employee of the Halifax regional council.

The Halifax Regional Police Association announced this week that 84 per cent of its members took part in a vote asking them if they have confidence in Kinsella:  96.6 per cent said no.

Speaking to CBC Radio's Information Morning Halifax host Portia Clark, Smith said, as a member of the public, he found the results "concerning."

This is a condensed version of their conversation that has been edited for clarity and length.

What's your reaction to these results both as a citizen of Halifax and a member of the police board?

Even though this was a vote from [union] members, it's typically a labour-relations issue that I don't think it's appropriate for the board to get involved in.

Staffing is something that [the police board doesn't] have any say over, but what we do have is say over is policies and how they affect the force overall. 

What I think is important for folks to understand [is that] the chief is actually an employee of council, not an employee of the board.

Obviously the board has oversight over the chief in the sense of how how things are being run, if policies are being met, how service is being delivered. But council, through the Provincial Police Act, is actually the employer for the chief.

Is there a way of determining whether the police officers' complaints [and] their lack of confidence are well founded? Specifically around what happened during and after [post-tropical storm] Fiona and the Dalhousie University homecoming party?

Not through the board's powers.

The most important aspect for [the police board] is for the chief and his senior leadership and the union and their leadership to really come together and work collaboratively to deal with these issues.

Because our officers are the ones who are on the ground risking their lives every day. And to have the leadership within the [Halifax Regional Police] and the union going about these issues in public doesn't reflect the good work that many of the officers are doing all the time.

To put on your councillor's hat for a moment, is council now looking at this non-confidence vote with concern and planning to talk about it?

I'm one out of 16, ... but really it comes down to: does council want to review the contract early or not?

I haven't heard that council is going to look at the contract in this issue, but if we did, it would be something that would be dealt with in camera because it is a personnel matter.

As a citizen though, do you think council should be looking at a situation where it sounds like most members of the police force are not backing their chief?

I don't want [people]  to think that because of this vote of non-confidence that that's going to change how they receive services.

It might change the morale that's happening internally, but that's something that has to be dealt with with the chief and his senior leadership and the union. 

Whether they can act or not, I suppose the board would be watching as to whether this does affect service delivery?

If we're seeing that there is an aspect of service delivery that's being affected, we can enact policies. We can review that with the chief.

We can't tell the chief how to do specific things ... but we can say through policy that this is what we want you to focus on through strategic planning, through your policy objectives.

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