Report on troubled Thunder Bay police board brings hope but also doubt amid warning change will take time
Administrator of board in northwestern Ontario acknowledges 'huge challenges ... from generations of our past'
Community leaders and stakeholders in Thunder Bay, Ont., say they are watching carefully for the police service's next steps in the wake of a major report tabled to the police oversight board Thursday night.
The report, written by a nine-member expert panel over a year, calls for urgent and transformative action, saying "status quo and quick fixes are no longer tenable." It built upon hundreds of recommendations previously issued to the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) and the Thunder Bay Police Services Board (TBPSB), with their implementation being "uneven" at best.
"This report shows how this service's leadership continues to refuse to accept responsibility for its failures and shows no signs of changing," Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum of Nishnawbe Aski Nation said in a news release.
Achneepineskum has previously called for the TBPS to lose its powers to investigate major criminal cases in the city and for the service to be disbanded.
"The path forward for real change must begin with remorse and acceptance of responsibility. It is essential that TBPS senior management and the board recognize the expert panel's warning that they can no longer continue with the status quo," Achneepineskum said.
WATCH | CBC's Logan Turner speaks to Alok Mukherjee, chair of the police board's expert panel:
The 200-page report — which the expert panel calls a "roadmap to real change" — included 10 action items, such as the development of a regional policing model, adding a new deputy chief position to oversee Indigenous relations, and improving labour relations and outstanding human rights complaints.
It also calls on the Ontario and federal governments to come to the table and provide resources to improve the quality of policing and community well-being in Thunder Bay.
"Inadequate investigations, mishandling of cases, and failure to address urgent issues are not a result of being underfunded; they are a failure of leadership," Achneepineskum said.
"Without leadership accepting responsibility, it is impossible to expect that serious issues such as systemic racism can even begin to be addressed."
'Huge challenges' to making real change
The independent expert panel was created in March 2022 amidst reports of low officer morale, human rights violations, and investigations into criminal misconduct by officers and leaders in the force.
Shortly after the panel was formed, a leaked confidential report detailed serious deficiencies in sudden death investigations of Indigenous people in Thunder Bay and called for the reinvestigation of 14 cases, including some as recent as 2019.
While the report emphasizes long-overdue changes are needed, members of the police board and its governance committee are already warning that could take time.
"People in the community need to understand the balance between actually achieving real things and believing that we can achieve everything immediately," Malcolm Mercer, the board administrator, said in an interview with CBC News after the report was filed Thursday.
The Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC), a provincial oversight agency, appointed Mercer as board administrator in April 2022, and oversees and holds the sole vote over all board functions.
His appointment, which continues until July before he transitions to an observer role until at least the end of March 2024, came amid an emergency in terms of board oversight of the Thunder Bay police.
"In Canada, we have huge challenges which result from generations of our past, ongoing multi-generational trauma for individuals and communities," Mercer said.
"To reverse that over the next couple of years would be a foolish goal, but to fail to start to do that work would be equally wrong."
Karen Machado is one of six people on the board's governance committee who are tasked with reviewing and responding to the report. The province appointed her to a three-year term on the board in January.
"We have a lot of work to do, but I think it's very important work," Machado told CBC News. "It's not going to happen overnight, but I know we're very committed to begin the work and look at it, set some priorities."
First Nations leaders want to see action
Some First Nations leaders representing people in Thunder Bay say they're cautiously optimistic about the report.
"I think these recommendations are timely, but definitely there needs to be some follow-through," said Melvin Hardy, Anishinabek Nation's deputy grand chief for the northern Superior region.
He previously joined Achneepineskum in calling for the TBPS to lose its powers to investigate major criminal cases following a leaked report urging the reinvestigation of 14 sudden death cases involving Indigenous people.
Hardy, along with David Paul Achneepineskum, both said they are pleased with some recent developments. Achneepineskum represents nine regional First Nations as head of Matawa First Nations Management and sits on the police board's governance committee,
Those developments include the appointment of two First Nations women to the board, and the recent hiring of RCMP senior officer Darcy Fleury as the new TBPS police chief. Fleury, who is Métis, will begin a one-month transition period on April 17 before being sworn into office on May 15.
Human rights complaints still to be resolved
Fleury will begin a one-month transition period on April 17 before being sworn into office on May 15.
He has a heavy task ahead of him as the expert panel's report issued a large number of action items to the chief's office.
One of those recommendations is for the new police chief to immediately review the mounting human rights complaints and reprisals, and resolve the issues urgently "to restore workplace peace."
Chantelle Bryson is a Thunder Bay lawyer representing more than a dozen current and former officers, civilian staff and community members who have filed human rights complaints. She welcomed the sentiment to resolve the human rights issues quickly, but believes the recommendation is directed to the wrong person.
"The chief has no authority under the Police Services Act to resolve these complaints and I highly doubt he'd have the time while running a police service to engage in such a process," she told CBC News.
Bryson said it is the police board, as the employer, that must take a more active role in addressing the alleged human rights violations.
"We're going to be proactive. We're going to put very detailed offers and substantiated calculations to the board once they [regain their voting rights] on July 1 and explain our thoughts on resolution," Bryson said.
Calls for province, Ottawa to come to the table
A key finding from the expert panel's report is that the provincial and federal governments support and help fund the transformative changes needed in Thunder Bay.
This recommendation has been echoed by other recent police reviews and commissions, such as the mass casualties report looking at the RCMP's role in responding to the killings in Nova Scotia and the Rouleau inquiry into the public order emergency around Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa, said Michael Kempa, a criminologist at the University of Ottawa who focuses on police governance.
"Most of these reforms are not rocket science. They are very well-established, empirically founded recommendations for policing reform," Kempa told CBC News.
"It's more about the will and the skill to implement those reforms … and we have now seen the catastrophic consequences that come from failing to act."
A spokesperson for Ontario's solicitor general told CBC News the ministry is reviewing the report and will "carefully assess the recommendations."
Patty Hajdu, federal minister of Indigenous Services and MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, said in a statement to CBC News, "This report makes clear that much needs to be done, and much more quickly … it is time for all parties to do this important and overdue work together."
A spokesperson for Marco Mendicino, federal minister of public safety, added the government continues to work on improving and expanding Indigenous policing, and they will work closely with all parties on the issues raised by the panel's final report.
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