The expert panel appointed to advise the Thunder Bay Police Services Board has released an interim report with some recommended changes and reforms to the Thunder Bay Police Service and its oversight and operations. The interim report addresses three areas where action can be taken in advance of the final report and they include: (1) the selection of a new Chief of Police, (2) appointment of a new Board and, (3) labour relations. There are some key points made in this report that include more funding to strengthen civilian oversight, an arms-length Human Rights/Equity, Diversity Inclusion (EDI) Unit within the force, an expanded police services board with significant First Nations representation, and preference in the search for a new police chief to candidates who know Thunder Bay and who are Indigenous or racialized, as long as they meet other criteria. Indeed, when taken in its entirety, implementation will be an expensive proposition and can be expected to have a significant impact on the City of Thunder Bay’s budget.
In looking through the report, an implicit theme is that the Thunder Bay Police Service has to take a regional lens to its role and operation. Most interesting and significant in terms of a regional approach is the recommendation that a priority is to “Establish a formal nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations leaders to, among others, exchange information, consult on policy, address issues, and promote joint service delivery through a memorandum of understanding or formal agreement with policy and procedure (to ensure accountability and structure).”
For example, in selecting a new police chief there is an action recommendation to consult with, seek input from and participation of Fort William First Nation, Anishinabek Nation, Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, Matawa First Nations, and Grand Council Treaty #3 in the selection committee and hiring process. According to the interim report, the successful candidate must demonstrate “sound knowledge and appreciation of Thunder Bay as the regional hub of Northwestern Ontario” and understand “the presence and role of the region’s First Nations governments, and their relationship to Thunder Bay’s municipal government.”
In selecting board members, the interim report recommends that Ontario’s Solicitor General should “seek exemption to expand its membership to 7 members and remove the requirement of local residency due to the unique nature of Thunder Bay as the regional hub of Northwestern Ontario and the need for the Board to be reflective of the communities the Police Service serves” and “In an expanded seven-member Board, Indigenous representation should rise to three. While one member should be from Fort William First Nation, the additional one or two members should be drawn from First Nations based on considerations including use of Thunder Bay’s educational, medical, and other services by members of their communities, and their history of leadership and advocacy for changes to policing, such as the Coroner’s Seven Youths’ Inquest, implementation of recommendations from the Inquest and initiatives related to anti-racism.” Implementing this in terms of picking who gets to be on the board should prove to be an interesting political balancing act and a delicate nation-to-nation negotiation.
Looking forward, a move to a more regional approach in policing
in the end will be a continuation of a trend over the last twenty-five years
that can be best described as informal northwestern Ontario regional government
by default. The Hardy Report on amalgamation
for the Lakehead communities in the late 1960s made the case for a regional
district government that was not acted on.
During my past and more youthful forays on northern Ontario economic issues, the
need for a regional approach not to mention regional government was something I
opined on as the attached 1997 op-ed at the end of this article
illustrates. In some ways the piece is as relevant now as it was then. Yet, what has come to pass
over the subsequent decades is not a formal and structured approach to regional
government but a piecemeal issue of the moment approach that in the end has
created regional institutions but without direct accountability to a regional
electorate except via an indirect process of voting for municipal representatives.
We have over the last twenty years acquired a regional hospital service, a district social services board, a district emergency service organization, and regional public utilities such as Synergy North and TBayTel largely driven by Thunder Bay but with regional input from other communities. Indigenous organizations have also established presence in Thunder Bay and Sioux lookout providing regional services to their members. We have achieved regional government by default but without any coordinating mechanism and without any over-arching effort to see if we are getting effective regional government or value for money. That might be fine if we were dealing with private economic endeavors and a competitive market that was creating regional businesses – after all, in the end, economic viability measures their performance and success - but taxpayer dollars are involved here.
With respect to the police service, giving it more of a regional mandate is in some sense at odds with its mandated purpose as Thunder Bay’s police service. Expecting municipal ratepayers to fund a regional mandate for policing as necessary, laudable, and noble as it might be is not what municipal ratepayers signed up for. Indeed, one might argue that what is needed here is twofold. Regional police services as well as appropriate regional funding from the participating affected indigenous and non-indigenous partners, as well as the provincial government.
One has to wonder if the ultimate result here given the documented shortcomings of the current police service, will not be reforming the Thunder Bay Police Service but a new Thunder Bay District Police Service that essentially absorbs the current police service into a new entity. Again, if this is the intention, it should be done explicitly rather than by stealth, so we all know what everyone has signed up for, what is expected in terms of financial contributions and with contributions from regional partners as well as the provincial government. Indeed, if what we are talking about is nation-to-nation relationships then there is also room for a federal role and contribution to this entire business.
This interim report represents a starting point for a much larger and very important conversation. Like all reports, it represents some great thoughts but, in the end, it will be more important to think everything through. It is remarkable that in the midst of a municipal election, this report has not been more front and center as an issue for the mayor and councilor positions.
