Ottawa police board meeting disrupted by activists demanding answers

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Ottawa police Chief Eric Stubbs were confronted at their first police services board meeting Monday by local activists who disrupted the proceedings with what they called an act of civil disobedience.

“We’re done being ignored while you ignore basic democratic principles,” Robin Browne, co-lead of 613-819 Black Hub, announced during what was supposed to be a five-minute presentation to the board. “So, this evening, things are going to happen a little differently.”

He said he was not getting out his chair at a city hall committee room until the board answered four questions put to it by his colleague.

Bailey Gauthier demanded to know if the board would return to a hybrid structure for its meetings, allowing online delegations (they must now be in person); whether the police would be included in the mayor’s promise of a line-by-line audit of city hall budgets; whether the board would freeze the police budget until that audit was complete; and whether it would commission an independent, human rights-based review of the police service.

“With all due respect, I’m not leaving this chair until you answer our questions,” Browne announced.

After he repeatedly refused requests to leave and let the board continue its work, interim board chair Suzanne Valiquet recessed the meeting for 15 minutes.

Then, with Browne and Gauthier still in their chairs at the committee table and with their microphones muted, the board raced through key items on its agenda in less than five minutes with no discussion.

It represents the second time in the past week that a public meeting has been disrupted and cut short by disruptive members of the public.

Last Tuesday, a meeting of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board was unable to vote on imposing mask rules after people who opposed such mandates interrupted it with heckling and jeers. Police were called, the meeting was moved online and the vote delayed.

Monday’s police board meeting approved Sutcliffe’s appointment to two police board committees and the appointment of some special constables.

It then abruptly adjourned based on a motion from board member Michael Doucet without considering a series of reports on human rights, racial profiling and workplace management.

The workplace management report notes the police service will send a class of 30 recruits to the Ontario Police College next month as it accelerates hiring to make up for an unexpected rise in the number of retirements.

It will be the third and largest class of recruits to begin the process of becoming Ottawa police officers in 2022.

The police service projects annual retirements based on historical averages and demographics, but the numbers in 2022 caught officials by surprise: This year’s 25 retirements were two-and-a-half times the historic average of 10 per year.

“This can be attributed to multiple factors, including members choosing to delay retirement during the height of the pandemic, opportunities at other organizations, and personal issues,” according to the workforce management report.

The report made no mention of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that occupied downtown Ottawa for one month and pushed many police officers to their limits.

In his testimony to the Emergencies Act inquiry, former chief Peter Sloly said officers faced “inhuman circumstances” during the protest. “It was too cold and it was too much, but they did their very best,” Sloly said, adding that misinformation about their work crushed officers’ morale.

The workplace management report said Ottawa will have hired 83 new officers by the end of this year. Those recruited in April are expected to be fully trained and deployed by January, while those recruited in August will begin serving in May 2023. The first two recruit classes include 14 racialized men, 12 non-racialized men, one Indigenous man and seven women.

The 30 new recruits entering police college in December will require about nine months of training and will add $1.7 million to the service’s annual budget.

Stubbs has said staffing will be one of his priorities as Ottawa’s new police chief.

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