A previous hiring attempt was heavily criticized, but the current board went ahead with its own hire just days before the municipal election
City council ousted Deans from her role as chair after she hired an outsider, Matt Torigian, former chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, to take the helm of the Ottawa Police Service after Peter Sloly’s resignation during the “Freedom Convoy” protests in February.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
Coun. Diane Deans, former chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board, says the new board to be formed after Monday’s municipal election “will set out in the early days a strategic direction that they want to take policing in Ottawa.”Deans said she had hoped Torigian could serve as chief until the municipal election, after which a new police board, which would include three city councillors, could choose a new chief in line with their values.
Leiper acknowledged that the hiring of the chief was the responsibility of the board, independent of city council. Jeff Leiper, member of the police services board, says he would have voted against the current board proceeding with the hiring of a new chief, but was away for that vote in July.Leiper had been on vacation in July, he wrote, when the police services board voted to proceed with the hiring process.
Leiper said Stubbs had his support and he was looking forward to working with the soon-to-be chief on improving policing in Ottawa.“I’ve always maintained that the selection of a new police chief is an independent process. It is not up to the mayor and council to decide who this individual is,” Mark Sutcliffe said in a media release on Friday. “It is the independent police services board, which includes representatives from multiple levels of government as well as citizen representatives.