The government has fired an outspoken OPP commander who launched a lawsuit after being passed over for the police service’s top job in favour of a friend of Premier Doug Ford.
Ontario Provincial Police Deputy Commissioner Brad Blair had been the acting commissioner of the police force and had hoped to keep the job atop Canada’s second-largest police organization permanently. Instead, last fall the government announced the hiring of Toronto Police Superintendent Ron Taverner, prompting a legal battle.
Deputy Minister of Community Safety Mario Di Tommaso made the decision to fire Deputy Commissioner Blair, a spokeswoman for the OPP said.
“I can say that at this point that Deputy Commissioner Blair was terminated today on Monday, at the direction of the deputy minister …. as approved by the public service commission," said Staff Sergeant Carolle Dionne, an OPP spokeswoman. "We don’t have why he was terminated, just that he was terminated.”
She added that OPP commissioners and deputy commissioners are order-in-council appointments who serve at the pleasure of the government. A replacement is anticipated soon.
Commissioner Gary Couture, the acting head of the OPP, circulated a notice to all members of the provincial police force on Monday morning informing them of the move.
“I want to advise you that Brad Blair is no longer a Deputy Commissioner with the Ontario Provincial Police effective immediately," it said.
In December, Deputy Commissioner Blair launched a legal suit, challenging the government’s decision to give the OPP’s top job to Supt. Taverner. He has alleged Mr. Ford inappropriately interfered in police operations and wants a court to order the provincial ombudsman to review the hiring.
A memo obtained by The Globe shows that last Friday Mr. Di Tommaso, the deputy minister, wrote a “confidential” update to Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones, saying that he met with several senior bureaucrats and together they recommended the Progressive Conservative government fire Deputy Commissioner Blair.
"I am writing to inform you that earlier today, after careful consideration of legal advice, I recommended to the Public Service Commission that the Commission .... terminate the employment of Deputy Commissioner William Bradley Blair," Mr. Di Tommaso wrote in his March 1 letter.
He said he recommended this course of action because Deputy Commissioner Blair did not heed the written caution that Mr. Di Tommaso sent him on Dec. 28. That correspondence advised the career OPP officer to cease citing internal police correspondence in the documents he was filing into court to support his case.
Such disclosures were "contrary to his legal and ethical responsibilities," Mr. Di Tommaso wrote, before telling his minister that "termination was the only acceptable recourse."
In his March 1 letter, Mr. Di Tommaso urged the Progressive Conservative cabinet to revoke the executive order that gave Deputy Commissioner Blair his OPP command role.
“The decision will be held in strictest confidence until it is communicated to Mr. Blair on Monday,” his letter said.
Deputy Commissioner Blair’s lawyer had responded to the Dec. 28 letter by saying that it was inappropriate, arguing that Mr. Di Tommaso is too enmeshed in the controversy to have direct dealings with his client. Before being hired by the Progressive Conservative government last October, Mr. Di Tommaso was a staff superintendent at the Toronto Police Service. He served for nearly 40 years and was Supt. Taverner’s commanding officer when he left.
Mr. Di Tommaso was part of the three-person committee that selected Supt. Taverner for the top job.
Supt. Taverner has deferred taking the position pending a continuing investigation by the integrity commissioner into the hiring process that led to his appointment. Mr. Ford has said he believes the committee selected the best person for the job, and that he did not interfere in the hiring process.
Deputy Commissioner Blair, who was also a front-runner for the position, went public with his concerns in December, alleging that “inappropriate political interference or cronyism” could affect OPP operations. In his filings and correspondence, he alleged the Premier’s Office directed a sole-sourced “off-the-books” request for the OPP to refit an executive van for the Premier’s use. He further alleged the Premier relayed to police that he wanted a meeting with then-OPP commissioner Vince Hawkes to ask him to replace a rotating security detail for Mr. Ford with permanent bodyguards and, if not, “perhaps a new Commissioner would.”
Deputy Commissioner Blair’s most recent court filings, made on Feb. 15, include internal e-mails about Mr. Ford’s concerns about his police bodyguards and an estimate for the van overhaul. The Premier’s Office says, however, he should not be accessing those records and making them public.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath during Question Period on Monday asked the government to justify the firing of Deputy Commissioner Blair.
“The deputy commissioner has brought key details of the deeply flawed appointment process to light,” Ms. Horwath said. “It was a brave thing for this person to do, to come forward, and it looks like that bravery has lost him his job.”
In response, Ms. Jones said it wasn’t the government’s decision.
“The public service commission, in consultation with the OPP, made a decision independently … to terminate the employment of Mr. Blair. I will not be commenting, nor should anyone else, on private HR issues,” Ms. Jones told the legislature.
The disclosures recently made as part of the Deputy Commissioner Blair’s court case appear to have had fallout for other OPP careers.
Last week, the union head who represents rank-and-file OPP officers wrote to Mr. Di Tommaso to express concerns about a police-officer bodyguard of Mr. Ford’s being suddenly reassigned.
On Thursday, the officer “was advised that he was being stood down from his duties,” Rob Jamieson, president of the Ontario Provincial Police Association, wrote in a Feb. 28 letter to the deputy minister.
The police union head said that “we can only assume that this action is the direct result of his name being mentioned in several media reports” flowing from the lawsuit by Deputy Commissioner Blair.
In a July e-mail written just weeks after Mr. Ford took over as premier, the officer relayed to OPP headquarters Mr. Ford’s displeasure with his security detail.
He quoted the premier as saying that “I have not formed the trust with them. I have asked for my own detail of officers who I trust already. It feels like I’m not being heard, like I’m getting f***ed around by the OPP, and I’m getting more pissed off.”
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