Departures of police chief, union head seen as chance for reform
Mike McCormack steps down at same time as chief Saunders amid growing calls for change
Within a 24-hour period, two of the most powerful policing positions in Toronto will soon sit empty — vacancies that rarely overlap, let alone at a time of unparalleled calls for police reform.
Late Tuesday, Mike McCormack, the longtime and divisive president of the Toronto Police Association, announced he will be retiring from his role after 11 years, a post that’s seen him wield potent formal and unofficial control over policing in Toronto.
McCormack steps down Aug.1, one day after the early departure of Chief Mark Saunders, who announced last month he’d be bowing out eight months before his contract ended to spend more time with his family.
The twin departures offer an unprecedented opportunity for change following weeks of local and international calls for an overhaul of policing, including demands to defund the institution and outcry over police-involved deaths of Black and Indigenous people.
“They have both failed to foster a healthy relationship between the police and the community at large,” said Rick Frank, a Toronto human rights and police accountability lawyer, of Saunders and McCormack.
“The denials of systemic racism and the culture that has been fostered by the weak leadership have only served to worsen this relationship.”
In an interview Wednesday, Mayor John Tory said: “I believe that the departure of both at roughly the same time presents an opportunity. And that is an opportunity for the membership of the police association and the police board to pick people for the two jobs that are committed to policing reform.”
McCormack, too, said the vacancies present a unique, if unintentional, moment for change.
In an interview, McCormack said his retirement was in the works for a year, in part because of recent health issues, including an accident with a mitre saw last summer that resulted in his slicing off three fingers. (Two were surgically reattached.)
His retirement was supposed to happen in May, until COVID-19 upheaval derailed the plan.
Acknowledging he’s leaving at acrucial moment for policing in the city, McCormack said there was never going to be a good time — “there’s been a crisis in policing since I’ve been the president. And there will be a crisis in policing long after.”
At some point, “you have to make the decision and rip the Band-Aid off,” McCormack said, adding it’s time to bring in “fresh perspective.” In 24 years as a police officer and then 11 years as union head, McCormack said he’s never witnessed as strong or as broad a call for changes to policing as is happening now.
Until union membership decides on its next president in 2021, current vice-president Brian Callanan will step in as interim president. McCormack said union leadership will ultimately “require a forwardthinking type of person,” someone who can “look at what’s going on in policing in a different type of way.”
Critics say McCormack was anything but.
Dubbed an effective and even “charming” communicator, McCormack, the son of late Toronto police chief Bill McCormack, was an outspoken advocate for the union, quick to comment critically in the media about politicians and police leadership when he felt their actions harmed police.
Recent police modernization attempts by the service and its board saw the union launch a well-organized campaign against the efforts, which briefly attempted to reduce the number of police officers via a freeze on hiring and promotions. In 2018, the union ran a full-page advertisement in the Star depicting a laughing Mayor Tory alongside a smiling Saunders and then-police board chair Andy Pringle, saying: “These guys are putting your safety on hold.” “911” appeared to be written in blood behind them.
The union later held an entirely symbolic, if stinging, nonconfidence vote against Saunders, the man who had been the union’s choice as the Toronto police board searched for a new chief in 2015. At the time, McCormack said the intention was to send a message that Saunders needed to act on union concerns that cost-cutting changes had staffing at critical levels.
In a tweet Wednesday, Saunders wished McCormack well in his retirement.
“We work in different lanes but we have always shared the same objective: to do the very best each of us could for every member of the @TorontoPolice & the public,” he wrote.
In an interview, Tory said McCormack “has put in his time” and earned his retirement, characterizing his relationship with McCormack as one that any mayor would have with the head of a police association. The union pushed back on modernization changes — “there were times when they did resist things that I certainly was in favour of,” Tory said — but he also highlighted successes, including recent changes to the Toronto police shift schedule that caused tension between the police board and union for decades.
Alok Mukherjee, who was at loggerheads with McCormack while he was Toronto police board chair until 2015, said he could have been a much bigger player in terms of supporting a new model. Instead, McCormack “chose to handcuff and make himself a barrier to any kind of significant change,” Mukherjee said.
“Mike’s whole history has been as a very strong activist for not only maintaining but enhancing the conventional way of providing policing,” he said.
But that is precisely his job, said Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson, a former member of the Toronto police board.
Saying he likes McCormack, and calling him a calm and “endearing” leader, Thompson said he was highly effective and skilful at protecting his members, which is his sole role — not looking out for the best interests of the city.
The Toronto Police Association “has worked constructively to oppose many of the reform and changes that would be brought in,” Thompson said.
McCormack’s insistence on making evidence-based and data-driven decisions was often a
“red herring,” Thompson said, because even when decisions were backed by data, the union would find other reasons to delay change.
McCormack denied that, saying he was proud to have advocated for evidence-driven decision making, as opposed to “knee-jerk reactions.”
Shelley Carroll, Toronto city councillor and former member of the Toronto police board, said McCormack was a “politician like the rest of us — that’s what it takes to be a union boss.”
A“charming and effective” advocate for his members, Carroll said he was “sadly” an impediment to change who was too often reluctant to consider alternatives and too quick to say Toronto was its own unique context. It now behooves the TPA members to look for a president who can help them navigate a period of unprecedented change, and come out with stronger relations with the public, she said.
“That’s what we’ll be looking for in a chief,” she said. “If you are looking for the same thing in an association leader, then we really are on our way.”
Christopher Williams, a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and coauthor of “Boomerang Ethics: How Racism Affects Us All,” said he’s not optimistic that any good change could come from a new union boss.
“The idea of a progressive police association president is almost as contradictory as the notion of a secular pope,” he said Wednesday.
“The very mandate of the TPA is such that police officers will be shielded from accountability at all costs — and everyone else be damned.”
Williams criticized McCormack for ongoing issues with sexual harassment within the Toronto police service; last week, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled sexual harassment was commonwithin the workplace of former Toronto police officer Heather McWilliam.
Williams also noted McCormack said the conviction of Toronto police officer James Forcillo, found guilty of attempted murder in the 2013 shooting death of Sammy Yatim, sent a “chilling message” to Toronto police officers.
“If the Forcillo verdict reduces the likelihood of a similar shooting occurring in the future, why would the verdict be a bad thing?” Williams asked. “McCormack’s stance demonstrated that he believes Toronto officers should be able to get away with just about anything. And that, to me, is the truly chilling message.”
Frank, the Toronto human rights lawyer, said the next police chief and TPA president “must be on the same page.” That includes accepting that systemic racism is built into the fibre of the current model of policing, he said.
“The new leaders must rid themselves of the ‘bad apple’ rhetoric and recognize that it is in fact that soil that is poisoned,” he said.
“This is where the change starts.”
“The idea of a progressive police association president is almost as contradictory as the notion of a secular pope.”
CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS TORONTO POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY COALITION