Ontario has a rare chance to improve police oversight

Ever since a Toronto police officer shot Andrew Loku dead in July 2015 in his apartment building hallway, five minutes after the 911 call was made about Loku banging the walls with a hammer, there has been a wide-ranging debate about the nature of policing, and how we hold police accountable for their actions.

This has happened against the backdrop of allegations of police racism, from the carding debate in Toronto to traffic stops in Ottawa. Three recent high-profile probes by the Special Investigations Unit have involved the deaths of members of minority communities: Sammy Yatim in Toronto, Jermaine Carby in Brampton and Abdirahman Abdi in Ottawa.

On Thursday, we’ll find out what options the province has to bolster police oversight.

It is a remarkable win for Black Lives Matter, which has led public protests over police violence, for police accountability activists, who’ve been fighting for more accountability for years, and — frankly — for provincial politicians who’ve taken the opportunity to respond to the hurt and outrage of Ontarians.

Yet officers have, to some extent, sealed themselves up behind a blue wall in the face of public criticism. In Ottawa, they’re buying black and blue wristbands to support a colleague accused of manslaughter. The act reveals a bunker mentality, an understandable — but unjustifiable — response to what they see as anti-police sentiment. Changes to oversight, though, could be a win even for police, who have their own list of ideas about how it can improve. And even if police aren’t happy with what happens, it will be good for policing in the long run.

Over the past year, a team led by Justice Michael Tulloch has traversed the province and, from public testimony at its hearings — some of it heartbreaking, some of it nonsensical, some of it simply ignorant and some of it insightful — has produced a report into how oversight should change in Ontario.

On the hottest political file in practically any jurisdiction in North America, there’s tremendous pressure to get it right. Tulloch had wide latitude to study each of the oversight organizations and recommend changes to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

In Ontario, that’s three bodies: the Special Investigations Unit, which investigates death, serious injury and sexual assault that may be the result of criminal actions by police; the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which handles public complaints; and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, which handles disciplinary appeals, and investigates police services boards and chiefs. Of the three, the SIU is the most well-known; it investigates the most highprofile conflicts, such as the death here last summer of Abdi.

The real pressure is on Attorney General Yasir Naqvi, who has a copy of the report. What, exactly, comes next?

To put it in some context, the SIU has been reviewed before. Six times. Little has happened. But Naqvi, who is also MPP for Ottawa Centre, can’t just throw this report into some filing cabinet.

For example, Tulloch was tasked with looking into whether SIU investigative reports should be released to the public. It’s been looked at before, and recommended before, yet never been fully implemented.

The Liberals, to their credit, seem ambitious on this. They’re also planning reforms to the Police Services Act for the first time in nearly 30 years, which, separate from Tulloch’s work, could see major legislative changes to the law that governs policing in Ontario.

On the road, Tulloch’s team heard repeatedly about how oversight bodies aren’t transparent enough. Releasing reports isn’t a cure-all for concerns about oversight, but giving the public insight into how the SIU does its work will improve confidence in the oversight system. Reports should be released post-haste and as a matter of routine.

The other big question, about revealing officers’ identities before charges are laid (and even if they’re not) will be far more contentious. Unions cite safety concerns, and point to privacy legislation. Both are lame excuses, and officers’ names can be disclosed in cases of extreme public interest already. It should be done as the default — police are public servants, and we should always lean toward more transparency.

Ontario has before it a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make policing better, and politicians and the public shouldn’t shy away from making necessary changes. Nor should the police.

The only shame is that lives had to be lost for us to get to this point.