Police board needs more diversity: Gale
The chair of the Niagara Regional Police services board says the organization needs to be more diverse.
During Thursday’s board meeting, board chair Bob Gale said the terms of two of the three provincially appointed members will expire within the year, and he urged Queen’s Park to consider women and members of minority communities to fill those posts.
At present the seven-member board that provides civilian oversight of the NRP is composed entirely of white men. All but one are over 50.
“In filling those vacancies I believe the province needs to encourage applications from diverse and under-represented communities across Niagara, including women, as part of the upcoming appointing process,” said Gale, who said he has heard from several local woman interested in joining the board.
The police board comprises three provincial government appointees and four regional appointees.
Gale, who represents Niagara Falls on regional council, said the lack of diversity on police boards has become a provincewide issue the Ontario government should address.
“I think there is a duty to look at the board, and as I always want the best candidate, I don’t care if it is seven women or seven, I hope I am using the term right, AfricanAmericans, whatever, I always screw this up, but regardless, I want the best applicants on the board, especially when I am not here any longer. But regardless of that, I am sure there are qualified women out there for our board and others.”
Board member and Port Colborne regional Coun. David Barrick put forward a motion to inform all of Niagara’s MPPs of the board’s position on diversity.
Vaughn Stewart, one of the provincial appointees whose term is coming to an end, agreed with Gale and Barrick on the diversity of board members, but said the issue is not solely a provincial responsibility.
“Regional council, in its wisdom, appoints four people of the seven and when I look at the four people appointed, I don’t see any women there. If we are going to take this stance, then we send our position to all people who appoint people to this board. That’s not only including the provincial government but regional council as well,” he said.
“They do have women sitting as councillors they could have chosen. They could have chosen a citizen who is a woman. They chose not to do so for whatever reason.”
The motion was amended to include notifying regional council, and Barrick said the board should remind the council elected after the 2018 elections of its position.
“Let’s keep this top of mind,” he said.
St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley said citizens interested in provincially appointed positions should apply through the Public Appointments Secretariat.
While agreeing with the need to increase diversity in public agencies, including the police services board, Bradley noted Niagara Region has done little to improve diversity on the agencies that it appoints members to.
There has not been a woman on the police services board in 16 years. The last woman to sit on the board was Shirley Cordiner, who was a member from 1996 to 2001 and also served as the board chair.
Cordiner, a former Town of Fort Erie and regional councillor who is part of an effort to get more women engaged in politics, said the lack of female and minority representation on elected councils in Niagara is striking.
Women, for instance, only compose 11.1 per cent of regional councillors. Of the 12 Niagara mayors, only two are women. When all the elected municipal councils are considered, women only make up 23 per cent of Niagara citizens holding office.
Cordiner said not enough women are involved in the political process.
“There are reasons for that,” Cordiner said. “There are barriers that we have to overcome.”
More often than not, women are the primary caregivers of children, which can make meeting the time demands of politics challenging, she said.
Culturally, politics remains a male-dominated field where women have to work harder to be taken seriously.
These are issues that women face across Canada, she said, but noted the current character of Niagara politics is keeping women away.
“Young women, and even young men, are looking at what is happening at Niagara Region, and the NPCA or the police board, and they don’t like what they see,” she said.
“There is a viciousness there. People are just attacked, personally attacked. People won’t get involved if they think they will just be torn apart. The kind of respect that was there when I was on council isn’t there anymore.”
However, Cordiner said agencies like the police services board won’t become more diverse until there more politically active women and members of minority communities in Niagara.
Experience at the community level can be vital in playing a role in councils and agencies with municipal or regionwide responsibilities.
Cordinersaidshewasapproached to join the police services board by former Niagara West–Glanbrook Progressive Conservative MPP Tim Hudak because she was active in policing in her community.
“I wasn’t a member of the Conservative party, but I had been deeply involved in community policing in Fort Erie,” she said.
“So he approached me because there was a vacancy to be filled, and he knew that I knew the issues.”