A job well done
Alok Mukherjee has served long and well as chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, performing an exceedingly difficult task with remarkable sensitivity and compassion. His legacy provides a sound foundation for policing in the 21st century. And it mustn’t be put at risk by rushing to appoint a successor to the board’s top job.
Named chair of the civilian panel overseeing Canada’s largest municipal police force in 2005, Mukherjee announced on Thursday that he is stepping down as of Aug. 1.
When Mukherjee was re-elected as board chair in January he indicated this would be his last year in the post. And he opted to leave sooner, rather than later, telling a meeting of the police board that “the time has come to move on.”
Mukherjee became chair shortly after the departure of hard-line former chief Julian Fantino. Relations between uniformed officers and visible minority communities were at a particularly low ebb. Working with chief Bill Blair, soft-spoken Mukherjee took a moderate approach, concentrating on healing and outreach to Toronto’s hard-pressed minorities.
It proved a welcome tonic. The city’s police force became a more responsive, diverse and community-oriented organization.
Blair and Mukherjee eventually found themselves at loggerheads over how to handle the controversial issue of carding. Mukherjee was successful in having the board pass a bold reform of this toxic practice last year, but Blair refused to implement key changes.
In an effort to find middle ground Mukherjee and the board, unfortunately, accepted watered-down measures earlier this year — a compromise that proved so intolerable that the resulting backlash fed a growing movement to ban carding altogether.
In a fresh wrinkle, the Toronto Police Services Board voted on Thursday to abandon its untenable half-measure and restore last year’s carding reform. Under its terms, officers would be required to have a valid public-safety reason for stopping people and asking intrusive questions. They would have to tell these people of their right to walk away and issue a receipt to those questioned, recording details of the interaction.
Chief Mark Saunders said he would detail specific procedures for officers in keeping with that directive. These are to remain in place until the province delivers new Ontario-wide carding regulations and standards in the fall. The best reform would be to get rid of this corrosive practice altogether.
Mukherjee’s departure will leave one seat empty on the sevenmember board, as well as a need to fill the panel’s top spot. There’s speculation that there will be a push to elect a new chair as early as the board’s next meeting even if the province hasn’t yet appointed someone to replace Mukherjee.
That would be a mistake. Until a seventh person is appointed to the panel, vice-chair Andy Pringle should be in charge. Only after that should the next chair be decided. Given the importance of this role, the full board should vote on who should lead it.