PEEL POLICE BOARD CHAIR WANTS CHANGE
Says the force belongs to the people and wants women, visible minorities to join
After a year as the head of Peel’s police board, chair Amrik Ahluwalia has been lauded by many in the community for holding the force accountable and criticized by officers of all ranks who don’t like his approach to change.
The former oil executive has navigated choppy waters before.
In a one-on-one interview, Ahluwalia talks about hiring more women and visible minorities, changing an “us versus them” culture and his vision to modernize policing by the country’s third largest municipal force.
You challenged a report commissioned by police Chief Jennifer Evans that was supportive of carding. That type of confrontation was not a part of previous boards. Did it set a new tone?
That was a watershed meeting in more ways than one. It signalled that this board, in a meaningful way, believes in strong governance, this board believes in protecting the people, this board stands for the people and is by the people. Some of the seeds were planted at the September meeting the year before when we passed a resolution to suspend carding (Chief Evans refused the board’s request to suspend carding, also known as street checks).
How do you enhance public trust?
For example, we have formed a new committee, which is a complaint and litigation committee, because this is becoming a bigger issue — this litigation of $21 million (a lawsuit filed against the board and Evans last week involving the police shooting of a bystander) same thing with complaints, the foundation is the trust, how do we build the trust with the people? One of the fundamental things, if people have a complaint they should feel their complaints are going to be heard respectfully and dealt with respectfully.
Can the board work with the chief and the force to change course?
The point is we want the people to know . . . that this board is going in a different direction. And the direction is — fundamentally — this board belongs to the people. We are here to look after your best interests and we want to work with you, we want to hear from you, we want to have a conversation with you. We want to make sure the policies we enact and the instructions we give to the chief are in line with the expectations of the people, then hold the chief accountable for meeting those expectations.
That’s good governance. That’s not rocket science. This board is committed to strong governance. The (equity-diversity) audit, the board is doing the audit. We are going to oversee it.
What questions do you hope the audit will help address?
Why are females not attracted to join the service? Why are visible minorities not joining the police service?
Do we need to do something more to improve their recruitment processes and make sure that people feel that merit is the only concern for hiring and promotion? We have very ambitious plans.
Are you concerned about an ingrained police culture?
I don’t want to be a Philadelphia or Ferguson (Missouri) or Miami or anything like that. I want this place to be a lot better than that, and we solve that problem.
One of the fundamental ways to do that will be to eliminate this “them versus us” feeling. And that’s why I feel very strongly and passionately, and the board feels very strongly, that we have more female, more visible minorities, so that the police reflects the population, reflects the demographics. Then it’s no “them versus us”, it’s “us and us and us.”