Front Burner - Will Doug Ford's friend become Ontario's top cop?

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

CBC Queen's Park reporter Mike Crawley says there's been pushback against the recent appointment of Ron Taverner, a friend of Ontario premier Doug Ford, to take over the provincial police force. Many worry Taverner's appointment could hurt the OPP's independence from political influence.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Last week, a pack of reporters were waiting around a hotel in Toronto. They were hoping to throw some questions to Ontario's premier, Doug Ford. That's one card, that's the other card. That one's his. It was a pretty hectic week, and people had a lot to ask. But Ford did everything possible to avoid the press. There was a row of chairs keeping him away from reporters. They had to chase him around.

And eventually, he slipped out the side door. He didn't talk to anybody. The reporters were there because of breaking news about the Ontario Provincial Police. A hiring board recently picked someone to become the new chief of the OPP. And the Ford cabinet, they approved it. They selected a guy named Ron Tavener. He's a 50-year Toronto police officer, spent his career in Etobicoke, Ford country, and he's a family friend, knows Doug Ford really well. Tavener has never actually run a police force,

and he doesn't have the kind of experience that was called for in the initial job posting. A former head of the OPP said Tavener's selection was a travesty, and that his pick was favoritism. I really, frankly, I think the fix was in from day one. So, is that true? And will Tavener become Ontario's top cop after all? That's today on FrontBurner. Hi, I'm Mike Crawley. I'm CBC's Provincial Affairs Reporter in Ontario.

Mike, thanks so much for being here with us today. You're welcome, Jamie. So Ron Tavenner was supposed to become the head of the OPP this morning, but now that's not happening. So can you take me through what happened over the weekend? So on the weekend, the government announced that there would be a delay of Ron Taverner taking official command of the OPP. The swearing-in was supposed to happen today, Monday. This is because there's an investigation going on by Ontario's integrity commissioner about the ethics of Tavenner's appointment, particularly because he's a friend of Premier Doug Ford, who's the guy who signed

off on the appointment. I have final sign off on everything in this province, just like the previous premier and the previous premier before that. But you're supposed to recuse yourself when they're there. Recuse myself for what? And I want to get to all of that, the friendship. But first, can you walk me through how did this happen? How did Ron Tavener get picked in the first place to become head of the OPP? This happened a few weeks ago. So the current OPP commissioner is retiring and there was a job posting. We understand there's about 27 people who applied.

Key thing is that he didn't actually meet the minimum requirements of the job when it was first posted. The job description got changed a couple days later. You're supposed to be either a deputy commissioner or a deputy chief. And in fact, he was a superintendent, which is two ranks lower than that. So he applied. He was one of the few people that actually got through to a second interview. Supposedly an independent panel that did the interviews, senior civil servants, effectively. It was an independent panel. They interviewed people, and it was unanimous, unanimous decision.

And I told them very clearly, I don't want anything to do with this whatsoever. I don't want anything to do with this whatsoever. But then that appointment goes forward to cabinet and the recommendation goes to cabinet and it's the forward cabinet that approved him getting the job. I had zero influence and no matter who it was, I would have accepted. I accept the professional's advice. Do we know anything about who lowered the requirements for the job? We've actually put in some freedom of information requests to try to track that. What we do know is that two days before the job requirement was lowered, a new deputy minister took over as the deputy minister in charge of what's called

community safety in Ontario, effectively the senior bureaucrat in charge of the police. effectively the senior bureaucrat in charge of the police. He used to be Ron Taverner's boss at the Toronto Police. Okay, so the guy who's number two at the ministry who oversees the OPP was recently appointed there, and he used to be Ron Taverner's boss. Absolutely. And then we see a posting for a job, the requirements lower two days after it's originally posted. That's exactly what happened. Okay.

How can you say that's independent when they've worked together? And Mr. Tavner has praised... Okay, over 50 years. Okay, over 50 years, Ron Tavner worked with every single chief in the last 50 years. And guess what? Every single one of them says he's outstanding. Picking a Toronto cop to run the Ontario Provincial Police, is that a decision that is rare or sort of out of left field?

A Toronto cop has been the head of the OPP before. Julian Fantino, who ended up being a federal minister under the Harper government, he was the Toronto police chief. He'd also been the police chief in a couple of other places in London and York region. It is a little surprising, though, for someone who spent their entire career in Toronto to be the head of the OPP. I've never seen that before. The OPP has policing all across Ontario. A lot of it's in rural areas, remote First Nations reserves.

Ron Tavenner has spent his entire 51 year career in Toronto. So there have been some questions raised about not his qualifications as a cop because people say he's a good cop, he's a cop's cop in fact, but that his experience in the city is quite different from what an OPP Commissioner is looking at. All sorts of other different issues. Policing is not necessarily just policing the same from one place to another. And do we know anything about who some of the other candidates for this job may have been? Absolutely. One of the candidates who had a second interview is a guy named Brad Blair, currently a deputy commissioner of the OPP, 32-year veteran, a guy who's policed all over Ontario. Some people within the OPP felt he was the most likely successor. He was even appointed by the cabinet to be the interim OPP commissioner

during the period of time from the retirement of the previous guy until the new one would take over. We know that he applied for it because he's the guy who's launched a complaint about Ron Tavenner's appointment. I want to get to that complaint in a minute, but first, can we talk about this relationship between Doug Ford or the Ford family and Ron Tavenner? So a lot of the complaints that we're hearing right now are twofold, almost, that Ron Tavenner might not have the experience to do this job, but also that he's a very close friend of the Ford family. And so can you help me paint a picture of the relationship between the Fords and Ron Tavenner. Well, the friendship thing is key because it speaks to this question of whether there's political independence of the guy who's running the police force, the biggest police force

in this province. One of the biggest police forces in North America. Is he independent from the political process, from the premier? Look, Ron Tavenner has worked in Etobicoke as a cop for a long time. Etobicoke is the Ford family's stomping grounds. We know that Ron Tavenner shows up at Ford family barbecues. We see pictures of them together at social events. They haven't made any secret really of their friendship. There's also, there was an incident in which Ron Tavenner flew on a private jet with Doug Ford to a hockey game in Chicago.

So it's not like they're passing acquaintances. They're very clearly good friends. We're friends. I'm friends with thousands of people. But in saying that, I can't influence and tell the police what to do. It's very simple. And I know that this isn't the first time that the relationship between Ron Tavener and the Fords have come up and that there has been concerns around it. I remember a few years back when I was at the Toronto Star, we were reporting on the scandal involving Rob Ford's smoking crack cocaine. During that time, there was a larger investigation into young men dealing drugs in this neighborhood in West End,

Toronto, and the mayor's involvement, sort of peripheral involvement in that. There was an investigation called Project Brazen that the police set up at the time, which was related very much to Rob Ford. They were investigating Rob Ford. And I remember at the time, they partitioned all local police officers, including Ron Taverner, from that investigation, and they brought in outside police officers. It was basically a firewall between the Etobicoke-based local police under Ron Taverner from the investigation into whatever connections Rob Ford might have had to this drug dealing that was going on in that neighborhood. That was partly to make sure that the police investigation wasn't tainted by any accusations of interference. This doesn't imply that Ron Taverner did anything wrong.

It just simply shows that the police force, the Toronto police force, was aware enough of that family friendship that they said, for everything to have the appearance of no conflict of interest, we're going to make sure that Taverner and his forces are not in any way touching this investigation. at the time because there had been multiple interactions between Rob Ford and local police officers who were called quite often to his home for domestic disturbances. It's on the public record that there were a couple of dozen interactions between Toronto police and Rob Ford during his time on council or as the mayor. Some of those interactions involved allegations of domestic assault, or at least police were called to his house on domestic assault complaints. There were also some questions about the police handling of those things, but there was never ever any finding that Toronto Police acted improperly in their dealings with Rob Ford.

I also just want to note one more thing about Ron Tavener's tenure at the Toronto Police. There was also a case where an officer under his command said there was a toxic work environment, and he didn't support her effort to file a workplace harassment complaint. Now, this has nothing to do with the Fords, but can you tell me a little bit more about this incident? This particular incident, it's going before an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in the spring. And so it means that if Ron Taverner takes over as OPP Commissioner has planned, at some point in time he's going to be effectively called to testify

about a complaint from someone that was under his command. So we talked a little bit before about Brad Blair, the current deputy chief of the OPP, who has lodged a complaint. Chris Lewis, who ran the OPP for four years, was very critical of the decision to pick Taverner. What did he say? So Chris Lewis, pretty much the night that it was announced that Ron Taverner was going to be the new OPP commissioner, he went on television and said that this was wrong. He's in charge of a division in Toronto that's 200, 250 people. The OPP is 9,000 people. This is a whole different world. There's old relationships there. We all know it.

And I think it was a travesty that this occurred. He did not like the appearance of someone who was so close to the premier being appointed for many of the kind of ethical reasons we've mentioned. I never thought Trump would be president. I didn't think Doug Ford would be our premier. And I didn't think Rod Tabner would be the commissioner of the OPP. And I'm sorry to say that, but that's the way I feel. Now, why is it so important that the OPP have political independence? And this is not some theoretical thing. The last two premiers have been investigated by the OPP, at least staff very close to the premier. So Premier Kathleen Wynne's deputy chief of staff was investigated for charged and convicted and sent to jail around the fact that he had destroyed government documents that were supposed to have been

preserved about the cancellation of a couple of gas-fired power plants here in Ontario. So that's one key thing. Another issue, though, is the question of police independence and how they go around their operations. The politicians are not supposed to tell the police how to do their job and in Ontario there is a history around this that dates back to the mid 90s and the occupation of a provincial park by some First Nations protesters and the premier at the time Mike Mike Harris, told the OPP to get the Indians out of the park. In a twist of irony, Harris was called to testify at an inquiry he refused to hold while in office. Do you recall stating at this meeting at any time, get those Indians out of the park

and use guns if you have to? No. And a First Nations protester was shot and killed. This eventually led to a royal commission and some recommendations about just the crucial importance that there is never an instance in which the politicians direct the police to do things. And some of the complaints that have been raised about concern here in this case with Premier Doug Ford is that there are already a couple of allegations of ways that the Premier's office, Doug Ford's office, has tried to tell police how to do their job. Let's get to those.

I know one of them has to do with an RV, right? This one's got everybody talking. So this allegation comes from Brad Blair, the deputy commissioner, again, veteran cop, 32 years. So you kind of got to take this allegation seriously. He says that Doug Ford's chief of staff, a guy named Dean French, ordered the police to buy a camper van for the premier to kit it out to his specifications, basically modify it, do the work through a particular company that they were going to tell them to do the work through and keep the cost off the books, basically hide this expense from the public. That accusation got a lot of attention.

That's what actually led us to wanting to chase the premier around that hotel that morning to get answers. Why do you need an RV? Just for clarity, why would the OPP need to ever pay for a van like this in the first place? Is there a security issue around the premier? So the OPP is responsible for the premier's security. They drive him around in GMC Suburbans. He has a security detail.

So they are responsible for the premier's safety, but we've not seen any other premier have need of a camper van. The only explanation that came out in public was Ron Taverner spoke to the Toronto Sun. And in it, he said, well, it's not a camper van. It's an extended van. And the premier needs it because he's a big guy and he wants to have space for when he's on the road for him and his staff. Strangely, though, that quote from Ron Taverner then disappeared out of the Toronto Sun story several hours later. after some people raised the question of why is it that Ron Taverner, who's not yet the OPP commissioner, A, knows about the circumstances behind the request for the camper van,

and B, why is he defending the premier buying it? So that is now actually all part of the complaints that are going forward to these officials in Ontario that are being asked to these officials in Ontario that are being asked to investigate this appointment. I have so many questions about this RV, but I know this isn't the only allegation that this government has received. There's also an allegation that got reported a few weeks ago that, again, the Premier's Chief of Staff, on the day of marijuana legalization, got on the phone to a bunch of the chiefs of staff, the cabinet ministers, top aides, and told them to contact police forces

and make sure that there were people being arrested at cannabis dispensaries so that they could see footage of people being led away in handcuffs by the noontime news. So again, an example of, allegedly, Premier Staff trying to tell the police how to operate. So there's this impression, at least,

or allegations that he's been pressing on the OPP. And now it's very possible that his friend becomes the head of the OPP. Yep, that's about right. I want to zoom out a little bit and get your perspective. You are based at Queen's Park full time. What do you think this all says about Doug Ford's government in general? I think there's a couple of things. One is that Doug Ford is not too concerned about breaking things. Move fast and break things.

Like Facebook. Is the Facebook term. In this sense, they've been doing a lot since they took over. And the positive way of spinning this, I guess, would be to say that Doug Ford doesn't have a lot of time for conventions of governing. There needs to be a lot of change after 15 years of liberals in power. And so, you know, boom, boom, boom, let's do this, let's do that. And they maybe make some mistakes along the way. That, I think, is one of the aspects of this.

There's also this thing about Ford wanting to have people in key positions that he trusts. He campaigned on, you know, wanting to kind of clean up government, talking about integrity and making accusations of Liberals getting rich off of having been in power for so long. A lot of the Liberals got rich, really, really rich, under Kathleen Wynne and off the backs of the taxpayers of Ontario. The rest of us got a $15 billion Liberal deficit that we're going to have to pay off. You know, every government makes patronage appointments.

He's appointed somebody to be his health advisor at over $300,000 a year. There's a new person who's been appointed to be the Ontario envoy in Washington who doesn't have any international trade experience, but he helped out on the PC election campaign. And now you've got this friend of the family being appointed as OPP commissioner. So what happens now? The integrity commissioner is investigating this. And if the integrity commissioner looks into this, he's going to be basically just checking a very narrow question of law. Did Premier Doug Ford violate what's called the Members' Integrity Act? It's basically the ethics

law that all members of the Ontario legislature have to follow. And if he finds there's a violation, then yeah, this story is going to continue. The government has said they'll follow whatever it is that the integrity commissioner says. If the integrity commissioner says everything's okay, Premier Doug Ford didn't breach the ethics laws, then Ron Taverner becomes the next commissioner of the OPP. Okay. Well, I hope that you'll come back on and keep us updated as this story is moving. It's moving pretty quickly. I'd be happy to, Jamie. Thanks.

Thanks so much. This weekend, Sylvia Jones, she's Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. She confirmed Ron Tavener's appointment will be delayed pending an investigation by the Integrity Commissioner. The delay, according to Jones, came at Tavener's request. As part of a statement, Jones said, While the government has full confidence in Mr. Tavener, we will respect his request for a delay in his appointment, until such time as the integrity commissioner has conducted a review of the selection process.

That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back.

Gay Girl Gone. Available now.