The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Should Thunder Bay's Police Force Be Disbanded?

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

A former chief of the Thunder Bay Police Service facing serious charges by the Ontario Provincial Police confirmed the long suspected systemic racism within the police force. This is not the first time that there has been a call for a more competent police in northern Ontario and First Nation leaders are now sending their decisive call to disband the Thunder Bay police. For insight, we welcome:Alvin Fiddler, Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation;Melanie Beardy and Vincent Ostberg, the parents of Jenna Ostberg who died under tragic circumstances;Julian Falconer, founding partner of Falconer's LLP and the lawyer representing Jenna's parents ; and Jon Thompson, a journalist based in Thunder Bay.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This comes after the OPP laid multiple charges against the former police chief there, as well as calls from the Anishinaabe Aski Nation for an outside service to investigate the recent deaths of Indigenous people. an outside service to investigate the recent deaths of Indigenous people. Joining us now to discuss this and more from Thunder Bay, Ontario, via Skype, we welcome Alvin Fidler. He's the Grand Chief of Anishinaabe Aski Nation. Melanie Beardy and Vincent Osberg, the parents of Jenna Osberg, who died under tragic circumstances. John Thompson, journalist based in Thunder Bay. and overseas, we welcome Julian Faulconer, founding partner of Faulconer's LLP and the lawyer representing Jenna's parents. And while I want to thank all of you for joining us here on TVO tonight, Melanie and Vincent, I want to pay a particular homage to you for having the courage to be with us this evening

in light of the awful circumstances, our sympathies, obviously, to you and to your entire family. Grand Chief, I want to start with you, though. During the news conference at Queen's Park recently, you said the Thunder Bay Police Service has turned into a cold case factory when it comes to investigations into the deaths of Indigenous peoples. Tell us more about what you meant by that. Well, I just want to, first of all, thank you for having us. And I just want to begin by acknowledging Vince and the Osberg family and the Munoz family and the Boleski family and all the other families that are out there still waiting for answers as to what happened to their loved ones how and why they died in Thunder Bay and

just waiting for answers from the Thunder Bay police and I think that's the reason why I made that comment when we were opening up the press conference the other week is you know just the track record that the Thunder Bay has in terms of resolving or solving these tragic cases is just horrendous. And that number just keeps escalating. Melanie, I think we need to know more about your daughter. Why don't we start with having you tell us what was she like? She was, she was... Well, she liked to do artwork.

She liked to play piano on occasion. She liked to sketch. She did some artwork. She was a good daughter to us. She graduated Conn College just last June. Which college? The Confederation College. We just saw a couple of pictures of her. She was a beautiful young woman. You must have been very

proud of her. Yeah, we are. Vincent, I'm sorry to do this, but again, this will bring home the seriousness of this case. Can you share with us some of the circumstances around her death? Can you share with us some of the circumstances around her death? Well, she died on the early morning of the 30th, which would have been Friday night, Saturday morning. And she was at a house she liked to frequent. She was in a relationship with this young male and I guess around 1.30 to 1 o'clock there was a 911 call made and the police didn't respond to the residents. When I was talking to the coroner, he said that a fight had broke out between my daughter, Jenna, and her boyfriend,

and that the mother claimed that she separated the two, sending one upstairs, one downstairs. But when I did a timeline on my daughter, she was still alive at 2.41 a.m., alive at 2 41 a.m. and the last last time would be in about 5 41 in the morning that someone was in her account whether it was her or someone else we don't know and that's the timeline about 541 there was was someone was using her device to see a message that her cousin Vanessa had sent to her. So anyway, what happened is that the two 911 calls, I guess a police officer was dispatched, but he refused to go and attend. The first one was that initially it was reported as a domestic call, but later ruled as an unwanted guest who wasn't supposed to be there. And the flags that surround this is that they were not supposed to be together. Melanie tried to separate because the boyfriend had conditions that he was not supposed to be on her

because he had committed an assault on her back last July 14. And my daughter had fought him off. And he was charged. And later on, my daughter was in another violent incident with this person. And she had been cut or stabbed in the leg and a body map was done. And we also have a chat screenshot, which I had forwarded to Thunder Bay Police recently and also to SIU, that she confirmed that it was him through the Facebook post. Vincent, let me follow up with this question, though, because I think our viewers and listeners need to know, you're a former police officer, I think our viewers and listeners need to know you're a former police officer. So you would well understand how this investigation was done and whether it was done well or not.

What conclusions have you come to about that? Well, I've worked on another case before. What tends to happen, too, is that because of personal biases, whether it's racism or ignorance or stupidity, sometimes the truth is very plain and simple like in in in our daughter's case when they came to the conclusion that she suicided I immediately asked for forensics for handwriting analysis to be done on what is written on her arm saying I'm sorry I did it in your room. I wanted to confirm whether it was her writing or someone else's, and I provided handwriting analysis to the media, or my wife did,

and I provided handwriting analysis to the SIU and to the Thunder Bay Police Service. So along with that, the handwriting analysis I expected to be done. I also had to touch on this. It's like the circumstances where my daughter died was that it was allegedly by hanging, but it wasn't a noose. It was a clothesline style hanging. And my argument is that a person cannot remain standing on a clothesline style hanging. They would have to fall down when they're unconscious and i've bought this up with the thunder bay police force i've mentioned this and uh it seems that uh there's a lot of bias to uh write off my daughter's death as just another uh suicide or you

know just another write-off as far as in business investigation scope well let me get your daughter excuse me let me get your lawyer into this as well and get his characterization of this julian you've done a lot of cases over the years trying to get justice for people how would you characterize the thunder bay police department's efforts on this one it's part of a pattern uh steve in my 34 years, I've never experienced this level of utter incompetence on a systemic wide level. police service that in 2018 in the broken trust report done by the OIPRD the complaints agency for the province they found the entire police service to be systemically racist against indigenous people and attributed the incompetence in death investigations to the biases and stereotypes they had about indigenous people.

Here we are some six years later and you hear Grand Chief's concerns, you hear the concerns of obviously the family of Jenna Osberg, but it goes so much deeper. Do you realize there is literally a pile up of over 20 indigenous deaths that are all ongoing reinvestigations under titles called Project Cedar or the blended investigations team? They keep having to rebuild and restart investigations. And so as Grand Chief called it, it's become a cold case factory so the two things that characterize a competent death investigation timely investigation completely lost and then secondly of course community trust in your policing completely absent and so the the frankly this bizarre situation continues and there's no equivalent in the country. And it's because, unfortunately, and I say it sadly with Vincent and Melanie there, I say it sadly,

Indigenous lives are less than worthy in the city of Thunder Bay. And that's the truth. And it just pains me enormously. Let me get John Thompson into our conversation now. And first of all, John, it's good to have you back on TVO, back on our airwaves. You, of course, were a contributor to us not too long ago. So good to see you, my friend. And tell me, these deaths, these poorly investigated deaths, in your experience, how are they commonly described over the years? are they commonly described over the years? Well, the OIPRD report that Mr. Faulkner referenced was really about cases after cases in which the most high profile cases were Indigenous people, many of them young people who were in Thunder Bay attending school here because education is not made available beyond grade 10 in their communities, who were found in rivers. And so the most high

profile of these deaths, they said that there was alcohol involved and they said drowning was the cause of death, but that doesn't describe the manner of death, which is how they came to be in those situations. So to further Mr. Faulkner's comments, this is a 30-year saga where inquests into unsolved deaths of children, Indigenous people who have died in police custody, the confirmation of systemic racism by Ontario's police watchdogs. There have been failed reinvestigations into those deaths. Twice in five years, Ontario's re-usurped the authority of the police board. And now they have 25 human rights complaints from sworn officers and staff members. There are over 550 recommendations for change that comes out of this series of reports.

And even according to an expert panel that the board's public relations firm designed, those are not being implemented expeditiously. And now we have the arrest of senior members of administration and new cases like the ones we're describing here continue to arise. Can you follow up on that? I mean, the previous police chief was charged. Tell us about that. the previous police chief was charged. Tell us about that. Sylvie Hoth and her lawyer, Holly Walborn, along with a staff sergeant, Mike Dimony, were charged with obstruction of justice, obstructing police officer, or peace officer,

sorry, and breach of trust by public officials. And that ties back to a couple of stories that we featured in a Crave documentary that I helped produce entitled Thunder Bay, in which the senior administration put the Indigenous board chair, Georgianne Morisot, under a surveillance order on her phone for attempting to root out corruption in the police department. And they thought they had her on breach. They were announcing publicly that she was leaking information to the media and that the board was unified except for this one member. And that, as of a week ago, a report that has been produced by the latest administrator to rule over the Thunder Bay Police Service says that it exonerates more so in full and the officers who have been attempting to root out the corruption in the department. And so these problems are not limited to Indigenous deaths, although I appreciate TVO's attention to this being the central issue at the bottom of it all. Sure. I want to read a statement here from the current police chief in Thunder Bay, Darcy Flurry, and then Grand Chief, I'll get you to comment on this. But here is a recent statement of his, where he says, we will continue to do our work to achieve the closure families deserve,

including fully cooperating in any investigations into or complaints regarding the Thunder Bay Police Service. I know the service is under scrutiny. I take very seriously my responsibility to build confidence and welcome the involvement and wisdom of Anishinaabe Aski Nation and other Indigenous community leaders at any time as we continue in our commitment to advance truth and reconciliation. Okay, Chief Fidler, what do you say to that? Well, as you know, we were here a week and a half ago to do a press conference along with the three families.

And what we heard consistently from the three families and other families as well that were not here is this. They don't hear anything at all from the Thunder Bay Police, that there is just a wall of silence there, that the Thunder Bay Police just don't communicate at all with families like Vince and Melanie. I'm sure would agree with that. Vince and Melanie I'm sure would agree with that and so for the I read his statement and it's all reactionary and we see as a stop a one big PR exercise that they're not going through they had pictures with the elders there the other week they They're trying to reach out to First Nations leaders, including myself. All of a sudden, I'm being inundated with requests to have coffee or lunch with members of the Thunder Bay Police.

And it just shows that they are not serious. Are you going to accept those invitations to get together? I'm sorry? Are you going to accept those invitations to get together with them? Well, it's hard to have coffee or lunch with someone after hearing from the families that were here a week and a half ago where they, and the leadership as well, that we feel that enough chances have been given

to the Thin Bay Police for them to make these changes and to demonstrate that they are serious about making these changes. It's just, I think the way I described it at the press conference was that it's just watching a bad movie over and over again. Over and over again. We cannot allow our families to be subject to that any longer.

Melanie, I should get your view on this. Do you see this as a sincere first step to get together? No. How do you see it? I don't know. I didn't prepare properly, but I don't know about the police chief statement he made last week, where he said more can and will be done to communicate with the families about their loved one's investigation. And we haven't heard from the Thunder Bay Police in many months. It's been a long time.

Vincent, have you heard from the new police chief directly? No, he has not made any effort to reach out to us or to me. I've not heard from any officer, even the investigating officer I'm talking to. The last time I talked to the investigating officer when I was talking about the body map, regarding my daughter for October 6th, his reply was that maybe she was there for an STD, even though I had specifically stressed that she was a victim of an aggravated assault, which would be an automatic charge laid on the culprit. So these are the kind of issues that we are facing regarding Thunder Bay Police.

Systematic racism, absolutely. You know, total disregard for someone because of skin color is a reality for many Indigenous people. Julian, as you read that statement, does it speak to you at all? It comes down to this, Steve. You have to understand the extraordinary history here. The last two police chiefs have the distinction of being the subject of criminal charges. Before Sylvie Hoth, it was J.P. Levesque.

He was criminally charged. Now it's Sylvie Hoth that's criminally charged. I need you to understand that the Thunder Bay police aren't changing because they're precisely the police service that those in power in Thunder Bay want. Yes, that's right. They want a police service that creates a hostile environment for Indigenous people. that creates a hostile environment for Indigenous people. And so you're not going to see any real change because,

and that's why it's like gerbils on a wheel, and as Grand Chief said, it's like an old movie going over and over again. It's because they're actually delivering the policing for white people and nobody else. And I heard the minister in the House say that our 140,000 people, of course he wasn't talking about indigenous people, support the service. Well, let's be clear. If they were disbanded and an OPP was created or any alternative that wasn't accountable only to the city of Thunder Bay,

that was accountable beyond the borders of Thunder Bay, this thing would change. It would look different because what they do and how they do it wouldn't be tolerated so it isn't about lipstick on a pig anymore it isn't about patchworks it isn't about administrators who know absolutely nothing about policing and have no involvement or cultural competence with indigenous people that's the last two administrators they put in charge of the board. So it's not about those things anymore. It's about a failed experiment that needs to be shut down. You have over 30 deaths that wait in a car pileup, a literal cold case factory, and nobody seems to care. John, I don't know anybody who knows more about what's possible, politically speaking,

in Thunder Bay than you. You've been watching it for a very long time. Do you think the notion of the Thunder Bay Police Service being disbanded and the OPP coming in or some kind of hybrid operation with Alvin Fidler's organization, Anishinaabe Asking Nation, what is the political feasibility

of either of those two options being pursued? You're putting me in a difficult position to follow Mr. Faulkner on that. It is unusual for the OPP to police a community of this size. If you look at the policing for Anishinaabe Aski police service in the communities that Grand Chief

Fidler represents, there are circumstances where the OPP will handle major cases. And so that's a model that might be considered. There's a regional model that has been suggested by an expert panel last year. And I mean, the OPP in Northwestern Ontario is resulting in the highest costs per capita for residential taxpayers anywhere. And there's no evidence that that policing is any better. And so I think the suggestion that this become regional is something that local people are sort of warming up to. I'm not, I haven't discussed it with the Grand Chief as to where he stands on that.

It's very difficult to see that happening in the short term because, like, they're right to say that this continues to go around in a circle. And that what is at the center of it all is hubris and an inability to respond to communities and victims of crime, leaders, the board, members of their board, members of their staff, the lawyers who represent them the journalists who are covering it and um it is difficult at this point to imagine how they recover to get to the point where we look at the news and the news is planes land understand uh grand chief let me uh let me help my friend john out here by asking you the question that he was just discussing. Is there another option for policing in the Northwest that you think ought to be tried as opposed to what's happening now? Yeah, I mean, you know, it wasn't the first time that we called for the disbandment of the Thunder Bay Police. We can have to go when we were here.

We said the same thing, I think, two years ago or three years ago. After all these reports have been completed and released and all the recommendations that came out from those reports and just the ongoing failure of the Thunder Bay Police Service to demonstrate that they're serious, to actually develop a plan to implement these recommendations we're not seeing it and uh it's creating harm as a result you know it's creating harm to uh vince and jenna's family and to melanie's family and their daughter jenna and uh buroleski family, like all these families. And also it's important to know that they're also creating harm on individuals that have attempted to bring truth to light.

You know, their bogus investigations, for example, on my dear friend Georgiane, youiane, to treat her like a criminal. And all those that have attempted to shed light on what is actually happening within the force is shameful. And you asked me earlier about the statement that Dorsey Flurry released. Well, they could begin by apologizing to these people that they've harmed and continue to harm, that they need to acknowledge, you know,

their failures, their shortfalls, and just start there. If they're serious about what he's saying in that paper that he released, well, start there. Well, we should say for the record, we did invite somebody, any representative from the police service to come on this program and they declined, which I guess is their right, but we'll see if they're doing anything behind the scenes.

They chose not to avail themselves of this opportunity here. Julian, let me get you back in here in our remaining moments. And that is, I understand that you have helped the family, the Osbergs, with a complaint at an institution called the Inspector General of Policing in Ontario. And I guess what I want to find out is, does that institution have the authority to disband the Thunder Bay Police service if that's ultimately what the consensus becomes?

ultimately what the consensus becomes? The short answer is yes. It's a new body, the Inspectorate of Policing. An individual by the name of Ryan Teshner is the head of the agency. The Inspectorate of Policing has new powers, powers to ensure that adequate and effective policing is delivered. I just want to emphasize to to drive home you know when i think john quite properly spoke of hubris and and and obviously vincent and melanie's frustrations and grand chief talking about these um these frankly empty gestures to reach out understand what's actually going on in the case of the death of stacy debungy that dates back to 2015 one of the key cases that led to the broken trust report and i act for that family as well still no answers it's been sent repeated investigations now they're doing a

criminal investigation still no answers but hear this steve the officer in charge of that investigation when detective harrison was found to be guilty of discreditable conduct at a hearing the first of a finding that i know of basically that he conducted a racist homicide investigation all right so he's found guilty of discreditable conduct within months of the finding chief flurry our latest chief approved him being employee of the month for the thunder bay police service all right what is the message to indigenous people so when the light of scrutiny goes off for even a matter of weeks or months. They are back to the same old intransigent police service. So, yes, they have power.

They should exercise it and bring this to an end, pure and simple. These families need alternatives now, though. So instead of us having an academic discussion, they need the deaths that are currently on the books of the Thunder Bay Police Service removed from their responsibility and sent elsewhere immediately instead of waiting for them to fumble the ball and then picking up the pieces and adding to the cold case list. Vincent, I should give you the last word on this. Do you think the inspector general of policing should step in and disband the Thunder Bay

Police Service? I would say yes. think the inspector general of policing should step in and disband the thunder bay police service i would say yes and the reason why i say yes is because uh when the thunder bay police officer on the night of my daughter's death twice failed to attend a call they finally attended when she was deceased and found an apartment but you know the spin that they're trying to put off is that my daughter allegedly left the residence when her body was found there. And I think that it's corrupt. It's incompetent investigation. And I do believe that the police inspectorate should disband the police service and in state, perhaps the Ontario Provincial Police. Please.

Grand Chief Alvin Fidler, Julian Falconer, John Thompson, and most particularly Melanie and Vince, we're so grateful for all of your participation here on TVO tonight. Godspeed, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Steve. The Agenda with Steve Paikin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you.

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