Fired deputy OPP commissioner launches $15 million wrongful dismissal suit against Premier Doug Ford

Thestar.com
Sept. 16, 2019
Rob Ferguson

A former deputy Ontario Provincial Police commissioner has filed a $15 million wrongful dismissal suit against Premier Doug Ford, his departed chief of staff Dean French, and senior bureaucrats for his firing in the wake of the Taverner affair.

Brad Blair -- who sounded the alarm over the hiring of Ford friend Ron Taverner as OPP boss and exposed the premier’s push for a travel van with a $50,000 customization that included a reclining sofa, minifridge and television -- launched the legal action Friday in Ontario Superior Court of Justice, six months after his termination last March.

“The impact of the firing has quite frankly traumatized me,” Blair, choking back emotions at times, told a news conference at Queen’s Park with his wife, Danielle, and lawyer Julian Falconer.

“The reason this man got fired is for embarrassing the premier,” Falconer added.

Blair compared the career blow to losing his father to cancer at the age of 21, saying “the OPP was my family.”

The 33-year veteran of the country’s second-largest police force also called for a public inquiry into how Taverner, a 72-year-old Toronto police superintendent, was initially appointed OPP commissioner by the government before bowing out amid a public outcry about a potential conflict of interest.

Blair sought the commissioner’s job but was passed over in favour of Taverner after required qualifications for the post were lowered, clearing the way for someone of Taverner’s rank to apply.

Falconer charged the hiring process was “rigged” and put the OPP’s independence at risk with a pal of the premier at the helm of a police force tasked with investigating government if circumstances warrant, as was the case in a previous Liberal administration’s gas-plants scandal in which former premier Dalton McGuinty’s chief of staff was convicted and sent to jail.

Blair said he was terminated without 26 weeks’ severance to which he was entitled and without compensation for 88 banked vacation days, but is on a full pension. He has already filed a grievance with the Public Service Grievance Board to get his job back, but Falconer called it a “Byzantine” process, necessitating the wrongful dismissal suit.

The aim is to return to the OPP or to be allowed to “retire with dignity,” added Blair, who said he had no choice but to go public with concerns about the independence of the OPP because his superior, deputy community safety minister Mario Di Tommaso, was involved in the Taverner hiring.

“I had no one to go to.”

Ford would not comment directly on the lawsuit because it is before the courts but his office issued a statement saying it will continue “to support all the members of the OPP, especially on matters relating to mental health and supporting our front-line officers.”

“As the premier has said before, his concern is and always has been protecting and supporting the front-line officers who put their lives on the line every single day to protect our communities,” said spokeswoman Ivana Yelich.

The lawsuit comes during a federal election in which federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s campaign is having to distance itself from the Ford government, which has stumbled in the polls since its spring budget.

Deputy Ontario NDP Leader Sara Singh said her party supports the push for a public inquiry to delve deeper and call witnesses into the questionable hiring of Taverner.

“It didn’t appear to be independent, frankly.”

Danielle Blair said her husband’s firing has had a “life-changing” impact on their family, leaving them “feeling like somebody’s kicked a stool out from underneath of you.”

“I’ve been with Brad 37 years. We’ve moved across this province four times in the service of the OPP and the citizens of Ontario. He’s put his life on the line, he’s put his well being on the line many times, but if there’s one thing he’s always done t’s the right thing.”

The wrongful dismissal suit, which has not been proven in court, also names Di Tommaso, who personally fired Blair, deputy attorney general Paul Boniferro and former cabinet secretary Steve Orsini, who resigned in December.

It also alleges misfeasance in public office, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and intentional infliction of mental suffering.

French, who was Ford’s controversial chief of staff, left the government in June in a cronyism scandal after a friend of his son’s and a cousin of his wife’s were appointed to six-figure jobs as Ontario’s trade representatives in New York and London, respectively. Those posts were rescinded by Ford the following day.

The wrongful dismissal suit is the latest in a series of legal moves by Blair, who has also filed a $5 million lawsuit against Ford that alleges the premier defamed him by saying Blair had breached the Police Services Act.

When he revealed the information about a travel van for the premier and a profane tirade by Ford about new faces on his OPP security detail, Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones accused Blair of releasing “private information for personal gain.”

Blair said Friday that information came to him as interim commissioner after the departure of Vince Hawkes from the job last fall from “senior officers in the OPP…with significant concerns” that the customized van request was another sign of government interference in the operations of the force, which provides security for the premier.

Taverner asked that his appointment be delayed last Dec. 15 pending an investigation by Ontario’s integrity commissioner into any involvement in the hiring. Ford was eventually cleared, but the integrity commissioner’s report cautioned the hiring process was “troubling” and “flawed.”

Falconer called the integrity commissioner’s office and the office of the ombudsman, which refused to investigate the Taverner hiring, “Keystone cops” and said there were no consequences to the integrity commissioner’s report.

On March 6, two days after Blair was fired, Taverner withdrew his name from consideration for the OPP commissioner’s job. The government then appointed York Regional Police deputy chief Thomas Carrique as head of the force.