Toronto police board releases job posting for city’s next chief

Toronto police board said it was seeking a “progressive, strategic and inspirational law enforcement executive” to take on the role.

Thestar.com
May 26, 2022
Wendy Gillis

The Toronto police board has released the job posting for the city’s next chief, a move that comes nearly two years after the chair was vacated by the last top cop.

In a job posting that went public Tuesday, the Toronto police board said it was seeking a “progressive, strategic and inspirational law enforcement executive” to take on the role of chief of police.

The candidate must have significant policing experience, a “strong business acumen,” and the ability to drive change in the context of “policing reform,” according to the job description posted on the website of Boyden Canada, the executive search firm hired by the board.

There is no timeline for hiring provided in the posting, but the police board has said James Ramer, who’s been chief on an interim basis since August 2020, will fill the role until Dec. 31, 2022.

The job posting comes just shy of two years since Toronto police chief Mark Saunders announced his sudden retirement in June 2020. The end to his tenure came eight months early, in the middle of a pandemic and just weeks after the murder of George Floyd set off a continentwide reckoning over systemic racism in policing.

Saunders, who is now running as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Don Valley West, said at the time that he was leaving for personal reasons, including a desire to spend more time with his family.

The board has faced criticism for its lengthy search for the next chief; since Saunders left, all the deputy police chiefs who served under him have retired, left for another job or taken a secondment, with the exception of Ramer, who agreed to serve as chief on the condition that he would not apply when the board launched hiring. Last year, the police board extended Ramer’s contract to the end of this year after initially saying a new chief would be hired in 2021.

Ryan Teschner, the police board’s executive director, has told the Star said that the chief’s selection process “will be characterized by the most wide-ranging, in-depth and transparent public engagement approach possible,” but would take longer due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the board held public consultations which the it said were “the most extensive for a chief selection process that the Board has organized to date” and included four townhalls in different parts of the city and an online survey.

According to a report by Environics Research summarizing the feedback, the top qualities sought by members of the public included being an accountable leader, a “courageous system changer,” and someone with an anti-discrimination and inclusion focus.