THUNDER BAY – Two weeks after the province's Inspector General of Policing announced that he was launching a probe into the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS), officials have now commented publicly on the inspection.
Deputy Chief Ryan Hughes responded to questions from news media at Thursday's police service board meeting. He said the investigation is unfortunate.
“It's hard on our membership to be under investigation once again," Hughes told Newswatch. "Our members are doing a good job on their investigations. The inspectors coming in to do their job and to see if there are areas that we may need to improve on.”
“But I know the investigations that they're talking about and they were, in my opinion, well done, and we will go through another investigation,” said Hughes.
Chief of police Darcy Fleury was not present at the meeting to take questions but the TBPS did send out a written message from Fleury later Thursday afternoon.
The message included a brief comment from Fleury on the probe: "I will always welcome opportunities for our service to continue to grow and improve. The recently announced inspection of our service by the Inspector General of Policing of Ontario may provide new insight.
"I respect the role of the Inspectorate of Policing. TBPS will participate and cooperate with the inspection. The service has implemented previous recommendations, which have brought forward positive changes. As they say, true progress is a continuous journey, not an endpoint."
The inspection was announced on Oct. 10. in response to complaints made by families unhappy with the TBPS investigations into the deaths of their loved ones.
Police service board chairperson Karen Machado said the board knows there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to repair public trust in the police service.
“It's unfortunate that we're here, but there's a long history of issues that we're aware of and we need to continue to work towards that,” she said.
“That's part of what we're trying to do. We're getting to work on those recommendations to help that. We want to ensure that there's effective policing for everybody in the community, especially our Indigenous community,” said Machado.
The board intends to work cooperatively with the investigation and comply with any further recommendations the investigator may point out, said Machado.
Hughes noted he is aware the police service is “heavily criticized,” but they are doing their best to comply with the recommendations that were placed upon them following their previous investigations, while also struggling with staffing shortages and training.
"It's a difficult balancing act and sometimes we feel like we're drowning, but we're keeping our heads above water. We try to keep up,” said Hughes.
