After a provincial police officer who had been on paid leave for almost a decade was convicted of sexual assault, Premier Doug Ford’s government says it's now aiming to enact a law it passed more than four years ago to prevent similar cases.
Less than a year after coming into power in Ontario, the Progressive Conservative government introduced and passed its Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act, which made sweeping changes to policing law in the province. Parts of the 2019 legislation tabled by then-solicitor general Sylvia Jones have remained unimplemented, including the Community Safety and Policing Act, which will replace the Police Services Act — Ontario’s main policing law — once it's implemented.
One significant change will be allowing police chiefs to suspend officers who are convicted of serious offences.
The previous Liberal government sought to make the same change as part of a larger suite of police reforms in the Safer Ontario Act passed in 2018, but the Progressive Conservatives rolled it back, with Jones calling it "the most anti-police legislation in Canadian history."
“The (solicitor general) ministry’s target is to bring the CSPA into force between fall 2023 to early 2024,” Hunter Kell, a spokesperson for Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, said in a statement sent by email last week.
Kerzner also said in question period on Monday that he’s directed the deputy solicitor general to complete consultations with police services “as soon as possible” so the government can implement the new law quickly.
Ontario’s existing law means that in most cases, police can only be placed on paid leave when they’re charged with a crime. An officer can be suspended without pay once they’re sentenced to jail time.
Last week, Ontario Provincial Police Const. Jason Redmond was found guilty of sexual assault. In 2017, he filmed himself raping an unconscious woman, Ontario Court Justice Janet O’Brien found. He was charged with sexual assault in October 2021, according to the OPP.
Redmond also faces 17 more “serious criminal charges, including assault, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and others in connection with multiple victims,” the OPP said in a lengthy statement on Thursday.
Redmond has been on paid leave from the OPP since 2015, when he was involved in a drug trafficking operation. He was convicted of drug trafficking and forgery in 2018, but received probation and no jail time.
Redmon’s taxpayer-funded salary paid him $121,047.96 in 2021, Ontario’s Sunshine List shows.
“No one convicted of serious and disturbing crimes like these should be receiving a taxpayer-funded salary,” Kerzner said in question period on Monday, referring to Redmond’s case.
Commissioner Thomas Carrique issued a statement Thursday saying that, after Redmond's 2018 conviction, the OPP’s professional standards unit laid charges against him and he was convicted.
An adjudicator ordered the OPP to fire Redmond, but he appealed that ruling and has remained on paid leave, Carrique’s statement said. The Ontario Civilian Police Commission plans to hear the appeal in June.
The appeal is now the subject of a hearing scheduled for June 15, 2023 before the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.
“We encourage everyone… to not judge all officers by the actions of this specific individual,” the OPP’s statement said.
The opposition critics on policing issues at Queen’s Park each encouraged the government to implement law changes to prevent a situation like Redmond’s from happening again, in light of his conviction.
“The police have an incredibly hard job, and no one’s discounting that… but there’s always a couple bad apples in every bushel and to maintain the quality and the level of confidence in the overall force, these things need to be dealt with,” NDP MPP John Vanthof said.
Liberal MPP Lucille Collard said in an emailed statement that “police occupy positions of authority in society and, as a result, should be held to a higher standard.”
“Officers who have been convicted of a serious offence should not be permitted to retain their position within the police force or continue receiving a publicly funded salary, except maybe in very specific circumstances,” Collard said.