It is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week and time to consider the hard work of our communications centre personnel – your first point of contact with the Ottawa Police Service. Combined our Communications sections answer more than 470 thousand calls from the public, including both the region’s 911 service and calls for assistance from our […]

I received the attached correspondence from Mr. Harden’s office at 7.26pm this evening. In the interest of full disclosure we have decided to post his reply to our letter from earlier today.  Yours Truly,  Matt Skof President                 

March 22, 2019   Mr. Joel Harden                                                                                               Member of […]

As police officers, Paul MacKillop, Jenn McLinton, Janet Hass and Chris Tessier were accustomed to building community relationships. This past winter the four Ottawa police officers took neighbourhood assistance a step further, travelling to Bolivia to actually build communities, constructing homes for Habitat for Humanity. Over the years the team has built homes in seven […]

On behalf of the men and women of the Ottawa Police Association, active and retired, I want to express our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the Humboldt Broncos. There are no words we can use to express our thoughts on this unimaginable tragedy. We are the Moms and Dads who take our […]

[originally published: Ottawa Citizen March 5, 2018]    On June 28, 1988, the municipalities making up the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton replaced 27 different emergency service phone numbers with one: 911. Overcoming petty political turf wars, Ottawa was one of the last major cities in Canada to adopt this sensible system for summoning emergency services. […]

(originally published – Ottawa Citizen, February 6, 2018)   Ottawa’s politicians are once again facing pressures as a result of the startling escalation of gun-related violence in January. Civic leaders, including Mayor Jim Watson, Police Services Board Chair Eli El-Chantiry, Chief Charles Bordeleau and others, have made an effort to present a united front against […]

We should pause today to think of those who may be struggling with mental health issues – one in five Canadians suffers a mental health challenge in his/her lifetime. We understand the need to open a door for someone on crutches or to aid a person who is bruised or bleeding – we must learn […]

(originally published – Ottawa Sun, Saturday June 10, 2017)   Nearly a century ago social-scientists determined that people change their behavior when they realize that they are being observed. Called the “Hawthorne Effect,” this theory helps to explain the changes in how parties interact when a third-person enters the picture – like a family mediator […]

  The time has come for the Ottawa Police Services Board to act. When Ottawa lawyer Michael Edelson and his firm reviewed thousands of pages of disclosures from the Ottawa Police Service, concerns about the consistency of the evidence made by senior police officers were raised. Mr. Edelson had been retained to represent an Acting […]

I was troubled to hear that participants at the annual general meeting of Toronto’s Pride organization voted to ban uniformed police from marching or participating in any way in future parades. We are concerned that efforts may be made to require Ottawa’s Pride organization to consider a similar motion. I believe it’s a mistake to […]

Seldom does a Mayor insert him or herself publicly in a dispute with a municipal union. Unless familiar with the complexities of labour relations and the dynamics of large workplaces, doing so can be the third-rail of politics – touch it and you are done. In the last thirty years only two other mayors have […]