Q&A: 2023 year-in-review with Ottawa police Chief Eric Stubbs

In a year-end interview, Ottawa’s chief of police discusses staffing challenges, violent crime, demonstrations, freedom of information and more.

Published Dec 30, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read

Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs at the Elgin Street headquarters, Dec. 19, 2023. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /POSTMEDIA

Ottawa Police Service Chief Eric Stubbs has now led the city’s police force for a full calendar year. It was a year marked by tragedy, when a late summer wedding took a deadly turn, and controversy, with city hall approving another contentious budget increase, in part to hire more officers to “stabilize” the police’s ranks.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Q: What was the biggest challenge Ottawa police faced in 2023?

A: There were lots of challenges. I started more or less at the beginning of the year. I personally set off on a project of learning internally within the Ottawa Police Service. Our membership, teams, what we do, what we don’t do, some challenges, successes. And then externally learning the community, understanding who I need to meet with, the key community leaders.

I was told at the beginning the team was saying, “I’m busy, we’re busy. We don’t have the capacity,” and I absorbed that, but I didn’t believe it until I saw it for myself — it took until April to be convinced. I knew we are straining; the cup runneth over. And so we need to do something significant here.

We just had our budget approved. In this budget session, we submitted a three-year staff stabilization plan. I’m not asking for the Cadillac version of police agencies — I’m looking to get us at a level where we’re stable — where the strain that I see when I meet with members, where they’re struggling to keep up, I want that strain to be relaxed.

Then, they have the opportunity to have proactive time to stop and have a conversation with some kids and build a relationship; to do some traffic enforcement; to go after a prolific offender who is stealing, dealing drugs, committing violence; then we have the time to do that.

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Q: What is contributing to the staffing issue?

A: There’s a lot of people retiring, so you have that strain. Unfortunately for us, and in a lot of police agencies across the country, there are a lot of people that are off. They’re hurting, be it physically or with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Ottawa’s police force hasn’t grown a lot in the last decade to 15 years, and our population and the complexity of our jobs have increased. Our geographic area is massive to get from one side to the next. We have new things occurring, like cybercrime, we need to be able to respond to. And, of course, demonstrations, major events.

Historically, Ottawa has always had protests. We’re the capital of Canada. But how large they are, how complex they are, and being able to manage them is very time-consuming and very taxing on our base. It’s one thing to plan them, it’s another thing to react to them over time. People not getting the days off they need, to recharge and relax, that’s a problem, for sure.

Q: Advocates say that increasing police budgets won’t address violent crime, that instead we need to put money into addressing the root causes. What do you say to that?

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A: There’s no doubt there’s different things police do. We react to calls for service, and our calls for service are up significantly, like 17 per cent over last year. That’s a lot. So we have to react. We are obligated to go to these calls. When that trend continues, that’s taxing on a service.

In terms of looking at upstream causes of some social issues that plague Ottawa, I’m completely supportive of that. More mental health, more housing, supporting youth when they’re younger so they go down a path that is more positive, addictions treatment. That’s all stuff I’m fully, fully in support of funding, ensuring we have robust programs to address that. I don’t believe, though, that it should be at the cost of the police budget. Those are medical, social issues separate from our role.

If we were a very stable force — the work was very manageable; we didn’t have these demonstrations; increase in population; increase in call volume; our “cop to pop” (cop to population) ratio, which is quite low compared to other large agencies in Canada, if that was higher — I’d start to have more conversations with those people who have that perspective.

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But we are a long way away from having that conversation where I would say, “We’ll take no increase, we’ll put $15 million into housing or something.” And it’s needed, I’m not saying it’s not needed. But, unfortunately, to be a thriving police agency that can properly serve this community, we need to grow and we need to stabilize.

We do have a Guiding Council on Mental Health. They just announced the agency to run the pilot in Centretown. They will respond to calls to mental-health issues where we would normally go, and now we won’t and they will. I fully support that model and pilot and will support that agency however we can to contribute to their success.

Q: Ottawa saw a substantial increase in shootings and gun violence in 2023. How will police address gun violence in 2024?

A: The gun violence is a concern for us. The numbers are more elevated than last year, but within the ballpark of most years. But it’s concerning. One shooting is too many. It’s often harder to solve due to an association with a gang lifestyle. Some people hesitate to participate in an investigation when that is involved. We have to be creative, use other investigative techniques to get over that hump so we can lay charges. It starts with being intelligence-led, going where evidence leads us through electronic intelligence, evidence and witnesses.

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Q: Why are police in the U.S. and other jurisdictions consistently able to provide information to the public even as an investigation is ongoing, whereas here police are reticent to say anything at all?

A: Every file is different. Speaking in generalities, there are a number of different things an agency might be working on, a spectrum of maybe not having any idea who did this or having a strong person of interest. They may be deploying investigative techniques, strategies to get them to that charge status. Certain information they won’t release to the public is called holdback information: If there’s a homicide, and nobody knows the manner of death, we might not want to tell people.

The U.S. is a different world. A celebrity gets an impaired at 2 a.m. and his or her mug shot is in the public at 8 a.m. We just don’t operate that way. They have body cameras, say of maybe a police shooting, that occurs at noon on a Saturday, and it’s in the public, everyone’s looking at it; on Sunday, they’ve released it. Their freedom of information and the way they can release things to the public is wildly different than it is here in Canada. It’s really apples to oranges, unfortunately.

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In general, again, we have Crown counsel, and we are careful not to take steps that might jeopardize that investigation. Our goal is justice. We do have a goal of informing the public. We want the public to be informed about what’s going on in their community.

Q: Why have we not heard anything new about the mass shooting investigation from September?

A: I have given some updates to the (Ottawa Police Services Board) and been asked in press conferences. I’ve personally appealed in the media for more witnesses to come forward to further the investigation. We have been mentioning it, like right now, and that appeal is still outstanding in terms of people coming forward.

Q: Why weren’t the police forthcoming that they had arrested the son of the now-former police board chair?

A: I’ll tell you what our policy is. This is the way we operate. We arrest a lot of people. When we arrest them, the information is sworn, the charge official. We’ll say, “This is their name, age, and where they’re from.” That’s our standard text. We’re not going to research, say, “They’re the nephew of whatever.” That’s not our business, this is personal. Who their parents are, relatives are, it’s not our place to say.

Q: Why are police board meetings still virtual?

A: The police board is a separate entity. It’s their meetings. They make those decisions. We’re guests at that meeting. You might roll your eyes at it, but it’s true. They decide what to do at their meetings. They’ve chosen a path, and we adapt their decisions.