A photo of members of the Ottawa Police Service pictured during the "Freedom Convoy" occupation of the city's downtown.
Members of the Ottawa Police Service pictured during the "Freedom Convoy" occupation of the city's downtown. Credit: Maksim Sokolov / Wikimedia Commons Credit: Maksim Sokolov / Wikimedia Commons

The policing establishment has resisted defunding calls with the help of organizations that reinforce the idea that the police are essential to public safety. These include citizen-led “crime prevention” groups, consultants that produce police-friendly reports and even the civilian police boards that are supposed to oversee the police. And support for the police is so strong that, even when these organizations are exposed doing things that are unethical – or even illegal – police supporters defend them.

In Ottawa, the owner of a consulting firm awarded contracts totalling over $120,000 by Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) and the Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) was recently charged with forgery. Hector Addison of Hefid Solutions was charged by Ottawa’s Crown Attorney’s office with allegedly forging the signature of an executive of a local community health centre at which Addison used to work. One of the alleged forged signatures was on a letter, supposedly from the health centre, to funding agencies, requesting funding for the African Canadian Association of Ottawa (ACAO), which Addison co-founded and of which he is a director. A second letter requested funding for Equal Chance, an Ottawa group serving vulnerable members of Ottawa’s Black communities.

The contracts Hefid got (which were unrelated to the forgery charge) included one for $50,000 from CPO to develop a new street violence and gun violence strategy for Ottawa and one for $76,000 from the OPSB for community engagement to help recruit Ottawa’s new police chief.

The 613-819 Black Hub, of which I am coordinator, had informed both the Crime Prevention Ottawa board and the OPSB of concerns with Hefid – including the possible forgery. The OPSB awarded the contract anyway and CPO Board Chair, former Ottawa city councillor Diane Deans, said, “the Board is satisfied the contract was awarded in accordance with our policies and procedures.”

The Hub raised concerns with both boards that Hefid’s team members for both contracts were all ACAO members. The Hub also pointed out that:

  • Addison is a long time member of the Ottawa Police Service Community Equity Council (CEC) which the OPS funds and acting OPS chief Steve Bell co-chairs;
  • Acting chief Bell is on Crime Prevention Ottawa’s Board of Directors that gave Hefid the $50,000 contract; and that
  • The OPSB awarding Hefid a $76,000 contract to help recruit Ottawa’s new police chief – a job for which acting chief Steve Bell was likely a candidate – was, therefore, a direct conflict of interest. 

The Hub also informed the company Hefid partnered with on the CPO contract, CTLabs, and the executive search firm that gave Hefid the $76,000 contract to do the police chief recruitment community engagement, Odgers Berndtson, about the issues with Hefid. Neither firm replied to our emails.

The Hub submitted a report to the Ottawa Police Service asking them to charge Addison but the OPS said they couldn’t. Sergeant Chantal Arsenault from the OPS’ Organized Fraud/Criminal Investigation Division said, “There are elements of the offence required in a Criminal Court of law to prove Forgery. There needs to be a benefit gained, it can be financial or not. If Addison did not gain anything from this forgery, the Crown Prosecutor will not want to pursue. If you can not offer any evidence that benefit was gained OPS can not pursue this any further.”

The 613-819 Black Hub then launched a private prosecution that led to the Crown attorney charging Addison with forgery.

This was yet another example of how the Ottawa Police Service only serves itself and protects its friends – even those allegedly engaged in criminal activity.

Despite these revelations, the Ottawa Police Services Board announced on October 21 that they had hired Eric Stubbs as Ottawa’s new police chief. They did this, three days before the municipal election and before the end of the inquiry into the federal government’s invoking the Emergencies Act to remove the Ottawa “Freedom Convoy” occupation. Some candidates in Ottawa’s recent election had called to delay hiring the new chief until after the election. The only candidate who supported hiring the new chief before the election was Mark Sutcliffe – who was elected mayor with 51 per cent of the vote compared to 38 per cent for his nearest competitor, Catherine McKenney. OPSB chair Eli El-Chantiry was one of Sutcliffe’s honorary campaign co-chairs.

Stubbs is an assistant commissioner with the RCMP in British Columbia who oversaw the removal of members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who had blocked a road in opposition to the construction of Coastal GasLink’s pipeline on their territory.

I did a public delegation at the October 31 Ottawa Police Services Board meeting, the last chaired by Eli El-Chantiry, in which I outlined how the forgery charge against Addison came about.

The new Board will be sworn in on November 14 and will take over with trust in the Board and the Ottawa Police Service at just 21 per cent among Ottawa residents according to the study released in April 2022, Troubling Encounters with Police: Ottawa Residents Experience of Policing.

If the Board and the OPS continue treating their supporters who violate the Criminal Code with kid gloves while criminalizing things like addiction, homelessness and poverty, trust in police will justifiably continue to erode.

Editor’s Note: This blog post has been updated for clarity around the contracts Hefid got from CPO and OPSB.

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Robin Browne

Robin Browne is an African-Canadian communications professional and the co-lead of the 613-819 Black Hub, living in Ottawa. His blog is The “True” North.