Some lingering concerns

Before this week’s main story on the Hamilton Police Services board, I have an update and an announcement:

I have written about the secretive, dark money, right-wing populist shadow group known as “Concerned Hamiltonians” twice - on July 27, 2023 and again last week. I was actually worried that last week’s in-depth investigation into that strange group was a little too late to make an impact, as, by all appearances, “Concerned Hamiltonians” had receded from public view after making a few half-hearted social media posts in early January.

Speak of the devil and he doth appear, I suppose.

In Saturday’s Hamilton Spectator, nestled cozily on the bottom of page A4 - beside an ad for river cruises and below a Scott Radley editorial that, once again, tackles the issue of the Woodlands Park washroom - appeared a “Concerned Hamiltonians” ransom note, this time bemoaning proposed council spending on bike lanes. The ad was chalk full of what we’ve come to expect: willful exaggeration, misleading figures, populist talking points, and egregious overuse of the humble exclamation mark. The secretive figure behind the ads returned to their Word processor to bang out another missive, highlighted so appropriately in their trademark colours of blood and bile.

That means, as of February 1, 2024, “Concerned Hamiltonians” has spent approximately $25,500 on 15 Spectator ads and at least 2 Metroland suburban newspaper ads (maybe more…if anyone knows of any other ads in those now-shuttered papers, let me know). That’s a lot of dark money flowing into the public discourse.

The way that this group is spending raises a lot of red flags and speaks to the need for more clear guidelines on political advertising and its regulation. Throwing down $25,000 on political ads outside an election with 0 transparency about who is funding these ads and what their ultimate goals are is deeply troubling.

But you know what they haven’t spent money on? Domain names.

It would appear that the brain trust over at “Concerned Hamiltonians” didn’t think it was necessary to buy some common domain names that could be associated with their group.

I know this because I bought them last week.

I am now the proud owner of some Concerned Hamiltonians webspace, including www.concernedhamiltonians.ca. I figured, if they weren’t using them, then I should grab them and use them for some good.

I’ve created a website for these domains that provides some positive alternatives to their angry, populist rants and encourages the people of Hamilton to ask more questions about shadowy, hard right interests trying to buy our public conversation. If they refuse to be transparent about their aims, then the least I can do is provide some alternatives and encourage the people of Hamilton to ask questions on their own.

I’ll be working on populating the site as the days go on to serve as a virtual counterbalance to their in-print activities. Hopefully it’ll be ready to go soon and you’ll be able to see it here.

But I should also be transparent: this whole endeavour is costing both “Concerned Hamiltonians” and myself a lot of cash. They’ve got shady right-wing cash to burn, but I’m living on a meager postdoc’s stipend. Fun fact, they’ve spent over half my yearly income on these ads! In contrast, I’ve spent around $300 and quite a bit of my time getting the concernedhamiltonians.ca website all set up (0.012% of what they’ve spend on print ads, but still…).

I’ve committed to keeping the Sewer Socialists free and accessible to everyone right now. I’d like to think that, in today’s complicated media (both traditional and social) landscape, you deserve at least one progressive, local commentary/perspective/overly historical outlet that doesn’t charge you cover at the door.

But I am now accepting tips at the bar. 💸💸💸

I’ve set up a ko-fi.com page where I’m accepting “tips” from anyone who really enjoys my work and is okay throwing a virtual fiver my way. Right now, it would be cool to recoup at least some of the costs of that website and maybe put a little away for some other future projects (and paying for the sewersocialists.ca domain when it comes up for renewal).

There’s no pressure to donate and I’ll still love you all no matter what. I’ll be including a donation button down below here and in all my future editions.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment below. Okay, on with the show!

To serve and protect themselves

I know it is rich for me to be making this critique, but Hamilton Police Services Board meetings are long and confusing.

<insert the sound of a million newsletter readers scoffing at once, creating an audible rumble picked up by seismographs with their rightful acknowledgement of the author’s hypocrisy>

I’ve watched the last three meetings and they’re…hard to follow.

The board’s procedure is almost inscrutable. I came up in student politics holding a copy of Robert’s Rules as my divine text. The only way to get things done in an organization riddled with bureaucracy was to understand the rules and strategically work within them. Under the watchful eye of many a vigilant Assembly speaker, I was able to work through the rules and get things done with my equally nerdy passionate colleagues. But that instilled in me an appreciation for what rules of order can do; they can empower people who otherwise would be unable to speak and allow for transparency where there would otherwise be secrecy. The rules of order create a level playing field for participation and underpin our democratic experiment. They only work, though, when there is a chair or speaker who can manage discussion in a fair, efficient, and impartial way.

The Hamilton Police Services Board (PSB) doesn’t seem to have that. The chair, Pat Mandy, messes up basic procedure with regularity. In their November 23 meeting, for example, she forgot to approve minutes until prompted. Then early in the board’s December 14 meeting, some of her pages got stuck together and she began moving forward with motions entirely out of order.

But that’s not the only concerning thing about the December 14 meeting. Same goes for the January 25 meeting. Indeed, it seems like there’s a pattern of behaviour on the board that should concern every Hamiltonian.

Rather than just slip up and make mistakes (which, let’s be honest, we all do), Mandy uses the chair in a heavy-handed, often authoritarian way, and is backed by a solid partisan block who use expediency to prevent people from asking questions. What’s worse, Mayor Horwath sides with that block all too often…when she participates at all.

The police are the single largest municipal expenditure we have. They carry with them immense power that deserves to be scrutinized by representatives of the people. Yet, the Hamilton PSB appears to be structured in a way that ostracizes those who raise concerns and even formally stops some concerns from being raised at all.

The PSH has a lot of issues: A chair with a long history of public service that has, in the past few years, been tarnished by accusations of secrecy and mismanagement. A voting block controlled by past candidates of the Progressive Conservative Party. And a mayor who rarely steps in to provide any leadership.

Today I’m going to look at an important question: what’s going on with the Hamilton Police Services Board? How did we get here, why are things the way they are, and what can be done to fix this problem?

Let’s dive in.

“Blimey! Its the ol’ aristos what boss around them bottle and stoppers!”

It wouldn’t be a Chris Erl piece if it didn’t start with a little (read: a lot of) history. This time, it is really important to start with some history because the current PSB is, in a way, directly related to one of the city’s first democratic institutions.

Hamilton’s original incorporation in 1833 was as a “police village” - an old form of municipal government in Ontario for settled areas too small to have any other services than a police force and any other local government than one that could maintain order. Indeed, Hamilton’s first elected body in the settler era was a “Board of Police”. Before we even had a council, we had a Board of Police.

To elect the Board of Police, the city’s 1,400 residents were divided into four wards, each of which converged at the intersection of King and John Streets. The wards were slightly unbalanced though; in the city’s first election, around 72% of all voters lived in what was then Ward 3 (Beasley and the eastern North End). For reference, here’s the map of those wards, each of which fit into today’s Ward 2.

Those four representatives would elect a fifth member from the community and, from among them, they would pick a “Board President”.

The Board of Police assumed responsibility over basic day-to-day functions from provincially-appointed Justices of the Peace. This meant that a new local body (comprised of and elected by propertied male British subjects who had to reside in the ward they represented) could pass laws to ensure the maintenance of order in the settlement. They dealt with licences, regulations, and by-laws, appointed any municipal officer, and had some level of control over things like firefighting and roads.

But why 1833? Seems a little late in the game to finally introduce local government to Hamilton. The land was “purchased” in 1792 and Hamilton’s town was first established in 1816. The first court and jail opened in 1817. The settlement’s first school had opened in 1821. Allan Napier MacNab (six years before he tacked “Sir” onto his name) had already done brisk business dealing in land and lawyerly showmanship (and engaging in sometimes violent anti-progressive hooliganism) in the area and was well on his way to luring rail interests to the town (sorry, lots of brackets with this sentence. MacNab is just such a fascinating person. I’ll have to write about the Rolph Affair one day. Wild stuff).

Two ever-present aspects of Hamilton’s early history created the ideal conditions for the creation of a police village: cholera and fire.

A major cholera epidemic began in June of 1832 when an immigrant ship carrying ill passengers docked in Quebec City, with the ship’s crew letting them disembark rather than quarantine those showing signs of the sickness. Cholera arrived in Hamilton in early summer of 1832, leading to wide-spread panic. Goaded along by newspaper-led hysteria about disease-riddled immigrants, a mob descended on the city wharfs with torches, pitchforks, and clubs, threatening to dispatch any newcomers, lest they bring sickness into the city.

Though it may be more of a Jebediah Springfieldization of one of the city’s founders, the story goes that the 43-year-old George Hamilton made his way to the docks and appealed to the Christian charity of his townspeople, convincing them to build temporary shacks on the water’s edge to house any immigrants during a period of plague, rather than use their clubs as a deterrent.

Little was known about cholera at the time, so those efforts were fruitless and the disease quickly spread into the city. An abandoned barracks near Dundurn on the Burlington Heights was used to house both the sick and the dead, watched over by a single attendant: a soldier known today only as “Hyslop”. This mononymatic soldier attempted to stave off the illness by drinking nearly a litre of whisky daily and, to dissuade anyone thinking they could rob the city’s drunken substitute for a medical professional, slept near his pet rattlesnakes. Reports from the time were that Hyslop declared he “feared neither cholera nor…footpad desperadoes”.1

Hyslop, immune system weakened from a diet of little more than liquour, succumbed to cholera before his pet snakes could exact their revenge. And, when he did, the ramshackle hospital and morgue was closed. Same went for the local gaol when the striking, 6-foot-1-inch-tall Irish jailer and his wife both contracted cholera. George Hamilton and Allan MacNab decided it best to just release all the jail’s prisoners, except for one who had been condemned to death, over whom they thought it best to keep watch.

When the epidemic had run its course, around 18% of the settlement’s population had died.2 Missing nearly 1/5 of the settlement’s pre-epidemic population and lacking any local government structure that could quickly respond to pressing matters, the tiny town of Hamilton was in a precarious spot. Any disaster could quickly become unmanageable.

So when, on November 16, 1832, a fire started in one of MacNab’s new business ventures - a tavern - it spread quickly through the firefighterless hamlet. Aided by a strong November wind, the fire engulfed a handful of important downtown buildings before burning itself out before dinner. It could have been much worse, but the burgeoning city was saved a more widespread disaster.

The events of 1832 made it clear that Hamilton needed some semblance of order and at least a few folks willing to figure out how to prevent fires.

All these events led the colonial legislature to approve “Police Village” status for Hamilton in early January, 1833. Three months later, Hamilton’s first municipal election occurred.

The city’s first Board of Police was made up of names now familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the city’s geography: Colin Ferrie, Ebenezer Stinson, Joseph Rolston, and Peter Hunter Hamilton. They selected Judge Thomas Taylor to join their ranks as the fifth member and as board president. After appointing John Ryckman as Hamilton’s “High Bailiff” (a.k.a. the city’s first and, at that point, only police officer), they turned to the task of deciding on a location for a new marketplace. The board had to choose between a site on King Street or a site belonging to town founder (and brother of board member Peter Hunter Hamilton) George Hamilton around today’s GO Centre on…Hunter Street. Let that sweet, sweet nepotism wash right over me! 

When the Board of Police polled residents on where they wanted the market, 67% voted for the King Street location. Despite this, the Board opted to go with George Hamilton’s site instead.

It would seem that, even in 1833, the Board of Police provided more of a “theoretical” experiment in democracy than a practical one.

Let’s fast forward a little.

Hamilton became a city in 1846 after experiencing massive growth. The provincial legislature mandated that police forces be overseen by “Board of Commissioners of Police” (or Police Commissions) in 1858. These boards were technically supposed to keep municipal politicians from getting their fingers into police affairs, but that was another “works better in theory than in practice” moments in Canadian history, as those commissions were pretty much controlled by local councils. In 1960, the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Leslie Frost passed “The Police Act” which changed the composition of Police Commissions to include only three members: a municipality’s mayor, a county or district judge, and a community member appointed by the province. These changes were made in the hopes that corruption could be addressed and efficient management would be promoted. But, as time went on, it became clear that the bodies needed to be more representative. In 1990, The Police Act was replaced with the Police Services Act, which replaced Police Commissions with Police Services Boards.

From 1858 to 1973, Hamilton’s police force was overseen by a local Police Commission. When the region was created in 1974, the Hamilton Police were merged into the Hamilton Wentworth Regional Police Force, also under the supervision of a local Police Commission. When the “new” City of Hamilton came into being in 2001, today’s Hamilton Police Services Board (PSB) was born.

Today’s board

Hamilton’s present PSB consists of seven members. Three of those members come from among city council’s membership, three are citizens appointed by the provincial government, and one is a citizen appointed by council.

The council appointees are Mayor Andrea Horwath, Ward 2 councillor Cameron Kroetsch, and Ward 7 councillor Esther Pauls. Dr. Anjali Menezes serves as the new citizen appointee from the city, having taken over upon the conclusion of Fred Bennink’s term. Bennink still serves on the board, having been appointed by the province to join other provincial appointees, Geordie Elms and Pat Mandy.

Let’s start with a closer look at Pat Mandy, who presently serves as chair.

Mandy, who got her start as a nurse practitioner in 1965, has been deeply involved in local affairs for many years. She made waves in 1995 when she appeared at a press conference with Dr. Gordon Guyatt and four other local healthcare practitioners where the group publicly endorsed the Ontario NDP’s re-election bid in an effort to stop “a rapid movement to an American-style (health care) system.”3 By April 1 of 1996, she was the chair of the region’s Board of Health, where one of her first responsibilities was taking then-Ward 5 alderman Fred Eisenberger to task for missing 11 of 12 board meetings since his re-appointment in 1994.4 

By February 2001, Mandy was working as the vice-president of patient services at the Henderson Hospital. On Sunday, February 4, 2001, a 32-year-old businesswoman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrived at the hospital with symptoms that led doctors to believe she had malaria. But, as the symptoms worsened, it seemed like the diagnosis was incorrect. She had a high fever, was delirious, and, by Wednesday, her organs had entered a state of “dysfunction”. By then, it appeared as if she was suffering from acute viral hemorrhagic fever. These kinds of illnesses - which include Ebola, Dengue, and Yellow Fever - spread quickly, in a multitude of ways, and have no cure. By the time her symptoms had progressed, it was estimated 70 people were at risk of infection. Maybe more. She landed in Montreal and made her way to Hamilton via public transit. Who knows how many people she came in contact with?

Health Canada and the American CDC jumped in, but the government insisted there was no need to panic. Mandy oversaw the creation of a quarantine room, called in extra staff from other hospitals, and worked to initiate procedures that helped the hospital manage North America’s first real Ebola scare. There were complaints; members of the local Congolese community were confused as to why no one reached out to people who have dealt with the illness for years, and a grievance was filed by CUPE over a lack of information that put two lab techs at risk. But the Hamilton Health Sciences team, managed in part by Mandy, worked diligently to address the crisis and avert an outbreak. And the businesswoman recovered (though was later implicated in a diamond smuggling ring, but that’s not the point of the story here).5

Mandy’s handling of the crisis earned national and international news coverage. For her efforts, and her dedication to volunteerism and working with the Indigenous community (Mandy is a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation), she was awarded a Woman of the Year award in 2002, a Hamilton Health Sciences Cornerstone Award in 2004, and a symbolic eagle feather award from the City of Hamilton on National Aboriginal Day in 2005.6

Her accolades and experience managing large, complicated organizations meant that Mandy was a natural choice for leadership positions in the city. So, when the province created the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), Mandy was appointed as chair. But she quickly faced criticism from all sides: organized labour saw her work on the LHIN as paving the way for health care privatization while the populist right balked at the +$200,000 salary for her role.7 

Mandy’s leadership of the local LHIN really began to falter in 2008 when the Office of the Ontario Ombudsperson received complaints from residents and from then-Hamilton Centre MPP Andrea Horwath about the organization’s poor community consultation practices. The Ombudsperson began investigating and released a report in 2010.

The report was scathing. The Ombudsperson found that the LHIN was very lax with protocol, often illegally meeting in secret. Transparent, public meetings were often replaced with “education sessions” after the board had met secretly to decide on a course of action. One LHIN member, when challenged about the body not doing enough public consultation, responded that “he had engaged citizens at his golf club”. The board’s commitment to consultations was later described in local media as “almost meaningless”. Shortly after the release of the Ombudsperson’s report, Mandy resigned as chair and from the LHIN, but denied the report had anything to do with her decision.8

Then, in 2018, a year after Mandy was named to the Order of Canada, there was an unexpected opening on the PSB.

Two years prior, there was controversy over the provincial reappointment of two members: Madeleine Levy and Stan Tick. Both were reappointed at the exact time that people like then-councillor Matthew Green were pushing for more diversity on the PSB. And both appointees were sources of controversy; Tick had been accused of promoting a culture of secrecy on the board (by a staffer with then-councillor Terry Whitehead) and Levy would eventually apologize to the city’s Polish community in 2017 for interrupting a fellow board member - Walt Juchniewicz - who was telling a story about his Christmas traditions, by telling him that Poles killed Jewish people during the Holocaust.9 

Despite the calls from the community for more diversity on the board, both were re-appointed in 2016 after being personally asked by then-MPP Ted McMeekin. Upon their return to the PSB, Green was quoted in the Spec as saying “If I didn't have confidence in change coming to the police board before, I certainly don't have it now. Get ready for another three years of the same.”10

Despite returning to the board, controversy dogged Tick, resulting in his surprise resignation in January of 2018.

McMeekin, who was gearing up for what would ultimately be his last provincial re-election bid, encouraged Mandy to apply for the vacancy created by Tick’s detachment from the PSB, telling the Spec “She's an ideal choice and I think she'll be an added strength.”11 Mandy’s application was successful and has served on the PSB since then.

Along with Mandy, the two other provincial appointees are Fred Bennink and Geordie Elms.

Newly-minted PSB vice-chair Fred Bennink first made news for a delightfully Canadian publicity stunt in 1992 when he put up a giant banner in front of his QEW and Abbleby Line storefront depicting, as the Spec reported, “a beaver, rolling up his sleeves with a Canadian flag in the background. The sign reads C'mon Canada Let's Get it Going,” in response to the recession and a host of global problems bombarding the country.12

Prior to his public service, Bennink was deeply involved with the conservative Christian Reformed Church, holding leadership positions with the church’s international charities in the 1990s and as the “school promotions committee chair” for Calvin Christian School in 2000.13

In 2019, Bennink was appointed to the PSB over other applicants like Evelyn Myrie, Ameil Joseph, and Lyla Miklos, each of whom represented marginalized communities and who could have provided a much-needed perspective to the board. Bennink’s appointment was so contentious that community members staged a sit-in at one of his first PSB meetings.14

Voters in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas will remember Bennink as their 2022 Progressive Conservative Party nominee for MPP in the riding. Following his loss to incumbent NDP MPP Sandy Shaw, Bennink sought re-appointment to the PSB as the citizen representative appointed by council.

The city put out two calls for citizen appointees: one from February to April, 2023 and again from July to August, 2023. Bennink applied in March, but withdrew his application on November 3, 2023, telling the CBC that he “was not notified, but realized” his application would not be successful. This is despite the selection committee not informing unsuccessful applicants of their decision until November 27. Bennink’s withdrawal from the race raised red flags and the city has since asked the integrity commissioner to investigate if Bennink was tipped off early that the city would be appointing Dr. Anjali Menezes.15

But, it didn’t really matter for Bennink, who applied and was quickly accepted for one of the vacant provincial positions on the board.

So Bennink now serves on the board as a provincial appointee alongside Geordie Elms. Aside from both being PSB members, the two have something important in common.

They were both Ontario Progressive Conservative Party nominees for MPP. While Bennink was the party’s 2022 nominee in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, Elms ran for the provincial Tories on Hamilton Mountain in 2011, placing third behind incumbent MPP Sophia Aggelonitis and the riding’s winner, the NDP’s Monique Taylor.

Funny enough, that’s something Elms has in common with fellow PSB member Esther Pauls. Elms carried the PC banner on the Mountain in 2011 while Pauls did so in 2018.

Pauls serves as one of the three council appointees, but is a bit of a strange choice to serve on the PSB. Her son is an officer with the Hamilton Police Service, meaning that Pauls has decided to recuse herself from votes on all matters relating to money that come before the PSB. That kind of makes Pauls’ position on the board half-filled; she is there to vote on basic matters and reports, but doesn’t weigh in on any of the important money-related motions. But, as Pauls told the Spec: “I want to be engaged with police matters. I don’t want to just sit out all the time because...there’s a lot of issues.”16

But that also gives us an identifiable voting block on the board: three former PC candidates who, from the meetings I’ve watched, vote in lock step.

This was the case at the board’s November 23 meeting when both Bennink and Cameron Kroetsch were nominated for vice-chair. Mandy, as chair, announced that Bennink was seeking the position of vice-chair. Menezes attempted to nominate Kroetsch. After some back and forth about requiring a seconder (none of the other members wanted to second Menezes’s nomination of Kroetsch, requiring him to do it himself), the vote was held. Mayor Horwath kept her camera off while the PC Block voted for Bennink. Menezes and Kroetsch voted for the latter. When prompted by Kroetsch, Mandy (who originally didn’t express an opinion) announced she supported Bennink.

The meetings

And that brings us to some of the recent problems. The November 23 meeting was the first for member Menezes. There was some tension at that one; Kroetsch wanted to cleave out a section of the agenda to vote against it which Mandy facilitated as chair. But when it came to voting, things seemed…odd. Menezes was seated beside Elms, who was loudly instructing her on how to cast a vote. Not what to vote for, but how to use the voting buttons around the council horseshoe. But he was almost pressing the buttons for her. And some wrangling over “abstaining” from a vote made it seem like any abstention would be counted as a vote against a motion.

But that was all minor stuff compared to December 14.

By mid-December, the tone had shifted. The meeting began as usual, this time with Menezes seated near the end of the table and beside Kroetsch. After the “Member of the Month” award (the HPS’s version of an employee of the month presentation for officers who have gone above-and-beyond), the PSB was given a presentation about the HPS’s Race and Identity Based Data Strategy. Following the report, Menezes was recognized and allowed to ask some questions of the presenters.

This makes sense and, honestly, is one reason why the community was excited to see someone like Menezes on the PSB. Working as both a family physician and researcher, Dr. Menezes specifically focuses on studying issues of race and bias and how these impact the provision of basic services. She’s a trained and well-respected expert in this field, so it was only natural that Menezes have questions about a race-based data strategy.

Menezes first question was about the HPS’s “Disproportionality Index”. The presenters respond, clarifying that the index is used to compare “incidents” like “use of force” between two different groups. Basically: are there more “use of force” incidents with members of a racialized minority population when compared with the number of people from that population living in the city? But the presenters say that a high “disproportionality index” could mean a lot of things and the reasons why people from some groups are coming into contact with the police more needs to be further contextualized.

Menezes then follows up with a clarification to drill down a little further. “How could that not indicate a difference in how that population is being treated, i.e. racism?” she asks.

The presenters are forthright: it honestly might be. It could also be a person’s individual choices, sociodemographics, etc. But they reiterate that this is the reason we need this Race and Identity Based Data Strategy: more data helps us make better decisions. This is all excellent stuff and those questions help provide really valuable insight into police process. And the respondents seemed more than happy to provide clarification on their work. It was what they were there to do, after all.

But then Mandy jumps in. She uses her position as chair to say that the process is provincially-driven and that the board will return to it later. Menezes thanks Mandy for her clarification and then tries to continue with her questions about the police’s disproportionate use of force against members of minority communities.

Mandy jumps in again. “We have had presentations on the data,” she says, following it with “I don’t want to get into the detail of that.” She then encourages Menezes to ask questions of the police outside of the meeting, maybe after consulting with them and offering her perspectives at a later date. “All we want to do is receive the report,” she concludes.

“Just to confirm as the new person on the board, I am simply to accept that there are questions to be raised but we must continue the work and not ask them publicly?” Menezes asks.

The presenters stand quietly, looking to the chair in confusion.

It is clear the chair does not want these questions to proceed; Mandy has had enough and unilaterally calls the vote. “Because we’re getting off topic and we don’t…any further debate [that ellipses isn’t me skipping anything, that’s how Mandy phrased that] and Member Kroetsch, you look like you’re going to complain so I’m going to ask for a vote of the board…”

Kroetsch raises a point of order because…obviously he would when the chair makes a snarky comment in the middle of violating the rules of procedure. Mandy declares him out of order (which he wasn’t) and proceeds with the vote on calling the question. Bennink and Elms move a motion to suspend debate and there are four votes in favour: the PC Block + Mandy.

This whole thing is a procedural disaster. I don’t know what kind of nonsense system the PSB uses, but in Robert’s Rules, the only way a question can be called is if a member has the floor. Mandy interrupted Menezes and asked a member to call the question, which is a flagrant abuse of power. The chair can’t direct members to move a motion to suspend debate. To use a hackneyed turn-of-phrase: this isn’t North Korea. Hell, I don’t even think the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would so openly flout the rules like that. They’d at least pretend to follow procedure. And even if a motion to suspend debate was presented honestly, it requires 2/3 or 66% support. With four in favour and three opposed, that’s only 57%.

But, setting the nerd stuff aside, what happened was really, really, really bad for accountability. Menezes was appointed to the board to, among other reasons, use her expertise to ask the police tough questions about their interactions with diverse populations. The first chance she got, she was shut down within two questions by a chair with a history of violating rules and standards with respect to accountability.

Mandy was rewarded by the board by being re-elected as chair at the PSB’s January 25 meeting, with only Menezes and Kroetsch voting for the latter to serve in the role. At that meeting, the two sit isolated at the western edge of the council horseshoe (though Menezes’s nametag is, mysteriously, still placed between Elms and Bennink). And, this time, since Mayor Horwath is in the room, she is forced to put on the record who she wants as chair and vice chair. When given the chance to vote for Kroetsch vs. Mandy for chair and Menezes vs. Bennink for vice-chair, Horwath casts votes for Mandy and Bennink, setting the controversy surrounding both of them aside in favour of consistency.

Re-elected to the role, Mandy proceeded to give a chair’s update at that meeting and wield her re-invested power with a vengeance.

While the first portion of that report was boilerplate about police audits and provincial regulations, Mandy took an interesting turn in the second part of her report. She trips up a little, mixing up pages in her report and jumping around but, by 2:11 PM, she gets to her point: “After the presentation [at council’s General Issues Committee] was done, Councillor Kroetsch made the following comments…” and then launches into a list of complaints about Kroetsch’s public comments made in a council meeting. She critiques Kroetsch’s complaints about the budget process, from the poor management of the budget committee to the lax standards of some of the members. She accuses him of spreading misinformation about the timing of when the budget was given to board members and explains away the budget committee’s failure to meet regularly.

Councillor Kroetsch, understandably, responds. He expresses concern that the chair is reading these complaints into the public record. As he tries to continue speaking, there’s garbled speech from off camera.

It’s Mandy, pulling the same stunt: a request for a motion to call the question, which is hastily provided by the two provincial members of the PC Block.

The mayor, to her credit, opposes this move and raises concern that any personal issues should be raised in camera. Mandy clarifies and says “The only thing that I’m worried about is that I don’t want to get into personal…uhhh…back and forth bashing, so if we have strong…uhhh…the only intent here was only to say we need to acknowledge what was said and we need to acknowledge that there are different perceptions about what actually transpired and why.”

Menezes raises an important point: “Is it just that the chair can voice their own individual, personal opinions and…umm…quite frankly slander certain board members in this particular part of the meeting so that those board members are not allowed to respond? Or was this actually part of a complaint because there’s a complaint process - to my understanding - for board members and I’m just trying to understand the process here just also so the public can understand how the chair functions…is this standard for boards?”

Mandy says it is her intent to provide clarity: “I will tell you my intent is to clarify information only that is out in the public and keeps being reaffirmed as fact and I wanted to clarify to the public that it is not fact.”

Mandy is, in so many words, calling Cameron Kroetsch a liar. I know that’s strong phrasing, but the words boil down to that. If someone is presenting as fact something that is “not fact” and know they’re doing so, then they’re willfully misleading people.

After an opinion from the administrative assistant, Kroetsch is allowed to continue with his comment, leaving that improper motion to call the question dangling in the wind like some kind of exposed procedural appendage. This puts Mandy in the awkward position of withdrawing a motion that wasn’t hers before asking for a vote on approving her report. Menezes and Kroetsch voted against. The report carried.

This back-and-forth ended up making the news, as the whole spectacle raises serious questions about a dangerous authoritarian streak on the Hamilton PSB.

The problem

There are a few problems with the board that are easy to identify: the chair, the voting block, and the absent leadership on important issues.

As chair, Mandy has demonstrated a distain for dissent that is seriously concerning. The chair’s role is to ensure the meetings run smoothly (which she seems unable to do) and allow members to engage in conversations that pertain to the motions on the floor and the issues of the day (which she refuses to do). Mandy acts as a partisan participant in the conversation, shutting down debate she does not like and using the power of her podium to settle personal scores. In just the past two meetings, she has used or attempted to use her power to circumvent basic policy to get the result she wants. In any other organization, the body would have forced her to relinquish the chair after her first attempt to force a vote and silence her critics.

Ontario’s Ombudsperson raised these concerns in 2010. The pattern had already emerged during Mandy’s tenure leading a massive healthcare organization. Despite this, the myth surrounding the skillful administrator who kept her cool under pressure superseded any possible questions about secret meetings and a lack of transparency.

Which brings us to the second problem, and one that is deeply interconnected with the first. The Progressive Conservative Block on the PSB is unshakable in their consistency, willing to do as the chair asks, even if it contravenes the rules of order. The few times the Block does not vote together is when Councillor Pauls declares a conflict of interest, which raises the additional question: why is she even on the PSB if she can’t vote on matters of substance? But, beyond that, why were two former PC candidates for office nominated to serve on the PSB by the PC government? Were there no other qualified applicants who could have provided a unique viewpoint or been willing to at least consider asking difficult questions?

One of the things you’ll hear repeated frequently in PSB meetings are references to a member’s tenure on the board. So-and-so has been on the board for X years and the like. A member’s “length of service” is, apparently, a substitute for substance. Bennink serving on the board for 5 years excuses his disinterest in asking meaningful questions. While not a member of the PC Block, the same goes for the chair. Mandy’s 5 years of service is used as a counter to any critiques one might have of her poor chairpersonship.

And that brings us to the mayor. Andrea Horwath has, on record, backed Mandy and Bennink. While she made efforts to oppose the stifling of debate, she has mostly taken a backseat, allowing two immovable groups to form and siding with the more conservative of the two. When given a chance to show real leadership and signal a different direction for the PSB by casting a ballot for an openly gay chairperson and a woman of colour to serve as vice-chair, she stuck with the status quo. Instead of taking steps to fundamentally change the conversation on the police board and signal to communities who have had and continue to have a tense and complicated relationship with the Hamilton Police Service that it was time for a change, she opted to saddle up beside the PC Block.

Yes, the mayor is only one vote and the PC Block + Mandy would win anyway, but sometimes it is the case that showing leadership means doing something that may not be the most popular (or even have a chance of succeeding) but having the courage to do it nonetheless. Cameron Kroetsch does that every meeting by standing up for proper procedure, which he knows is the only way anything of substance will get done on the PSB. Dr. Anjali Menezes has done that over the three meetings she’s been a part of, asking difficult questions and trying to hold the chair accountable. The mayor is the head-of-council and the symbolic representative of the people of Hamilton. Where’s her courage?

The way forward

So what can be done? There are a few things that can be done, but some things are more possible than others. Let’s start with what’s more possible:

First, Councillor Pauls should resign from the PSB immediately. The direct conflict of interest she has should have been a disqualifying factor when council was selecting their three representatives to serve on the PSB. Her stepping down would allow for a less-conflicted councillor to take that seat and meaningfully contribute to discussions about the budget.

Second, Mandy should be, at the very least, required to undergo some kind of chairperson’s refresher course. The regularity with which she disregards the rules of procedure indicates a failure to grasp even the most basic concepts on how to run a meeting. Someone needs to remind Mandy that, as chair, she is not the supreme member of the board but is, rather, a steady guide for the ship of procedure.

Third, the chair should apologize to Cameron Kroetsch and Dr. Anjali Menezes for her behaviour. Stopping discussions she does not like and using her position of authority as a bully pulpit is unacceptable, unbecoming, and undemocratic. Mandy’s conduct over the past two meetings, in particular, should be condemned by everyone who cares about democratic fairness.

Now onto what’s less possible.

The way in which board members are appointed by the province should be more transparent. We should know who applied, what the interviewers thought of their interview, and who was backing their application. Who provided references, what are their qualifications, how do they stack up against other applicants, etc.?

Or, we could be even more radical, and call for an overhaul of the Police Services Act to allow for the creation of directly-elected Police Services Boards.

More realistically, the province could put serious caps on time spent on the board, though I am always reticent to support any kind of term limit (they’re fundamentally undemocratic and serve as a solution to a problem that could be better solved by actually organizing). But the ad hoc way in which members are re-appointed without scrutiny is troubling.

It would also be refreshing to see Mandy step down as chair. The PSB meetings need to be run in such a way that legitimate questions from board members can be asked in an open forum, no matter how uncomfortable it makes some people. The HPS need to be accountable to the people of this city. We spend money on them, they work as public servants enforcing the laws our democratically elected leaders pass, they deserve at least some level of accountability. But, given the strength of the PC Block and the attitude of the mayor on this file, that’s very unlikely to happen.

Hamilton’s origins were as a police village. But it is not acceptable that, in 2024, the board meant to ensure accountability and democratic oversight of the HPS is being run like a police state.

Cool facts for cool people

• It has not been a great week for Niagara Catholic District School Board trustee Natalia Benoit. Last week, the board announced that Benoit would be on the trustee version of “paid leave” until June 30 for comparing the Pride flag to the flag of the Nazi Party. Massive credit to the CBC for this: in an email back-and-forth with Benoit, she said her intent was to get Catholic schools focused on the teachings of Jesus Christ. The CBC asked Benoit what Jesus said about homosexuality (spoiler: nothing) to which she refused to respond. Amazing. Following this, a committee voted 2-1 to not proceed with legal action against Benoit for misrepresenting an “in-kind” donation of signs on her campaign financial report. She had signs printed with another candidate and failed to claim the $130 she owed on them. While she dodged the courts on that, it still doesn’t look good.

• LiUNA’s PR director Victoria Mancinelli is suing local lawyer Mohamad Bsat for $250,000 over an internet fight they had regarding the War in Israel/Gaza. Mancinelli is very active on X/Twitter and used the platform to oppose rallies in support of Palestine in the early days of the conflict. Bsat and Mancinelli sparred over the conflict, with the latter asking the former to “denounce Hamas” and the former accusing the latter of pushing to create “manufactured consent” for genocide. All very tense and reflective of the heightened emotions around the conflict. But suing someone for a quarter million because of an internet fight? Not great on the “public relations” front, if you ask me.

• A local councillor in a rural municipality in PEI has been forced to resign because he was convicted of criminal harassment. Robbie Moore was a councillor with the Rural Municipality of North Shore and was convicted of harassing three people over a span of 20 months. For this, he was sentenced to three months is jail (to be served on weekends) and three years probation. But he remained on council after his conviction, as the PEI Municipal Act says a councillor has to resign only if convicted of an “indictable offence”. There was some debate as to whether “criminal harassment” was “indictable”, so he remained on council until a group of residents complained. When the CBC reached out to Moore for comment, he responded by…resigning. The CBC is, apparently, doing brisk business in holding weird politicians to account.