Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps says a report by B.C.’s police complaint commissioner questioning her handling of misconduct allegations against a former Victoria police chief “feels like character assassination.”
“At this point, I’m considering what my options are going forward,” Helps said Monday. “I’m going to have someone look at the report carefully and see if it’s defamatory. It feels defamatory.”
On Sept. 26, commissioner Stan Lowe released his review of two investigations and subsequent discipline proceedings involving former police chief Frank Elsner.
Elsner, who resigned in May 2017, was found to have committed eight acts of misconduct, including sending sexually charged Twitter messages to the wife of one of his officers, lying to investigators and encouraging a witness to make a false statement. A retired judge concluded Elsner had physical contact with two women officers that was unwanted and made inappropriate remarks of a sexual nature to one of them.
Lowe’s report said Helps and Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, co-chairs of the police board, “predetermined the outcome of the internal discipline process from the outset, and set about navigating a course to allow the former chief to remain in his post.”
“We did not get to respond to any of the allegations in the OPCC report and it seems like we’re on trial,” Helps said. “The report, as it reads, makes a lot of suggestions about what our intentions were and what we meant to do, and there’s absolutely no evidence. I really do think some of the things in that report are bordering on libel.”
Deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods said if the mayors are concerned that the information contained in the report is inaccurate or prejudicial, they should ask the provincial government for a public inquiry.
“That option is available to them and it’s probably the best one if they think the way this has played out is unfair,” Woods said. “We’ll be able to present this evidence. Witnesses can be called to give testimony under oath. The mayors will have a chance to provide testimony under oath themselves. It would certainly clear the air as to what actually happened.”
The mayors have indicated they want to discuss their concerns with the B.C. solicitor general, but his office has no jurisdiction over the OPCC, Woods said.
“This is an independent office of the legislature. This office is independent of everyone.”
The mayors hired an investigator after hearing complaints about Elsner’s behaviour.
In October 2015, the investigator reported to the mayors that numerous witnesses had made allegations of bullying and harassment against Elsner.
“Despite receiving this information, the mayors chose not to expand the investigator’s mandate to include these allegations,” Lowe’s report said. “On the contrary, the correspondence indicates that they instructed the investigator not to pursue these allegations or consider them in any respect in drafting the investigation report because they were outside the scope of the investigator’s mandate.”
Helps said she and Desjardins followed the advice given by their legal counsel each step of the way. Their mandate was to finish the Twitter investigation, Helps said. When the investigator reported the bullying and harassment allegations, they instructed their lawyer to put them in her final report.
“One of the most upsetting elements of this whole situation is the insinuation that I would protect a man engaged in bullying and harassment. I have been working on women’s issues and women’s rights since I was 15 years old. To suggest we were planning to ignore the allegations brought forward by female members of VicPD is simply untrue. It makes no sense. And to those who know me, it’s just not plausible.”
Lowe has written to the provincial government recommending that a retired judge, not a mayor, be appointed to serve as the discipline authority for misconduct matters involving allegations about a chief or deputy chief of a municipal police department.
Helps said she wholeheartedly agrees with the recommendation to change the Police Act so that mayors are no longer discipline authorities, and the police board has endorsed that stance.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said his staff is reviewing Lowe’s report and recommendations. “I appreciate this is an issue and the commissioner makes some valid points that require careful consideration, so we’ll be looking at this in a broader context and take time to do it right.”
