Colley-Urquhart lays out CPS accountability proposals; defends herself after criticism

Calgary councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart is outlining new ideas in the wake of the ongoing controversy of alleged abuse and harassment in the Calgary Police Service, while also defending herself amidst the coverage.

A day after CPS Chief Roger Chaffin and Mayor Naheed Nenshi appeared with other officers during a press conference promising change, Colley-Urquhart appeared before the media with her proposal of third-party reporting protocol, a new advocate position and an internal survey for officers similar to what other City of Calgary employees have.

“These people in the Calgary Police Service, sworn in and civilian, their stories need to be told one-on-one through a third-party mechanism that can be validated by the commission and Chief Chaffin as well and they’re dying to tell their stories, literally,” she said Wednesday.

Following the recently released and now infamous 2013 internal police report detailing claims of harassment, bullying and intimidation, Colley-Urquhart suggested changing HR policies and if need be, bring her concerns to the justice minister.

But she’s also faced criticism from city and police officials, as well as officers over her speaking out, including how she privately met with male and female officers earlier this year to discuss their mistreatment.

She provided some of those complaints to the media Wednesday and talked how one officer emailed her, accusing her of being misinformed, out of touch and painting the force with too wide a brush.

“He said this has never happened, none whatsoever, that I was making all this up and what not,” she said. “You know what, from his perspective, he probably believes this doesn’t happen.”

Chaffin was asked multiple times Tuesday about the fallout from the report.

“With misinformation creates divisiveness and it creates a problem where as you heard, the organization starts to rise up,” Chaffin said. “That rising up’s important to hear, that people are very proud of the organization, but at the same time, it’s suppressing voices.”

Chaffin said with a para-military organization of over 3,000 members, there’s always going to be issues, but that doesn’t mean he won’t strive to make the force as transparent and safe as possible.

“With 3,000 people in such a complex environment that we’ll always land it right with every person, but we will always get better,” he said.

As for her meetings back in February with officers who met in her home in fear of speaking out, she’s expressed what’s happened to them since.

“Some of them have significant health conditions, some of them have resigned, some of them are on long-term disability and short-term disability,” she said. “It’s not a good situation.”

A member of the police commission for almost 10 years, she said completely supports the chief and the force as a whole and if she’s ready if she’s taken to task behind closed doors.

“Finally all this is out in the open, that we don’t want the whole police service being painted with the same brush,” she said, adding she got an email just Tuesday night from someone who resigned because of the problems. “We do not want there to be a toxic workplace in the city of Calgary.”

After she met with the officers, she met with Chaffin in April to transition the concerns to him and from what she understood, the issues made their way to the police commission in June.

“When it didn’t go well, from their perspective and I don’t know why it didn’t go well and I wasn’t privy to those conversations, they started to email me back and wanted me to get involved again and I didn’t return their emails,” she said. “I really felt at that point when I had transitioned it over, it was inappropriate for me to continue to stay involved.”

As for the report, Chaffin and Nenshi said Tuesday that many of its recommendations are happening.

According to the CPS Respectful Workplace Office, 22 formal complaints have been made since January 2016.

It says both men and women are represented, gender is not a common theme in concerns, which mostly deal with performance management vs. bullying/harassment, abuse of authority and organizational process concerns.

“The point being that these reports were dealt with, that work has been ongoing,” Nenshi said Tuesday. “There’s been allegations that nothing’s been done, that the service is not taking this seriously and frankly, those allegations are wrong.”