Equity team raises concerns over no female representation on Stratford police services board

A Stratford advisory committee with a mandate of strengthening relationships between local police and equity-deserving communities is raising concerns about the lack of female representation on the city’s police services board.

At Wednesday’s meeting Community Equity Action Team co-chair Oonagh Vaucrosson and member Katia Maxwell spoke on behalf of their committee about the critical need for diverse representation on the police services board, the local body responsible for the provision of police services in Stratford, St. Marys and Perth South.

“One issue that really was an issue of contention at a couple of our meetings is the fact that there is no female representation on the board,” Vaucrosson said. “We felt that this was particularly important, given that (Stratford police) Chief (Greg) Skinner has issued a press release talking about how the Stratford Police Service aims to have 30 per cent … of its officers being women by 2030. In furtherance of that, we felt the board needed to … also be (similarly) represented in its makeup.”

Maxwell said she was “surprised” the police services board didn’t reflect “the members of our community.”

“I’m not quite sure of the process, but there seems to be some information out there that names were put forward that perhaps could have added some diversity to the board and those names weren’t accepted. … I feel like, somehow, a big piece of the diversity puzzle was missed. Diversity isn’t necessarily skin color. It’s gender, it’s ability, it’s all of those things, and to have a police services board with no female representation … given the times we’re in, I’m just surprised,” she said.

In Ontario, every municipality that maintains a police service is legislatively required to have a police services board with the number of members determined by population. In Stratford, the board consists of five members: two members of city council, a council-appointed citizen representative who is neither a member of council nor an employee of the city, and two citizens appointed by the lieutenant governor by order of council to act as provincial representatives.

Following last fall’s city election, the new council officially appointed members to the city’s boards and committees. As part of that process, Mayor Martin Ritsma and Deputy Mayor Harj Nijjar were appointed as council’s representatives on the board from 2022 to 2026.

Following a closed-door discussion on Jan. 9, council also voted to appoint Dave Gaffney, a former Stratford councilor, to a four-year term as the new citizen representative on the board, replacing Rosemary Tanner, its former vice-chair and the only woman to serve during the previous term.

Board chair Tim Doherty and vice-chair Steve Cousins, both of whom were elected to the positions from among the board’s current members at Wednesday’s meeting, were previously appointed to the board as its provincial representatives and are serving three-year terms that do not expire at the same time as the council and citizen representatives.

Though the current board members shared Maxwell and Vaucrosson’s concerns Wednesday, it quickly became clear there’s currently no clear path to adding a female perspective to the police services board until the time comers to appoint new members.

“Certainly, when the situation did arise … where there wasn’t female representation on the board, I did reach out to the police chief,” Ritsma told the Community Equity Action Team members Wednesday. “We did have a discussion about what can we do to afford possible opportunities for female representation on the police board, (but) I’m not sure 100 per cent where we would take that because of the mandated size and number of (members on ) the board.

“So discussion has taken place, but perhaps it requires a bit more discussion.”

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