Julian Fantino (born 1942) was Toronto's Chief of Police from 2000 to 2005 and is currently the Ontario Commissioner Of Emergency Management. He was previously chief of police in London, Ontario from 1991 to 1998 and chief of police in York Region immediately north of Toronto from 1998 until 2000. Previous to his London appointment, he had been a Toronto police officer since 1969.

Fantino was born in Italy and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 11 years old. In 2003, he was awarded the Order of Ontario. On April 14, 2005 he was presented the Key to the City of Toronto by Mayor David Miller.

Policing controversies

As a regular Toronto police officer, Fantino was central in one of the city's first major racial profiling scandals, when he released race-based crime statistics to the media.

Fantino was also controversial in London, where he instituted a child pornography investigation, Project Guardian. The investigation targeted the city's gay community, arresting numerous gay men who had committed no criminal activity whatsoever, and did not successfully find any evidence of child pornography, resulting in Gerald Hannon's allegation -- which Fantino has never successfully refuted -- that the investigation was merely an exercise in homophobia. (Fantino's defenders in the Toronto press subsequently misrepresented Hannon's media reports on the controversy as an actual endorsement of child pornography.)

The announcement of Fantino's appointment as Toronto's chief of police was controversial, partly because of the prior controversies, and partly because Fantino hadn't even officially applied for the job. It was widely alleged by community activists that Fantino had been selected by conservative members of Toronto City Council (including mayor Mel Lastman) before the process even began.

Fantino's term as Toronto police chief saw further controversy. Fantino responded to a Toronto Star series on racial profiling by denying the practice exists in Toronto — despite the Star's extensive statistical analysis of arrests which show that a disproportionate number of Black Canadians are stopped by the police — and lashing out at critics of the police, calling them "police haters". He has also been seen to blame the black community for police shootings of black youth, blaming "certain elements" in the black community for not reining in violence.

Fantino was also widely criticized for his handling of Operation True Blue, a fundraising campaign led by Toronto police association president Craig Bromell. The campaign offered donors windshield stickers for their cars, opening the force to allegations that officers could potentially offer illegal favours (eg. disregarding minor traffic infractions, etc.) to people whose cars bore the stickers.

He was generally seen as cool or even hostile to of civilian oversight of the police, putting him on a collision course with new Mayor David Miller and the police services board. He also opposed the proposal of civilian review of complaints against the police, insisting that the practice of having the Toronto police investigate complaints against fellow officers is sound. He has also been criticised for not living in the city of Toronto and thus setting a bad example for officers who increasingly live outside of the city, a situation which has led to accusations that police act as an occupying force and do not identify with or care about the neighbourhoods they service.

Corruption scandals

Fantino came under increasing scrutiny due to three corruption scandals which broke out during his tenure and his handling of those incidents.

In one case, drug squad officers are alleged to have beaten and robbed suspected drug dealers. In another, plainclothes officers are charged with accepting bribes to help bars dodge liquor inspections. In the third, a group of officers who advocated on behalf of a drug-addicted car thief face internal charges.

Two of these cases involve the sons of former police chief William McCormack, and came to light not as a result of investigations by Toronto police, but due to an RCMP investigation into gangster activity which inadvertently uncovered evidence of wrongdoing by Toronto police officers.

Fantino was accused of having tried to deal with these cases out of public view and attempting to shield them from investigation by outside police forces.

In March 2005, the CBC announced that they had obtained documents via the access to information act showing that between 1998 and 2005 Toronto had spent $30,633,303.63 settling lawsuits against police. This news outraged many critics and some suggested that it was Fantino's fault that so much money had to be spent of these legal matters.

Contract expiry

Fantino's contract as police chief expired on February 28, 2005. On June 24, 2004, the police services board announced that it would not be reappointing Fantino. Conservative politicians on Toronto City Council responded with a "Save Fantino" campaign, and the board was deadlocked on the issue of beginning the search for Fantino's replacement. (One longtime Fantino supporter, former chair Norm Gardner , could not participate in the board due to a conflict of interest ruling, but he refused to vacate his seat; the new Liberal provincial government would likely give the seat to a less conservative member more likely to oppose Fantino.)

On February 8, 2005, Fantino was appointed Ontario's commissioner of emergency management by Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. This move was criticized by the opposition parties in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, both for the lack of transparency in the hiring process and for the perception that the appointment was primarily motivated by the desire to avoid having Fantino run as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the 2007 provincial election against Finance Minister Greg Sorbara.

Former deputy police chief Mike Boyd took over as interim chief of police on March 1, 2005. No announcement of Fantino's permanent replacement has been made, but it is widely believed that Boyd's appointment as interim chief will give him an inside edge on the job.

External links

• Chief's Chilling Legacy, critical view from NOW Magazine
• Keep the Chief petition
• News article about Police lawsuit spending