Rebel News Podcast - TAMARA UGOLINI (guest host for Ezra Levant) ｜ Weak leadership and retaliation： the deepening crisis within the Toronto Police Service

00:00:00.000 What role does weak leadership play in police corruption allegations sweeping Canada's

00:00:25.880 largest police service, leaving public safety and operational concerns awry?

00:00:30.860 Tonight, Tuesday, February 17th, and I'm Tamera Ugolini, guest hosting for Ezra on The Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:37.740 You're ready for freedom! 0.87

00:00:40.520 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:43.760 With trust in institutions, government, policing, and authority at an all-time low, we need

00:00:58.160 to look no further than what's happening within the Toronto Police Service, Canada's

00:01:02.720 largest police force to see that something is deeply amiss.

00:01:07.320 Let me begin by acknowledging that corruption is as old as power itself.

00:01:11.840 The allegations unfolding in Toronto are damning, though hardly surprising, especially when

00:01:17.740 viewed in the broader context of what is happening, both in public view and behind closed doors.

00:01:24.720 Yes, we see the chaos, the violence, and the crime playing out on the streets.

00:01:29.940 But out of sight, there are deeper concerns.

00:01:33.060 Weaponized, whistleblowing, weak leadership, a service that prioritizes platitudes over public

00:01:39.840 safety and internal disciplinary processes leveraged to preserve the status quo.

00:01:46.640 And when trust in institutions is already fragile, the consequences of failure inside organizations

00:01:53.040 like the Toronto Police Service are only amplified.

00:01:56.340 Because the erosion of trust doesn't begin on the street necessarily.

00:02:00.100 It begins in the upper echelon.

00:02:02.260 And I think that the case of Staff Sergeant Ernest, better known as Dave Haynes, who happens

00:02:07.720 to be Ontario Premier Doug Ford's son-in-law, exemplifies just that.

00:02:12.780 After a return to frontline policing following unpaid leave during the COVID-19 vaccine mandate,

00:02:18.240 Sergeant Haynes was subjected to a position transfer as what he refers to a form of punishment

00:02:24.620 for bringing concerns forward to his superiors.

00:02:28.240 During his abusive process motion hearing last Friday, February 13th, he testified for roughly

00:02:34.660 six hours, raising repeated operational and public safety concerns within the Toronto Police

00:02:40.340 Service, including training deficiencies, staffing shortages, and supervision failures at

00:02:46.100 22 Division.

00:02:47.440 It's important to note here that this division oversees the notorious Jane and Finch neighbourhood,

00:02:52.320 well known historically for its crime, poverty, high density, and low-income housing.

00:02:58.600 Officers are expected to respond to emergency calls, violent incidents, mental health apprehensions,

00:03:04.380 and community-based complaints in real time.

00:03:07.540 As an operational staff sergeant, Haynes testified that he was responsible for overseeing platoons

00:03:13.040 of officers and supervisors tasked with answering radio calls for service across a large geographic

00:03:19.860 area.

00:03:20.280 And sometimes this happened with only a handful of patrol cars available for hundreds of thousands

00:03:26.480 of residents.

00:03:28.080 Haynes noted how inherently challenging this division was, that it was strained upon his

00:03:32.620 arrival, and according to his testimony, these conditions created not only internal morale

00:03:37.980 challenges, but public-facing risks.

00:03:40.800 As response times lengthened and frontline officers operated under sustained pressure, with,

00:03:47.200 you guessed it, insufficient oversight at the supervisory level.

00:03:51.440 For bringing concerns forward, he was met not with corrective action, but with retaliatory

00:03:56.720 investigations, demotion, loss of pay, and disciplinary proceedings that he argues constitute

00:04:03.120 an abusive process designed to silence him as a whistleblower.

00:04:07.600 Now on medical leave with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or PSD, Haynes' defense lawyer,

00:04:13.560 Bathsheba Vandenberg, maintained throughout the motion that there is a clear and troubling pattern

00:04:18.920 of reprisal, where legitimate operational concerns are met with escalating investigations and

00:04:25.880 disciplinary measures, she argues, amount to an abusive process.

00:04:30.240 She told the tribunal that the issue is not the ultimate merits of each individual charge,

00:04:36.800 as some of those leveraged against Haynes have since been dropped, but whether the integrity

00:04:42.720 of the proceedings themselves has been compromised by what she characterized as structurally unfair

00:04:51.200 and retaliatory conduct.

00:04:53.500 Now let's keep in mind that all of this is also happening against the backdrop of an absolutely

00:04:59.040 staggering integrity probe by Ontario's policing inspectorate over murder plots, drug trafficking,

00:05:06.820 and leaking sensitive information.

00:05:09.060 Notably, Ontario's Inspector General of Policing is Ryan Teschner, who served as the Executive

00:05:14.300 Director and Chief of Staff for the Toronto Police Services Board for nearly five years,

00:05:19.380 from June 2018 to April 2023, calling into question his ability to be fully impartial in overseeing

00:05:27.180 an investigation into the very organization he once helped manage and advise.

00:05:32.880 There are concerns around conflicts of interest, institutional accountability, and whether structural

00:05:37.940 loyalties could influence the scrutiny applied to senior leadership and operational practices

00:05:43.680 within the service.

00:05:45.140 It is with all of this in mind that we must examine the internal state of the Toronto Police

00:05:50.640 service.

00:05:51.340 Let's not forget the recently released internal review, the 2025 What We Heard report, which

00:05:58.420 painted a damning picture of a service crippled by fear, nepotism, and dysfunction.

00:06:03.820 Officers describe chronic shortages, low morale, and leadership that is distrusted at every

00:06:09.540 single level.

00:06:11.660 Promotions and assignments are said to favor connections over competence, while harassment, bullying, and

00:06:17.160 discrimination remain persistent, leaving officers demoralized and the public at risk.

00:06:23.220 This is exactly the environment Sergeant Haynes testified about.

00:06:26.440 The pattern that he described mirrors the findings of the internal review, a culture in which officers

00:06:32.720 who raise legitimate operational concerns are met with bureaucracy, intimidation, or outright

00:06:39.260 retaliation.

00:06:40.940 Public safety suffers when internal transparency is replaced with self-protection, and frontline officers

00:06:46.280 are left to navigate unsafe conditions with limited support.

00:06:49.660 As the TPS struggles to address these failures, from unsafe staffing levels to poor leadership

00:06:56.300 accountability, incidents of real-world harm continue to emerge.

00:07:01.360 Response times stretch dangerously long, operational resources are mismanaged, and officers like

00:07:07.760 Haynes are put in impossible positions.

00:07:11.280 Where doing their jobs properly becomes a liability rather than a duty.

00:07:15.380 The question now is whether the Toronto Police Service can repair itself, or whether institutional

00:07:20.900 self-protection has become so entrenched that both internal trust and public confidence may

00:07:28.140 be permanently undermined.

00:07:30.340 Haynes' testimony combined with the internal report and ongoing integrity probe does little

00:07:35.460 to inspire confidence in the service's ability to address its deep-rooted problems.

00:07:41.040 Stay tuned because next we have an exclusive interview with Haynes' counsel, Bathsheba Vandenberg,

00:07:47.800 on all things Toronto Police Service disciplinary proceedings, whistleblower reprisals, and the weaponization

00:07:54.640 of tribunals to silence officers raising safety concerns.

00:07:59.740 Stay tuned.

00:08:00.360 For Rebel News, I'm Tamara Ugolini, here in the small hamlet of Millbrook, Ontario, in the backdrop

00:08:14.000 of the Millbrook Public Library.

00:08:15.960 I'm joined with Bathsheba Vandenberg.

00:08:19.180 As an administrative and regulatory lawyer, Vandenberg has come to represent Toronto Police

00:08:23.340 Staff Sergeant Ernest, or Dave Haynes, who happens to be the son-in-law of Ontario Premier

00:08:28.440 Doug Ford throughout a series of disciplinary tribunal proceedings brought by the Toronto Police Service.

00:08:35.520 Haynes was initially served with five cases comprising of 15 charges, ranging from internal

00:08:41.360 emails to social media activity, including posts made after he says he was forcibly transferred

00:08:48.020 as a form of de facto punishment for raising operational, officer safety, and community safety

00:08:54.840 concerns. Since Vandenberg took over his defense last year, one full case has already been dismissed

00:09:00.960 for lack of jurisdiction after it was found to have been served outside of the statutory

00:09:04.720 time limit, but only after a contested motion and two-day hearing.

00:09:11.020 Now, all of this is unfolding against a broader backdrop of corruption allegations within the

00:09:16.340 Toronto Police Service, internal accountability concerns, and claims that disciplinary mechanisms

00:09:21.040 like exactly what's happening to Haynes within the service are being weaponized, particularly

00:09:27.260 against members who speak out. Following the filing of an abuse of process motion, prosecutors

00:09:34.020 move to withdraw three additional charges, citing a desire to streamline the proceedings.

00:09:40.900 What does this mean, and where do these proceedings go from here?

00:09:44.840 And so in the case of Staff Sergeant Haynes, can you share with us kind of the crux of the

00:09:51.240 allegations against him, and where the proceedings currently are?

00:09:57.420 Right, so Staff Sergeant Haynes was served with a total of five cases comprised of 15 charges initially.

00:10:07.420 And some of those charges have to do with Instagram posts, and others have to do with internal emails

00:10:17.860 that he sent. A couple of the charges deal with when he forwarded some emails to his wife,

00:10:27.760 Krista Ford. Now, since the start of the case, where I started representing Staff Sergeant Haynes last

00:10:36.960 year in February, we've had one of the cases, case 50-2024, withdrawn for lack of jurisdiction.

00:10:47.840 It was known that that notice of hearing hadn't been served within the six months statutory time limit,

00:10:56.680 and yet we had to bring a motion, and we had a two-day hearing back in November of 2025,

00:11:01.640 which resulted in a decision in January of this year that the tribunal didn't have any jurisdiction

00:11:08.120 to hear that case. And that case was a chartered discredible conduct for having allegedly committed

00:11:18.880 discredible conduct by forwarding emails to his wife, Krista Ford. And after that,

00:11:26.560 we then submitted an abusive process motion, and we had actually attempted to submit an abusive

00:11:35.900 process motion along with our motion to withdraw that particular charge. And the prosecution

00:11:43.420 indicated that they hadn't been given sufficient notice of that intention. And so we set up some

00:11:51.160 fresh dates to hear the abusive process motion, which is what we're going through at the moment. And in

00:11:59.120 response, and when I say in response, it was because after I filed the factum for the abusive process

00:12:05.380 motion along with the supporting affidavit, the prosecution wrote a letter to us stating that

00:12:13.740 they were going to withdraw a further three charges. So one case, and the one case of case 31-2024,

00:12:22.800 which had to do with an email that Staff Sergeant Haynes sent internally to 22 and 31 Div on December

00:12:30.420 the 29th of 2023, and then two other charges, which has to do with a February 14, 2024 Instagram post

00:12:38.400 that he posted just a couple days after he was forced transferred out of 2020, 22 Div rather. And so here

00:12:50.740 we are. The reason that the prosecution gave for withdrawing those three charges is to streamline

00:12:58.140 the process. Now, I've never heard of such a reason before for withdrawing charges. We recently saw in the

00:13:07.400 news that a certain police officer by the name of Condo had his charges withdrawn against him. The conduct

00:13:18.380 that he was alleged to have committed was very, very different than the conduct that Staff Sergeant

00:13:29.380 Haynes is being alleged of having committed amounting to misconduct here. And anyways, in that case,

00:13:35.940 the prosecution withdrew the charges for the reasons that the lack of jurisdiction that they were out of

00:13:41.680 time. And so that is a good reason and the right reason to withdraw charges. We would have hoped that

00:13:49.360 we wouldn't have had to have launched a motion with regards to case 50-2024, which also had an issue with

00:13:57.160 jurisdiction for lack of meeting the timeline to serve the notice of hearing.

00:14:01.560 So streamlining is an interesting choice of words because, well, Staff Sergeant Haynes has been

00:14:07.780 facing these charges now for two years. And only after we brought an abuse of process motion was the

00:14:15.500 case streamlined and then three further charges withdrawn. And I submitted in my oral submissions,

00:14:22.660 both on Thursday and Friday, I reiterated that our position is that we believe that the withdrawal of the

00:14:34.960 charges is an attempt to try to prevent eliciting evidence or giving any weight to evidence in our

00:14:44.800 abuse of process motion that has to do with the very reasons why Staff Sergeant Haynes has been charged

00:14:51.760 with all of these allegations, now facing 11 allegations, because we specifically stated that

00:15:00.140 the reprisal conduct, which constituted of Staff Sergeant Haynes being forced transferred out of

00:15:09.980 2022 div and of these charges themselves, originates as a result of Staff Sergeant Haynes raising

00:15:23.200 concerns of operational safety issues, public safety issues, police officer welfare. He's been raising

00:15:29.160 those concerns throughout 2023 since he joined 22 div. And it culminated in an email that he sent

00:15:36.760 right before the New Year's holiday to try to make his officers feel heard, but they weren't alone.

00:15:46.440 And that email he sent out on December 29th of 2023. And then he was charged with misconduct for

00:15:52.380 sending an email to his police officers, raising the issues of resource limitations and public safety

00:16:00.540 issues and police officers' safety. And that was in case 31, 2024. And that was a case that the

00:16:07.920 prosecution withdrew. And yet that case is really front and center of why Staff Sergeant Haynes was

00:16:16.220 subsequently charged. Because literally within the first week of January, when everyone got back from

00:16:24.220 their Happy New Year holidays, all of these allegations were looked in, it's almost like

00:16:32.060 looking for dirt, you know, it's like they looked for reasons to charge Staff Sergeant Haynes. And they

00:16:41.540 drafted a bunch of notices of investigation. And then two and a half weeks later, served them onto

00:16:50.360 Staff Sergeant Haynes. Wow. And you've raised some of the issues that he was trying to bring forward and

00:16:59.080 make his chain of command, so to speak, aware of and highlight. And going back to that what we heard

00:17:07.520 report, I mean, it said in there that there was a lack of accountability, that officers feared reprisal when

00:17:16.680 they attempted to bring issues forward to their superiors to have them properly addressed. It just

00:17:23.640 it just is not happening. And there's an internal culture of toxicity within the force. Can you

00:17:29.620 highlight maybe one instance in particular, or some things, some of these systemic deficiencies that

00:17:36.300 Sergeant Haynes was trying to raise, operational or otherwise?

00:17:40.880 Yeah, well, first, I want to want to say that that what we heard report, I invite everyone to have a

00:17:46.640 look at that. It's very, very important, very telling about what's going on in the Toronto Police

00:17:51.220 Service. And in fact, although this report is about the Toronto Police Service, it's going on in many

00:17:57.580 police services across the country. And in particular, since the mandates and policies of 2020 and COVID-19,

00:18:08.620 that that that had a huge impact on on police resources, and public safety.

00:18:16.960 And so with regards to the what's we what we heard reports, that was an Haines included that in his

00:18:24.360 affidavit. I mean, because as he testified, yesterday, he stated, that report validated exactly what he was

00:18:33.500 going through. And I had invited Staff Sergeant Haynes to read his December 29, 2023 email into the

00:18:40.380 record. And that was denied. And I understand why, because it's already filed in the materials as part

00:18:48.640 of the record. But I think it's important to share the first paragraph that Staff Sergeant Haynes

00:18:57.980 wrote, and this is an internal email. So this, this wasn't a public facing email, it is now a matter

00:19:03.560 of the public record of this disciplinary proceeding. So this is December 29, 2023. And Staff Sergeant

00:19:11.180 Haynes is writing to his colleagues in 22DIV. And you got to remember, he's, he's, he's responsible for

00:19:19.380 for these police officers here. And he's also writing to 31DIV, because he used to serve in 31DIV. And

00:19:25.620 he's, as we heard him testify yesterday, he's, he's a very caring leader. And he wants his

00:19:36.160 subordinates and his colleagues to know that they're heard. Because as we heard in the what we heard

00:19:41.840 report, is, is that police officers don't feel heard. They, they're, they're raising grievances,

00:19:46.760 serious grievances. And the grievances are not being dealt with. And in some cases,

00:19:51.820 when police officers raise grievances, they face immediate reprisals, like automatic transfers

00:19:58.160 out or, or, or at time, just very bullying, harassing, intimidating behavior. And we saw some

00:20:05.640 of that intimidating behavior yesterday as well. And Thursday, while Staff Sergeant Haynes was

00:20:10.000 trying to run his abusive process motion. So the email starts off with valued members.

00:20:19.000 And Staff Sergeant Haynes then goes on to write, first of all, I hope this email finds you all well,

00:20:24.980 and getting ready to say goodbye to 2023 and welcome 2024. I was having some conversations with

00:20:32.180 some members around the station. And the general outlook is that people are excited to put this year

00:20:37.280 behind them and are looking forward to some good things in the new year. The last year, the last

00:20:43.100 few years, in fact, have been extremely challenging for a lot of people, but specifically for our

00:20:49.260 frontline first responding members with extremely limited resources to begin with, and the constant

00:20:56.400 high demand for our services. Sometimes it can seem there is no end in sight. I'm sure if we sent

00:21:02.780 out a survey asking our officers why they signed up for this job, a popular answer would be to put

00:21:08.900 bad guys in jail. That would be my answer. Instead, what we have seen happen over the course of the last

00:21:15.600 few years is a move towards more of our resources being funneled into mental health emergencies,

00:21:21.820 social issues, and persons in crisis, which by cause and effects, limits the amount of officers and

00:21:28.500 resources we can use to front-end load our criminal investigations and perform proactive policing.

00:21:35.560 That's the very first paragraph.

00:21:38.240 And I think that highlights, really, the systemic issues faced by police, not just, as you mentioned,

00:21:44.740 the Toronto Police Service, but other police services across Ontario and arguably also across Canada,

00:21:50.980 that their resources are not being properly or adequately allocated to the crime, which has

00:21:57.920 I would say been a direct correlation to the public disorder and the community safety concerns we see

00:22:07.000 unfolding on our streets in real time. Now, this abuse of process motion that you argued,

00:22:13.860 I would summarize it to say that it was that Staff Sergeant Haynes' disciplinary proceedings reflects

00:22:21.860 structurally unfair and retaliatory process against him rather than just being these

00:22:27.720 isolated incidents. But in light of the allegations of sweeping corruption within Toronto Police Service

00:22:34.180 and leadership failures that have been highlighted kind of throughout those reports, would you say

00:22:40.260 that this case suggests that there is a, that Staff Sergeant Haynes' proceedings are symptomatic

00:22:48.320 of a deeper cultural problem within the service?

00:22:52.720 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because what we see are two things. And it's a pattern. And it's a pattern

00:23:02.800 that, quite frankly, is not conducive to public safety. And it's not conducive to our principles of

00:23:13.640 transparency and accountability. So the twofold pattern that I see is one, with regards to the

00:23:21.120 corruption allegations going on now in the Toronto Police Service, is that when I see that some police

00:23:28.140 officers have been charged, what I look at is rank. And when I look at who is being charged and who is not

00:23:35.480 being charged, I take issue with the police service falling back on the chain of command, as if it's this

00:23:44.580 very black and white, strictly adhered to process of subordinate versus supervisor in the police force when

00:23:55.380 it comes to pressing disciplinary charges. But when it comes to accountability, that chain of command

00:24:02.260 ceases to exist. And I say that because when I think of chain of command, I think about the military.

00:24:08.980 And I think about my time doing international humanitarian law, which is laws of war and

00:24:14.740 international criminal law. I spent four years at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former

00:24:18.920 Yugoslavia, where people in the military are held to account for war crimes committed by their

00:24:27.080 subordinates. So when I see charges or issues of corruption in the police force, I want to see the

00:24:35.060 executives being charged. And the reason why is because if we properly apply the structure of

00:24:43.720 command responsibility, then we need to see those in the upper chain of the chain of command

00:24:52.260 held to account for their subordinates actions, not just the subordinates. And the reason for that is

00:24:58.040 because of the responsibility to supervise, to train, to provide resources. And that goes to my second

00:25:08.600 fold pattern that I've identified is that disciplinary proceedings are being used in some instances, such as

00:25:18.900 as staff sergeant Haynes and also with detective Helen Bruce, to silence police officers that have stood up to

00:25:29.460 say that we have resource issues, that we have public safety issues alive in our police force, and we need to do

00:25:38.080 something about it. And instead of the police force doing something about it, taking accountability, taking

00:25:46.340 responsibility, right? So the first thing is to recognize that they have a responsibility. And then the second

00:25:54.360 thing is, is to take accountability and to act on the issues that are being, that are being reported

00:26:03.020 upwardly. But instead of taking that approach, the chain of command or those higher up in the executive

00:26:11.600 decide to issue internal chief of police complaint, and they take the badges away and off of these

00:26:20.440 police officers, they transfer the police officer out of their positions, they demote the police officers,

00:26:26.340 they suspend the police officers, and now you can suspend police officers without pay. They punish police

00:26:33.300 officers for raising issues of resources. And that's to stop them from having to do anything about it. But that

00:26:48.940 impacts our safety. The very role of a police force is to preserve life, to protect us.

00:26:57.080 And repeatedly throughout, you know, watching these proceedings, and I appreciate that you brought up

00:27:03.780 the story of Detective Helen Groves from the Ottawa Police Service, and what she's been faced with in

00:27:09.760 terms of these weaponized disciplinary proceedings. And repeatedly, a pattern that also become, has become

00:27:17.620 clear to me is that the upper echelon really is, is untouchable. And that's the message is that,

00:27:23.400 you know, that we will, we will, and we can throw those subordinates under the bus for the lack of

00:27:32.360 oversight, for lack of accountability kind of is definitely a repeated theme, but also the, the lack

00:27:41.920 of inspection, right? There's inspectors are in place to inspect and ensure that the force and these

00:27:50.500 services function as they're meant to. And given all of this context and the what we heard report and

00:27:57.280 these, this corruption scandal unfolding within TPS, how can the service justify moving forward with this

00:28:05.960 prolonged, really reputation destroying, disciplinary proceeding against Haynes, who did all of those

00:28:14.060 things that we keep hearing are happening and proliferating within the service?

00:28:20.840 We've argued that it's not in the public interest to continue these proceedings, because to continue

00:28:27.000 these proceedings, which rests squarely on the fact that they are reprisals for having conducted

00:28:34.080 whistleblowing, is not in the public interest. It is not in the public interest for the police

00:28:40.080 service to be sending a message to the public that they punish their own for speaking out about resource

00:28:46.960 issues. It is in the public interest that we are kept safe. It is in the public interest that our police

00:28:54.640 forces have enough resources. It is in the public interest that our police officers are trained. And I like

00:29:02.360 how you reminded us of why a police officer would be, would have the rank of an inspector to inspect,

00:29:11.240 to make sure that the standards are being upheld, the standards of policing. And police disciplinary

00:29:16.740 proceedings are in play to ensure that police officers are in line with the expected standards.

00:29:25.360 And so when the police disciplinary proceedings are being used as a reprisal mechanism, that undermines

00:29:33.440 a very reason why we have standards in the first place. It makes standards arbitrary. And that is

00:29:40.820 dangerous. We cannot live in a world where our rules, especially in the police world, become arbitrary.

00:29:47.100 Police officers are the boots on the ground that ensure that we have rule of law in this country.

00:29:53.480 In your view, what would be satisfactory on part of the tribunal to carry out their responsibility

00:30:01.520 also to scrutinize whether this internal disciplinary proceeding and these charges are actually being

00:30:09.040 weaponized against whistleblowers? My expectation of every tribunal in Canada, not just the police

00:30:17.120 disciplinary tribunal, but any administrative tribunal, is that they apply the rules of procedural

00:30:24.700 fairness, that they apply principles of natural justice.

00:30:33.560 And what I have experienced at times, and I'm not saying in this particular process per se,

00:30:40.480 I have experienced in administrative hearings and in police disciplinary hearings, the principles of

00:30:48.780 fairness not being fully respected. And a fair hearing, really, I've been paying a lot of attention to

00:31:01.420 the words that I use and the meaning of words, because words create reality in my view. And I think

00:31:07.220 sometimes we get lost in abstract ideas without rooting them in the practical reality. So a fair

00:31:21.220 hearing isn't just a concept. It's not just terminology. A fair hearing means that an officer is heard,

00:31:29.660 that the person accused is heard. And it takes time at times for a person to tell their story. And sometimes I

00:31:42.420 feel that proceedings are rushed. And I appreciate that we want to be expeditious with resources. But I feel

00:31:51.660 that we're living in a world right now where we just don't have time for anyone anymore. And that kind of

00:31:58.840 cultural approach due to the pressures of life and quite frankly, because of the reality of lack of resources, we're

00:32:06.980 dealing with these time crunches that are impacting the rights of accused to having a fair hearing to being heard. And

00:32:17.520 again, principles of fairness, and procedural fairness, because there's fairness and there's procedural fairness.

00:32:26.040 Procedural fairness is actually, it's a legal thing. There's procedural safeguards under Section 7 of our

00:32:34.040 charter. Those start to unravel when we rush proceedings.

00:32:42.260 As someone who has come to represent at least a few, a handful of police officers and other rank and file

00:32:55.540 within various services across, as far as I know, Ontario at least, can you speak on the broader

00:33:04.280 culture happening in policing? And I suppose also kind of just in closing and to wrap it up, perhaps a message

00:33:10.360 you have for the public or the upper echelon to get things back to what policing it was and should be about,

00:33:20.520 which, as you mentioned, is protecting life, public safety, community safety, and putting the bad guys in jail.

00:33:29.480 I think it's important for Canadians to ask for their police services to get back to basics.

00:33:39.540 And when we think about what that might look like with the police service is remembering our history.

00:33:45.580 Where do police services come from? And originally their structures were paramilitary.

00:33:51.180 And that's why they have a chain of command structure. But that current chain of command structure

00:33:56.980 is not working the way it is meant to work. We need more commanders or any commanders. We need some

00:34:07.320 commanders being held to account to set the example across the country that the executives are not above

00:34:16.320 the law. Enough with hanging the subordinates publicly. Enough of that. Yes, some police officers screw up.

00:34:27.280 Yes, there are some bad police officers out there. But what I've seen are wonderful police officers,

00:34:34.560 excellent police officers. And some of those excellent police officers, the ones that we need on our front

00:34:41.060 line to protect us, are being punished by the executives because they stood up to say that there are problems

00:34:50.720 in the police force. They stood up to say, we need your help. And instead of getting help, they were silenced,

00:35:00.700 publicly humiliated, and punished.

00:35:03.280 This is not good for the police world. And what is not good for the police world is not good for the

00:35:13.340 public. Let's go back to basics. Let's start conversations with each other to talk about

00:35:21.940 what we want to see in our police force.

00:35:26.020 Powerful. Well, thank you for your time and for your defense in these cases. As the Groose one moves 0.93

00:35:35.620 forward, as Haynes moves forward, we'll definitely stay in touch and do updates as it's fitting. Thanks

00:35:43.060 again. Thank you so much, Tamara. For Rebel News in Millbrook, Ontario, I'm Tamara Ugolini.

00:35:56.020 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - February 18, 2026

TAMARA UGOLINI (guest host for Ezra Levant) ｜ Weak leadership and retaliation： the deepening crisis within the Toronto Police Service

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