Resign! demands grand chief of police board appointee

Thursday, May 23rd, 2019 4:43pm
Suspended senator Lynn Beyak and Thunder Bay Police Services Board John Cyr. (Photo of Cyr by TBnewswatch)
“Policing is in crisis in Thunder Bay, and there is no place for a residential school apologist to service a community that is struggling to rebuild the relationship between its police service and the Indigenous population.” —Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler

Update May 24, 2019 2 p.m.: The Ministry of the Solicitor General in Ontario says it intends to remove John Cyr from the Thunder Bay Police Services Board. He had been sworn in Tuesday, and his appointment met with a call for his resignation or removal by Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler Thursday. See below.

Original story:

The Government of Ontario’s recent appointment to the Thunder Bay Police Services Board must resign, said Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler.

“It is unacceptable and insulting that a person who has expressed support for Senator (Lynn) Beyak’s racist actions would be appointed by the province to the board tasked with restoring the trust of this city’s troubled police service with the Indigenous community,” said Fiddler.

“Policing is in crisis in Thunder Bay, and there is no place for a residential school apologist to service a community that is struggling to rebuild the relationship between its police service and the Indigenous population. We demand that the province rescind this appointment or that Mr. (John) Cyr submit his immediate resignation.”

Cyr, a Thunder Bay, Ont. lawyer, was appointed to the board for a three-year term on Tuesday. In a 2017 letter to a local newspaper, he expressed support for the posting of suspended Senator Beyak’s racist letters regarding the Indian residential school system as being ‘balanced and thoughtful.’

Beyak was removed from the Conservative caucus last year. She was suspended from the Senate earlier this month after refusing to take down the racist letters from her website, and for refusing to apologize for posting them.

The Thunder Bay Police board was disbanded following a report in 2018 that documented its failure to recognize and address violence and systemic racism against the Indigenous peoples in Thunder Bay. That report followed a scathing report by the Ontario Independent Police Review Director documenting systemic racism in the Thunder Bay Police Service, and recommended new investigations into nine cases involving the deaths of Indigenous people.