New Thunder Bay Police Service Chief meets with local communities
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay Police Service Chief Darcy Fleury recently met with the community during two town halls on May 24 and 25 at the Oliver Road and West Thunder community centres.
“The audience really is focused on right now — the issue we have with the guns and the gangs as an enforcement piece and a safety piece for the community — we heard that in both events,” says Fleury, who was sworn in as police chief on May 15 after serving with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for 36 years, most recently as district commander – chief superintendent for the Central Alberta District based in Edmonton. “Also on how we could manage some of the ongoing other activities, the drug activity we are seeing independent of that, and how we could manage that, a little bit around the homelessness and addictions dependency that are out there right now and how we could work together to get that managed and put people in a better way of living.”
Fleury, a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, stressed during the town halls that a May 2 midday shooting by a group of people in a parking lot in Thunder Bay was not normal.
“We can’t accept that this is normal behaviour,” Fleury says. “So those are one of the things we’re going to keep an eye on and really work hard towards and I want input back on how that’s going.”
Fleury says he loved hearing from the Indigenous leaders during the two town halls, including Fort William’s Michele Solomon, who attended both town halls and was later elected as Chief during Fort William’s May 27 election.
“When we talk about working together, I want to hear their opinions, I want to hear their advice, I want to hear what ideas they have, I want to hear the concerns they have,” Fleury says. “I want everybody to understand that we can work and develop the programs that are going to suit everybody, and if they don’t give me that information, it’s going to be hard for me to adapt that.”
Fleury says they are planning to hold more town halls in the fall once people are back from the summer holidays.
“That will give us a few months to see where things are going,” Fleury says. “And then a little bit further into the late fall-early winter, we’ll do some more and have a really good feeling on how things are going.”
Fleury says he is enjoying himself in his new role.
“Everybody’s been fantastic, even the feedback tonight is exactly what we wanted to hear,” Fleury says. “People have concerns but they’re positive that we’re going to be moving things forward and seeing some changes. I feel really comfortable here in Thunder Bay — I’ve met a lot of great people all with the same focus on working together, making the changes we need to make, learning from the stuff that we had in the past, and really doing our best, so I’m in a really good spot.”
Solomon says it was important to have the town halls for people to express their concerns about issues in the community.
“It’s a really wise step by the new chief, Darcy Fleury,” Chief Solomon says. “I’m really here to listen to what he has to say and to listen to what the people in Thunder Bay have to say because at the end of the day Fort William First Nation needs to have an important relationship with the City of Thunder Bay and the services that are in the city.”