MEET THE HANGING CHIEF

Julian Fantino On Drugs Dealers, The SIU And The Good Old Days

As much as he disagrees with the characterization, Julian Fantino is a
political animal. Sitting in his Newmarket office inside York Region's
police headquarters, wearing a white button-down shirt and plain blue and
red striped tie, the man who will become Toronto's chief of police on March
6 gives a dismissive shake of the head when he's asked if he's ever
considered running for political office.

"Never," he says.

But like a politician, Chief Fantino is a self-confessed media junkie and a
man who rarely turns down an opportunity to speak publically on issues that
are close to his heart. He has lectured around the world, appeared on TV
talk shows and most recently, addressed an Ontario Conservative policy
convention.

"My job is far more than enforcing the laws of the land," he offered during
an hour-long interview with the National Post this week.

"You have to be prepared to take the risk and champion and lobby and speak
on behalf of your community, which also means speaking on behalf of police
officers who are in the trenches, on the front lines trying to do their
job."

Chief Fantino's responses are thoughtful and erudite, even polished. He
delivers his opinions with gravitas.

He is also a firm believer that the "old days," as he calls them, were
better days.

"We've lost respect for property, we've lost respect for people, we're
desensitized to violence, we've become very self-centred and 'what's in it
for me.' We've lost that sense of morality about our society, we really
have.

"People used to leave their doors unlocked. People were respectful. Mrs.
Brown, who happened to be home, an elderly grandmother, whatever, if she saw
little Johnny misbehaving, she'd intervene, and she'd be respected and
feared by the kids misbehaving. At the end of the day, Mrs. Brown would call
the parents and she would be thanked.

"Today," he says, "if Mrs. Brown interfered she would be called all kinds of
names, told where to get off and at the end of the day the parents would
threaten her with a lawsuit."

At last weekend's Tory policy convention in Niagara, at which he was
introduced by Mike Harris, the Premier, to thunderous applause, Chief
Fantino compared Canada to a "strainer" and "Swiss cheese," suggesting that
criminals seek refuge here, taking advantage of what he sees as lax laws and
impotent courts.

"There's no truth in sentencing," is the chief's mantra, meaning that, as he
sees it, criminals are getting off lightly and prison terms are reduced too
frequently.

"We're not locking up the bad asses, and we're not keeping them locked up.
The prison system in this country is a joke."

Drugs are a root cause of crime, according to Chief Fantino, and yet are
something that he says the Canadian justice system essentially ignores.

"There are no meaningful deterrents in sentencing here.

"There are some countries that have very minimal problems with drugs.
Singapore is one of them. Just look at their legislation and see what they
do with drug dealers in Singapore."

Sentences for drug possession and trafficking in the tiny island nation
range from five years to life imprisonment, from caning with a rattan stick
to death by hanging.

Suspects are executed if found to be trafficking more than 15 grams of
heroin, 30 grams of cocaine or 500 grams of cannabis.

"It seems to work for them," Chief Fantino says.

When asked if he would support a similar system here, he responds, "I would.
"These people [drug dealers] are merchants of misery and death. Through
their actions and their greed, they're killing people right, left and
centre. They might not be pulling the trigger or stabbing them directly, but
they're helping their demise."

While he admits that the war on drugs is foundering, and even unwinable, he
maintains that legalization and government controls are "a cop-out". He
calls experiments in legalization or "tolerance," like those in Amsterdam,
"total disasters."

"Why don't we just legalize everything?" he asks facetiously. "Why don't we
take the speeding limits off -- we won't have a speeding problem. Just let
it all hang out, do your own thing. Isn't that how we got into this fix to
begin with?"

His view is the same with prostitution. He says he has never been in favour
of a red-light district in Toronto, an idea that has been debated in recent
years at City Hall.

"Prostitution is an exploitation of women. So-called sex workers will tell
you no, but I wouldn't want my daughter or any of my children engaging in
so-called sex work, because good, meaningful jobs are out there."

The current head of the York Regional force is the child of Northern Italian
immigrants, who brought him to Toronto when he was 11. He started as a
security guard at Yorkdale Mall, joined the Toronto force, and worked his
way up through the ranks from homicide investigator to running a division in
one of the city's toughest neighbourhoods.

From the start, he has been a controversial figure. Two events in particular
will follow wherever he goes.

The first occurred while he was the officer in charge of 31 Division in
northwest Toronto in 1989, home to the notorious Jane-Finch corridor. Acting
on a request from the North York Committee on Community Race Relations, he
released crime statistics based on race, setting off widespread outrage.

"They wanted to come up with some issues, data, information, background, to
help them configure a response. I was asked to bring those forward, and I
did.

"I checked and double-checked. I was quite aware of the sensitivity of the
information if it got out and was used inappropriately," he says, flipping
through the reports, his notes and the minutes of the community meeting, all
of which he has held on to. ("One keeps paperwork," he remarks, rifling
through a cabinet.)

"I'm as much a victim of this as anyone else, as is my family, big time.
We've suffered a lot.

"I got the business and that's regrettable because the people who
orchestrated this and organized this, they should have at the end of the day
stood up and said, 'Hey, there's been a miscommunication here.' They didn't,
but that's the nature of people."

So why did the chief let himself become the fall guy for the committee, of
which one of the leading members was Mel Lastman, then mayor of North York?

"It was just not going to be profitable for us to get into bantering who
said what to who for what reasons, and at the end of the day I thought it
would be better to rebuild bridges," he says now.

Four years later, while chief of police in London, Ont., Chief Fantino
launched Project Guardian, a child-porn crackdown that saw the laying of
more than 300 charges. In late 1994, 18 men pleaded guilty and received
sentences that ranged from 15 years to probation. Only two men were ever
charged with possessing child pornography.

Many in the gay community saw Project Guardian as a thinly veiled attempt to
persecute homosexuals, and the condemnation he received as a result probably
cost him his 1994 bid to replace then Toronto Chief Bill McCormack (David
Boothby, the so-called compromise candidate, got the nod.) Chief Fantino,
feeling sandbagged, retreated to London before being sworn in as York's
chief in 1998.

At a recent meeting with Toronto's gay community, Chief Fantino came face to
face with many of his detractors. There were hostile exchanges, jeers,
insults, all of which the chief took in stride. But when one man asked about
Project Guardian, Chief Fantino refused to discuss it, sparking a loud
chorus of boos.

He reveals now that in the audience, asking questions, was a man who had
been charged and convicted during Project Guardian.

"He has a civil litigation situation ongoing, as well as an appeal with
regards to his own findings of guilt," the chief explains.

"How would it have looked if I started defending myself, not that I have
anything to defend, by raising particularities of that man's convictions and
the allegations against him, and what kind of things he was convicted of.
That's what he deserved. I should have said those things publically, but I
couldn't."

At the meeting, Chief Fantino was also tight-lipped about what his plans are
for the Toronto force, if he has identified any areas he plans on changing,
or what tone he wants to set.

He was likewise reluctant to get into those details with the National Post,
saying he wants to wait until he is sitting in the chief's chair for that.

He does say that his immediate concern "is toning down the rhetoric" and
"trying to make peace between all the partners," meaning the rank and file,
the Police Services Board and the Toronto Police Association, which have
become increasingly at odds in the wake of the highly controversial and
ill-fated True Blue telemarketing campaign.

When asked how he would have handled the True Blue debacle, Chief Fantino
again demurs, but says: "I feel that Chief Boothby has had a regrettable
situation to deal with. He didn't need this, and he did an admirable job
trying to deal with it."

On police unions raising money for political activity, he says: "There's an
entitlement for all of us to be involved in the political process, that's
democracy. But I think we have to do that discreetly and in ways that do not
cause us to come into disrepute or bring our profession into disrepute."

While in Toronto, the chief will have to face Craig Bromell, the formidable
president of the Toronto Police Association, who has said he is not bound to
follow orders from the chief of police, and that he only answers to his
board. He publicly flouted Chief Boothby's order to put an end to Operation
True Blue.

"What he [Mr. Bromell] did, and positioning himself as he did, I have no say
or control over any of that, and I don't pass any judgment on it ...

"Maybe it isn't an issue of reeling him in," says Chief Fantino. "I think
it's more of an opportunity to become a partner in doing exactly what we're
supposed to do, deliver quality services to the public."

He and Mr. Bromell had a meeting shortly before he was named
chief-designate, a meeting Mr. Bromell characterized as "impressive" and
after which gave Mr. Fantino his endorsement (he had previously said he
would only support an internal candidate for the job.)

One common target both men have is the Special Investigations Unit, the
province's police watchdog, which probes all deaths and serious injuries
involving police.

"I find it totally offensive that there is this preconceived notion that a
police officer has committed a criminal offence in the execution of [his or
her] duty when a serious injury or death occurs. The reality is most of our
officers perform professionally, ethically, honourably and very bravely, and
to be subjected to a criminal investigation to me is unacceptable.

"I don't have a problem with civilian oversight," he adds. "I do have a
problem with this presumption of criminality that's now in place. I have a
great problem with that."

Chief Fantino also accuses the SIU of "shoddy investigative work" and some
"totally unacceptable performances," noting that, since its inception in
1990, the unit has charged 3% of the officers it has investigated and
convicted 1% of those.

"That's an awful lot of resources expended on something that isn't a reality
at all."

So what can Toronto expect of its new chief when he begins his tenure next
month? One last time, Chief Fantino demurs, then puts on his politician's
cap.

"I want to move us towards a society where we value life, where we have
respect for one another, where we are tolerant and where we respect
property."

"I don't intend to cause a revolution," he says. "If I could put it or
characterize it in any way, it will be an evolution."