Police board in Nova Scotia town suspends councillor for use of racial slur

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Amherst town council decided it didn’t have the authority to deal with allegations of misconduct and referred the matter to the town’s board of police commissioners, a civil body that has a different code of conduct than council.

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Calder said the board decided it needed to act now to discipline Baker because municipal elections will be held in less than two weeks on Oct. 15.

“A lot of people were apprehensive that we would just wait for the election to determine what would happen,” he said. “We as a board didn’t want to give the impression that we were waiting for somebody else to make a decision, that we had to make it ourselves.”

Calder said options before the board included suspension, reprimand, removal from the board, or a combination of those actions. He said the board found Baker breached the regulations in the Police Act in making “comments of a racial nature.”

Calder said he believes the board’s ruling sends the message that Baker’s conduct “was not acceptable.”

“It was in violation of the regulations under the Police Act that govern the behaviour of members of the board,” said Calder.

He said under the regulations board members must “refrain from engaging in professional or personal conduct that could discredit or compromise the integrity of the board of the police department.”

Baker did not respond to a request seeking comment.

The controversy generated by Baker’s conduct prompted a direct response from the Nova Scotia government in August.

Municipal Affairs Minister Zach Churchill said the province will consider a uniform code of conduct for all municipal councils as part of contemplated changes to the Municipal Government Act in 2017.

Churchill said while some councils do have codes of conduct, they currently aren’t mandated through the act or through provincial regulation.

— By Keith Doucette in Halifax

The Canadian Press