WIIKWEMKOONG—Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service (WTPS) hosted a successful community safety fair at the arena last week, and with it the opportunity for WTPS’s new Chief of Police, Ron Gignac, to mix and mingle with the public.
The Expositor caught up with Chief of Police Gignac while scores of students from all three Wiikwemkoong schools toured the booths set up in the upstairs hall and in the arena parking lot.
Chief of Police Gignac was headhunted out of retirement from his life on the farm just outside of Belleville. The opportunity to work with a force like WTPS was just too good an opportunity to pass up.
The chief of police explained that his career is policing, but he began with an 11-year stint in the Canadian Armed Forces. “I spent most of my time in Petawawa with special services,” he shared, noting that he was deployed four times over his service: twice to Cyprus with the United Nations peacekeeping mission, to the Gulf War in 1991 and Iraq in 1993.
His daughters, too have, followed in their father’s footsteps. They are both officers in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) who are married to fellow servicepeople. Police Chief Gignac and his wife have five grandchildren.
Following his time in the armed forces, Police Chief Gignac joined the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in 1995 and spent 13 years in different parts of the province. “I’ve been everything from front-line constable, platoon sergeant, emergency response team member and finished off as detachment commander in the upper Ottawa Valley,” he shared.
Following his time with the OPP, Police Chief Gignac was the chief of police for the Deep River Police, operations manager for the Chalk River nuclear plant’s nuclear response forces, chief of police for Belleville Police and finally a hobby farmer.
“I did a bit of consulting work (in security) as well,” he said.
And then WTPS came calling.
“The theme I wanted to get across here,” he said, surveying the booths and students filling the arena hall, “is that we can’t do any of this alone. We partner—it’s what we need to do in policing to survive. Can we do this alone? Absolutely not.”
Police Chief Gignac pointed to United Chiefs and Councils of Manitoulin Chief of Police James Killeen, standing across the room, to OPP Inspector Rob Walsh, to the Royal Canadian Mountain Police booth. “If we have a large incident, we call upon our partners. We can’t do this job alone,” he reiterated. “We have our separate jurisdictions, but policing transcends borders. When it comes to partnerships—we’re solid. That’s how we’re able to provide such horsepower when we need it.”
“This fair is a really good example of pulling together,” Police Chief Gignac continued.
The police chief noted that there are several things he would like to see changed at WTPS, beginning with staffing. “There are not enough adequacies to stand alone as a force. We need to build up our staffing, build in redundancies, create specialty units like emergency response, a crime unit, detectives to have enhanced responses for drugs, crime analysis and liaison officers to work together to form a steady stream of communication between the forces.”
Police Chief Gignac invited provincial and federal funders to the safety fair to see first-hand what Island policing is all about. He’s also working on a new WTPS staffing and deployment model that will increase capacity for human resources.
Currently, WTPS has a staff of 34. He’s hoping to see that number jump to 47, including civilian roles.
A WTPS recruitment team has been created too which aims to contact all the colleges and universities in the province that offer law and justice or police foundations-like programs with an eye to pitching WTPS and Manitoulin and all that it has to offer. He believes that sharing the beauty and offerings of Manitoulin and Wiikwemkoong has been missed in recruitment materials to date. WTPS does have a budget for transitional housing for recruits, but the police chief is also hoping to expand on that.
The Expositor noted the police chief’s lengthy wish list. “Yes,” Police Chief Gignac agrees. “But it’s all attainable; just watch us.”
