In the summer of 2020, the infamous Thunder Bay Police Service looked like it was recovering from the most sensational and embattled period in its history. Ontario had finally recalled the administrator it sent to govern the police two years earlier, after twin watchdog reports made Canada’s first-ever findings of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in a police service and its board.

The new board had named former Fort William First Nation Chief Georjann Morriseau as chair, to hold police chief Sylvie Hauth accountable and implement the recommendations contained in those reports.

But, within two months, the service Morriseau was appointed to lead was investigating her, a probe that became criminal and resulted in the arrests of the police chief and the service’s lawyer.

On May 5, now retired chief Hauth will face obstruction of justice and breach of trust charges. The Crown alleges she lied to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission about the investigation into Morriseau that deputy chief Ryan Hughes conducted and she allegedly oversaw.

A court found police lawyer Holly Walbourne not guilty of identical charges on April 24. 

The Walbourne trial heard how Thunder Bay police conducted layered investigations, which seemed to trip over each other through a combination of miscommunication and legal misunderstandings, culminating with a police service tasked with recovering from anti-Indigenous systemic racism processing a surveillance order on the cell phone of its governing board’s Anishinaabe chair.

“No one at the upper echelon of this police service agrees on what is a criminal investigation,” Walbourne’s defence attorney Frank Addario said in court. “It could be that everyone is telling the truth but deputy chief Hughes, chief Hauth, and Holly Walbourne are speaking past each other.”

Walbourne’s acquittal rested on when she was made aware of that investigation and what she told OCPC, two years later. While the evidence in Hauth’s trial will be different, the Walbourne trial revealed the chain of events that led to one of the biggest scandals in modern Canadian policing.

The Webster investigation

Board chair Morriseau was shopping at HomeSense in August, 2020 when a man identifying himself as an officer approached her with a rumour.

Since May, police had been investigating who might be leaking details of police business to local far-right bloggers, Pino Demassi and Brian Webster. The rumour was that Webster had texted a recently-reassigned cell phone that previously belonged to then-constable Michael Dimini, identifying Dimini as his source.

Editors’ note: On February 20, Dimini was found guilty of breach of trust and obstruction of justice, for what Justice Michael Block called “militantly illegal police conduct.” You can read our report on that case here. 

The text read, “Hey Mike, I see they are thanking members of the Thunder Bay Police in their bust announcement. Any anonymous info about what hardworking TBPS officers did?”

It would be difficult for police leadership to clear the constable once the rumour got out. The court heard Dimini volunteered to cultivate Webster as a confidential informant. Walbourne claims to have been the only witness to Dimini telling Hughes, “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can get a relationship with him.”

Despite Dimini’s allegedly independent involvement, no records of that assignment or conversation exist. Thunder Bay police never publicly reported any conclusion to the Webster investigation and will not confirm whether it remains an open case.

The HomeSense investigation

Morriseau called Hughes to report the rumour she’d heard at HomeSense. Hughes was more interested in which officer had shared classified information with the board chair about an active investigation. 

Morriseau submitted to two interviews, consistently claiming she couldn’t identify the officer who had alleged the Dimini connection to Webster. She said she couldn’t recognize him because COVID-19 protocols at the time mandated that masks be worn indoors. When police requested Morriseau to identify the officer from a photo lineup, she refused.

That’s when she suspected police leadership turned the investigation on her.

The officer assigned to determine whether non-criminal, Police Services Act charges should be laid in the HomeSense investigation closed the file on September 8. Walbourne said she didn’t know the case had been closed when she met with Morriseau at the chair’s home on September 23.

Morriseau’s relationships with Hauth, Hughes, and Walbourne had soured over the summer’s collective bargaining negotiations. She knew the police suspected her of lying to protect the officer’s identity.

“I was getting rather scared,” Morriseau told the court. “I was getting frustrated because here I am trying to fulfill my obligations as a board member and feeling like they’re trying to hit us every which way I turned. I felt like the trust was gone. I didn’t think I had the trust of anyone in that situation that I could ask reasonable questions and get truthful responses.”

Morriseau wrote to Hughes in early October, concerned she was becoming the target of an investigation. The deputy chief took medical leave shortly thereafter but continued to work the case from home.

“Something is wrong here,” Morriseau wrote to Hauth. The police chief didn’t respond.

Five months later, Ontario Provincial Police officers knocked on Morriseau’s door to conduct an interview about the HomeSense incident. No one confirmed her fears that she was under criminal investigation until October 2021 — more than a year after the incident occurred — when the police board package included an item indicating the OPP had cleared her in a criminal breach of trust case.

‘The plot thickens’

Police weren’t targeting Morriseau when the board chair gave them two interviews on the HomeSense incident back in August 2020. Her first interview was for the Webster investigation, the second, pursuant to a PSA professional misconduct investigation into the officer who had told her about the cell phone rumour. Police repeatedly posited that Morriseau’s unidentified source was detective sergeant Jason Rybak.

On November 10, Rybak complained to Hughes that his name kept surfacing in the HomeSense investigation. Hughes suspected only Morriseau could have told him that. He called Walbourne, informing the police lawyer that he might be angling toward an obstruction investigation into Morriseau. He didn’t inform the police chief he had spoken to the lawyer. He produced no notes of that conversation for 10 days, nor did he document his theory of Morriseau’s criminality.

On November 19, Walbourne emailed Hauth and Hughes to report that Morriseau had been avoiding calls on the HomeSense investigation.

“We have an obligation to inform the board what is occurring regarding a wilful obstruction of our investigation,” Walbourne wrote, allegedly referencing the PSA investigation into Rybak.

“It is not right that Morriseau is not helping us,” Hughes wrote in return, believing the police lawyer meant the criminal charge, not the code of conduct regulation.

Walbourne also referred to inspector Gord Snyder as the lead in that email. Snyder worked in the professional standards branch, not in criminal intelligence. In that case, Morriseau was a witness, not the target.

Senior command had evidently lost any shared definition of the HomeSense investigation.

On the same day, Rybak admitted to Hughes that it was Morriseau who had told him he was a suspect. Hughes believed that was proof Morriseau was criminally interfering. The deputy chief opened a file on Morriseau and assigned three criminal investigators, including detective sergeant Daniel Irwin.

Hughes emailed Hauth on November 23, informing her of the investigation into Morriseau with an eyes-only file, limited to only the chief and deputy.

“10-4. Thanks for the update. The plot thickens…,” Hauth responded six minutes later.

 The Morriseau investigation

Deputy chief Hughes ordered Irwin to interview Rybak on November 26. Irwin understood Rybak was a witness in the case targeting Morriseau, which was likely obstruction and breach of trust. Hughes told Rybak he was not a suspect, but Irwin told Rybak he wasn’t allowed union representation in the interview because the case was criminal.

“You will see Rybak squirming in Irwin’s report,” Hughes wrote to chief Hauth afterwards. “Rybak is quite the piece of work, trying to dance around Irwin’s questions.”

Hughes and Irwin ordered another criminal investigator to request a production order on Morriseau’s phone, which would detail ingoing and outgoing phone numbers and the length of each call, back to August. 

When Hughes informed Hauth over email, the police chief responded with one word: “Excellent.”

Hughes would testify he didn’t know that production orders can only be granted in criminal investigations. He also testified he didn’t know it was a conflict of interest for a police service to investigate its own board chair.

Hughes’s team submitted the phone surveillance order to a local justice of the peace on December 1. It was granted only 36 minutes later.

Conflict of interest

The day before Hughes’s team filed the phone production order, he met with Hauth and Walbourne to bring the lawyer into the loop. Hauth described it over email as, “Deputy on his current investigation regarding chair.”

Hughes and Walbourne have different memories of that meeting. Hughes recalls briefing them on the Morriseau investigation, including the Rybak interview and the pending production order on Morriseau’s phone, which he believed would expose Rybak as the HomeSense leak.

Walbourne claimed that was the first time anyone notified her that the investigation had shifted to target the board chair. She doesn’t recall Hughes mentioning a criminal case. She also doesn’t recall mention of a phone order, which would be a point-of-no-return requiring a criminal investigation. Walbourne immediately sought independent legal advice. Hughes doesn’t recall that topic arising, or being told to pause for the police to ensure legal clarity.

Walbourne claimed Hughes only made her aware of the Morriseau production order during a phone conversation on December 9, a phone call for which Hughes has no notes, nor recollection.

According to Walbourne’s phone records, she and Hughes spoke for 11 minutes on December 1, only minutes after the production order was issued. They spoke again on two separate calls on December 4, for 17 minutes and nine minutes, respectively. Then they spoke for 22 minutes on December 10, for seven minutes on December 15, and for nine minutes on December 16. Hughes took no notes of those conversations, and he testified he doesn’t recall what was discussed.

Meanwhile, on December 1 and again on December 9, someone with the username “hwalbourne” accessed five and four occurrence reports, respectively. The files were all related to the Morriseau investigation.

On the afternoon of December 9, Toronto lawyer David Humphrey advised Walbourne as independent legal counsel that a police service investigating its board members would be a conflict of interest because public confidence in the outcome relies on the perception of independence. The pair decided to request that the OPP investigate. They also decided not to disclose the Morriseau investigation to the board, so as to avoid telling only some members about a criminal investigation into one of their own.

In quotation marks, Humphrey’s notes read, “What were you thinking?” He cannot recall to whom he intended that question be addressed.

Hauth immediately retrieved a copy of the phone order from Irwin after that meeting. 

“The conversation was short,” Irwin remembered.

Hauth and Walbourne informed Hughes that they were asking the OPP to take over the Morriseau investigation on December 14, the day Hughes officially returned to work from his two-month medical leave. No one told Hughes to stop investigating, and he didn’t tell Irwin to stop either.

That’s why, even though Irwin knew Hauth asked the OPP to take over the case, he opened, analysed, and filed his analysis of Morriseau’s phone records when the production order came in on December 28.

“In my mind, I wanted to finish the one part I had started, to give them the fulsome package of the entire investigation,” Irwin testified. “That’s what I did.”

Above board?

The OPP formally took over the Morriseau investigation on December 17, 2020. 

Still unaware she had become a target, Morriseau stepped down as chair two days earlier but retained her seat on the board.

Board secretary John Hannam, who had heard about the Morriseau investigation from Hauth, took it upon himself to inform the new chair Kristen Oliver and then-Mayor Bill Mauro, but no one told Morriseau. The board found itself divided. 

By the time the OPP cleared Morriseau in October, 2021 and Hauth had to formally explain this story to the board, every relationship between and within senior leadership and the board had deteriorated. Hauth had been accusing Hughes of leaving her in the dark since the day the OPP took over the file. Hughes’s notebook included some 80 pages of diary entries about Hauth and Walbourne’s escalating hostilities toward him.

On October 8, the Friday before Thanksgiving weekend, Hauth issued the board a memorandum. Hughes interpreted it as having, “placed all the blame for the investigation onto me.” Hauth and Hughes argued through the following week, over which time he produced the emails showing he’d notified her and her confirmation of every step.

“She told me she’d need to bring Ms. Walbourne in on it to help correct the problem,” Hughes testified. “I said I didn’t have a problem with that and chief Hauth said she may just let it play out and see if the board catches it.”

Hauth issued the board a second memo, which changed the language around the November 30 phone call to reflect uncertainty as to whether a criminal investigation was underway. Hughes resentfully characterized it as a, “softer version of the original memo.” Walbourne’s lawyers called it “less accurate.”

When Morriseau found out what had transpired, she filed a human rights complaint against police leadership and the board, alleging both intentional and systemic racial discrimination. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario would rule her case ineligible, because a board chair is not an employee of the service or the board.

Chief charged

In January of 2022, Morriseau publicly announced the Thunder Bay Police Service was “on the brink of collapse.” 

Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones ordered a probe into senior leadership’s responsibility for the Morriseau investigation. By the time the OCPC arrived in Thunder Bay, Hughes had been suspended over harassment complaints Walbourne and Dimini had made against him, allegations a Toronto Police Service investigation would overturn a year later as unsubstantiated.

Before OCPC counsel Ian Scott could publish his findings, the OCPC once again usurped the board’s authority and installed an administrator to govern the police on April 19. First Nations leaders from across northwestern Ontario renewed their calls for TBPS to be disbanded.

Scott’s May 27 final report found Hughes had initiated the improper Morriseau investigation, which “brought discredit to the TBPS.” He concluded Hauth was aware of it and had a responsibility to stop it. Scott added Hughes could have been disciplined for investigating his board chair, but he would exonerate Hughes from professional and criminal concerns in a September 2022 memo. Hughes remains deputy chief.

The OCPC was hours away from publicly announcing three Police Services Act counts of mischief against Hauth in June, 2022 when the police chief issued a media release announcing her retirement. She left the following year, days before those disciplinary hearings were to have taken place.

Then in April of 2024, the OPP criminally charged Hauth with obstruction of justice and breach of trust for having lied to the OCPC. Walbourne was arrested on the same charges, days later.

Once again embroiled in national attention at the police and board levels, Thunder Bay police chief Darcy Fleury issued an internal memo to officers.

“We must bear in mind that this occurrence is the result of one person’s actions and is not a reflection of the overarching professionalism, integrity, and dedication of our service as a whole,” it read. “We continue to forge ahead as a fair, accountable and transparent police service.”

Jon Thompson is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter based in Thunder Bay. Contact him with tips and story ideas at Jon@ricochet.media.