NO Chief Sloly, you don’t control the media in Ottawa

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) currently has 18 officers who have been SUSPENDED with FULL PAY and BENEFITS despite facing allegations of serious misconduct and/or criminal charges. The charges relate to serious crimes including allegations of rape, sexual misconduct, fraud, theft, and drug charges. Many citizens in Ottawa are victims of these crimes by rogue cops. Yet, OPS Chief Peter Sloly sees himself as a victim because the media, including Ottawa Life Magazine, are shining a light on the OPS and the Ottawa Police Services Board for their continuing habit of not holding rogue police officers to account for serious crimes and breaches of their duties as police officers.

In June, Chief Sloly filed a $150,000 defamation suit against Ottawa Life Magazine as a ‘private individual’ because he is upset that we are reporting on rogue OPS officers, and both Chief Sloly and the OPSB response to this abhorrent behaviour. When Chief Sloly learned we had started a Go-Fund-Me campaign to defend ourselves against his Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) he directed his lawyers to increase the defamation suit damages he was seeking to $175,000.

The article Chief Sloly is suing Ottawa Life Magazine for as a private citizen is titled Rapes and Lies -the Cancerous Misconduct at the Ottawa Police Service which we published in March 2021.

In what can only be described as  irony, Chief Sloly did an interview with CBC reporter Shaamini Yogaretnam on October 29, 2021, where he described the current state of the Ottawa Police Service saying, “There's rot in the organization that's going to come to light. It's not going to look good but have confidence that we're actually doing that work, the heavy, difficult and necessary work of ridding the organization literally of cancer”. 

So, Chief Sloly himself describes the Ottawa Police organization that he leads as an ‘organization literally of cancer’, yet when Ottawa Life Magazine lays out why this is, in a detailed article six months earlier, he launches a defamation lawsuit against us as a private individual.

It appears Sloly is using the same language to describe his organization that Ottawa Life Magazine used. Consistency would dictate that maybe he should now contact his lawyers and file a defamation suit against himself!

Then again, this is the same Chief Sloly and the same OPSB who just two weeks ago deemed it appropriate to institute an OPS policy that did not mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for the Ottawa Police and allowed regular testing as a workaround. Nothing in the past decade shows just how disconnected and detached the OPS and OPSB are from the community than this decision to place themselves above citizens and not require vaccinations.

Even Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson weighed in on the debacle saying, “Police come in contact with dozens of people every single day. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why they would not follow the same rules that other public servants in Ottawa and, quite frankly, throughout the country are following”. He added, “If you’re getting a public cheque, you’ve gotta get double vaccinated”.

The issue caused such a backlash from the public and city council that within days Chief Sloly and the OPSB were forced to change course and require vaccinations. The ‘duh’ factor here by the OPS and OPSB is incredible given the vaccine advice from medical experts and public health officials on the importance of front line workers being vaccinated. So, if we are getting this type of decision making on a no brainer like vaccines, can it be a surprise to anyone that the Ottawa Police Service and Ottawa Police Service Board is in crisis?

Yet, instead of focusing on making better decisions in the public interest, and fixing what Chief Sloly himself describes as organization “literally of cancer,” he is suing Ottawa Life Magazine as a ‘private individual’ because he doesn’t like how we are reporting on the OPS.

Ottawa Life Magazine is not going to stop reporting in the public interest because Chief Peter Sloly or 'private citizen Peter Sloly' doesn't like it. 

Please help us to stop Chief Sloly's unconscionable and misguided bullying lawsuit and support our legal fund to have this thrown out in court.