Halifax police board getting new chair weeks after one elected

Halifax's police board chair is leaving the oversight committee after just a few weeks in the role, saying his time was simply up.

Lawyer Gavin Giles, a partner at McInnes Cooper, joined the Halifax board of police commissioners in October 2022. He was elected as board chair in January, but the municipality announced this week he would leave his role at the end of March.

Giles said he knew when he took the chair that his term was ending soon, because commissioners cannot serve more than three years, but he was "urged" to take the step by other board members.

He did ask the Halifax municipality to extend his term, he said, but that did not happen.

Giles has been the subject of some public criticism during his time on the board. A number of residents have said they felt he was rude and dismissive during police budget consultations over the past two years.

"The reality is that I have a direct type of personality and I communicate in a direct fashion, and a lot of people are not used to that and they don't appreciate it," Giles said in an interview Wednesday.

In November 2023, Giles said that comments from certain residents speaking against a police budget increase made "nonsense and rubbish commentary, designed only to titillate and annoy."

Giles said Wednesday he stands by that comment. He said many residents brought up valid concerns about police, including that they are not the best help for people in mental-health crises, but he took issue with those who said police make every situation they are involved in worse.

"Those comments, as far as I'm concerned, lack balance and they lack objectivity and they don't in any way inform the budget message, which is what is trying to be delivered," Giles said.

During a January 2025 public board meeting, resident Wiebke Kungl said she felt police did not address the roots of social issues leading to crime, and appear to only protect the interests of wealthy people and their property.

"When the police were rushing en masse to the parkade at the Halifax Shopping Centre to aid the Syrian refugee who was 16 years old who ultimately died of his stab wounds … do you think they made an assessment that he was a wealthy person?" Giles asked, referring to the case of Ahmad Al Marrach.

Residents asked for Giles to be removed

Kungl said that wasn't the main point of her comments, and officers responding to a scene where a youth has been attacked is their "bare minimum job."

Resident Gabe Green later asked councillors to remove Giles during a February budget committee meeting.

"I should not be hearing the rebuttals of the board of police commissioner to our public consultations, that is not his job, his job is to listen to us," Green said.

In that meeting, resident Willa Oaks said it was "appalling" to hear Giles use Al Marrach's death to make a point, adding Giles was regularly "biased" in favour of police. Oaks said he had also been the subject of multiple public complaints.

Giles told CBC he doesn't believe his behaviour in the January consultation was "in any way rude," and only questioned Kungl because she made a "very strange" budget presentation.

A spokesperson for the Halifax municipality said the province's Police Act dictates that complaints against commissioners are dealt with privately. The board does not confirm, deny or comment on the existence of any such complaints.

Giles said the board recently investigated at least two complaints about him, which were dismissed.

"I'm happy to say now that my conscience was, and is, completely clear," he said.

The complaints process itself is "quite badly flawed," Giles said, pointing out if someone filed a complaint against every commissioner, they would all have to step down while an investigation happened, leaving no one to actually deal with the complaints.

"There are certain aspects of the process which probably could stand to be more open to public scrutiny as well," Giles said.

The Halifax Regional Municipality announced Tuesday that Vincent Beswick-Escanlar will be appointed to replace Giles, starting in April. 

Beswick-Escanlar is a family physician with experience in public health and preventive medicine, according to an HRM release. He also has a history in both the military and policing.

The board will elect a new chair at its next meeting on April 2.