After year of homicides and protests, chief says Ottawa wants more police

It was a busy year for Ottawa police. 

There were 25 homicide victims in 2024 — police say it's a record — including March's mass killing in Barrhaven that took six lives.

Protests put demands on police resources, from repeated pro-Palestinian demonstrations against the war in Gaza to a return of supporters of the self-described "Freedom Convoy" to Parliament Hill.

And the long-awaited inquest into the death of Abdirahman Abdi refocused attention on how officers deal with mental illness and the force's fraught relationship with Ottawa's Somali community.

In a year-end interview, police Chief Eric Stubbs sat down with CBC News to talk about some of the challenges facing the force and plans for the year ahead.

On femicide

OPS used the word "femicide" for the first time this year to refer to the August killing of Jennifer Zabarylo in Stittsville, after charging her husband with murder. They used the term again in October after the stabbing death of Brkti Berhe in a south-end park.

The term refers to killings of women, especially when they are motivated by misogyny or gender-based hatred. Asked why police made the decision to call the Zabarylo case femicide, Stubbs gave a simple answer.

"Because it was," he said.

He supported calls to add a section focused on femicide to the Criminal Code, saying it acknowledges there's a widespread issue with violence against women and would ensure that "sentencing reflects the seriousness of this crime."

"Any homicide is tragic so I'm not discounting any other homicides, but when you have something like this — when it is gender-based violence and we see that frequency that this occurs — I think it's worthy," he said.

Stubbs called domestic violence an "epidemic" that is overwhelming the officers in the force's intimate partner violence unit.

"All of them had files over 20 that they were actively investigating," he said. "That's too many."

On the Abdi inquest

This month, a coroner's jury found that the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi was a homicide. Abdi died a day after a violent arrest by two Ottawa police officers during a mental health crisis.

The inquest jury made 57 recommendations meant to prevent similar deaths from happening again.

Almost half of those recommendations were directed at the Ottawa Police Service (OPS). Stubbs said acting on them will take time.

He said OPS plans to identify a staff member within the next couple weeks who will be the project leader of implementing the recommendations. That will mean working with stakeholders, building an action plan and following through.

He said police will make it a priority, but will take the time needed to do things right.

"We don't want to rush to say that we've completed the recommendations," he said.

But Stubbs said police have already made improvements, including launching the alternate neighbourhood crisis response program, which diverts mental health calls to mental health professionals.

"The inquest was a good exercise to be able to summarize what we have done, what we haven't done and what we have left to do," he said.

"Clearly we still have work to do, but I wouldn't characterize it that we've done nothing since that death and now we're going to start."

On 'defund the police'

OPS is wrapping up the first year of a three-year staff stabilization plan that Stubbs calls "very successful."

It will mean hiring 425 officers and 120 civilians. Though many will replace people leaving in a wave of retirements, Stubbs expects the plan will grow the force by about 125 to 150 people.

He said the investment is needed because units are strained and overtime is "through the roof." The money is coming from the city, the province and the feds, who recently kicked in $50 million over five years to help Ottawa police step up security around Parliament Hill. 

"There's almost a protest there every day," Stubbs said. "Some of them are not an issue for policing, others are. So we want this group of people to manage the safety of politicians, manage the protests and some of the diplomatic demands that are on us."

Still, the heavy lifting for staffing is coming from the municipal budget, and some voices are calling on council to cut police funding and devote it to areas like mental health supports and affordable housing.

Stubbs said he, too, supports investments in upstream crime prevention, but doesn't think it should come at the expense of overstrained police. He said the "defund the police" movement is a minority, and the majority is clear.

"There is a consistent message from the overwhelming percentage of the population that says they want more of us and want us in their neighbourhoods," Stubbs said.