The new face on Toronto's fractious Police Services Board, diversity consultant and former journalist Hamlin Grange, makes the body more representative as it continues to deal with the controversy over racial profiling, the board's chairwoman says.
Calling Mr. Grange a "strong communicator" and a "champion of the black community," Pam McConnell said the board had to work harder to reach out to ethnic minorities in Toronto.
"The conversation around racial profiling is a conversation and a discourse that is happening in the communities and it isn't finished at the board table," she said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Mr. Grange's nomination yesterday. His membership on the board still needs to be officially approved. The move fills one of the two empty seats on the police board, which had been left vacant by tied votes and bitter political wrangling.
It appeared to solidify the majority held by the board's left-leaning members, including Ms. McConnell, over right-wing members Case Ootes and retired judge Hugh Locke.
Mr. Grange, 51, who was born in Jamaica, was hired by the Police Services Board in 2002 to run a public meeting on racial profiling. Among the results of the meeting was a call for police to ensure racial bias is not a factor when a vehicle is stopped.
Chief Julian Fantino, whose contract the divided board failed to renew on a deadlocked vote in the spring, said it was high time the board got back to full strength.
Mr. Grange studied journalism at the University of Colorado and has worked as the managing editor of the black community newspaper Contrast, and as a reporter at the Toronto Star and Global Television. At CBC Television, he worked as a reporter, editor and anchor.
Jeff Gray