Should Toronto police Chief Bill Blair have called in the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate Mayor Rob Ford and his links to drug dealers?

“The provincial force doesn’t arbitrarily step in to conduct an investigation,” said Sgt. Pierre Chamberland, the OPP’s media relations officer. “Toronto police has its own investigators. We’ll assist when we’re requested to do so.”

Municipal police chiefs can ask the Ontario Provincial Police or the Mounties to step in if they feel an independent investigation is warranted, such as when there are allegations of internal corruption, misconduct or criminality close to home.

On Tuesday, Councillor Doug Ford called for Blair to resign and told the Toronto Sun the OPP should be brought in. Ford issued the demand following Blair’s comments during a press conference on Monday during which he revealed that police found a copy of the video that appeared to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Doug Ford said he plans to ask the OIPRD (Office of the Independent Police Review Director) to investigate the chief’s behaviour.

There are plenty of examples of municipal forces calling in an outside law force.

The Ottawa Police Service, for example, enlisted the OPP to investigate whether the city’s former mayor, Larry O’Brien, had attempted to bribe an opponent to drop out of the mayoralty race. He was charged but ultimately acquitted in 2009.

And Blair has turned to the OPP before.

In 2011, the chief asked OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis to review the content of three recorded calls Ford made to 911 after he was approached by CBC comedienne Mary Walsh on his driveway.

Blair asked for the review after the CBC ombudsman suggested Blair’s description of the calls — which corroborated Ford’s version — could not be trusted because he was “not a disinterested party.” Lewis unequivocally backed Blair.

When Blair, earlier this year, concluded police needed to investigate an alleged cellphone video showing Toronto’s mayor smoking crack, he had two choices: hand it over to his own people or look to an outside policing agency.

Some, including Mark Towhey, Ford’SEND former chief of staff, argue Blair should have gone elsewhere since the mayor helps appoint members to the seven-member civilian board that oversees police.

“This, alone, should be reason enough for the Toronto police to hand off this investigation to another, independent, police service,” Towhey wrote in an article published in the National Post.

But Blair opted to stay in-house. He directed respected homicide Det.-Sgt. Gary Giroux, his go-to investigator on the G-20 file, to keep an open mind and follow the investigation wherever it goes.

The decision made sense for several reasons, police spokesman Mark Pugash said Wednesday.

“It gave Chief Blair the opportunity to pick his best investigators who were aware, given the nature of the investigation, that they’re under the microscope and that absolutely every ‘I’ has to be dotted, every ‘T’ has to be crossed,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons we saw so many documents in the ITO (information to obtain a search warrant). Investigators had to be able to defend everything they did.”

There was also the infamous photo of Ford with shooting victim Anthony Smith, a murder already being handled by Toronto’s homicide squad.

Giroux’s team had access to some of the workings of Project Traveller, the guns and gang investigation that first put the Ford crack-smoking video on the police radar.

John Sewell, the former mayor who runs the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and is regularly critical of the force, said he doubts an outside agency could have stepped in, given the sweeping nature of the investigation, which involved extensive surveillance.

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In an interview broadcast by CBC radio Wednesday, Toronto Police Service Board chairman Alok Mukherjee was asked if he would have been more comfortable if the OPP had handled the investigation.

“The law requires the (city) council to provide the resources but the law does not give direct control over policing. That responsibility is left to an independent police board,” Mukherjee responded.

He noted that the RCMP is conducting the senate investigation which is reaching into the Office of the Prime Minister, “the boss” of the RCMP commissioner.

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