He may be top cop, but Chief Const. Frank Elsner admits he sometimes has to tread lightly among his Victoria Police Service colleagues.

Elsner, who took over as police chief of the B.C. city earlier this year, brought to the role experience as a chief in Sudbury, decades of policing with the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, and Thunder Bay Police Service — and not a day’s work with the force he now leads.

Lacking insight into its history and culture, he says, he has to keep an eye out for “landmines,” especially when being critical.

“If there’s a way of doing business that raises your eyebrow, you don’t know who at the table was the champion of that in the first place,” he said. “You have to be really careful of how you navigate those waters.”

Hiring an outsider into the top job in a police force is the exception for North America’s large cities. In Canada, the current chiefs in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa all have decades of prior experience within the same force.

But, increasingly, police boards are considering breaking with the usual chief-making formula — take one officer, add decades of employment, combine with leadership promotions — and embracing the benefits of fresh eyes and a clean slate.

If the Toronto Police Services Board opts for an outsider after its ongoing, far-reaching search to replace Bill Blair — international applications are welcome, board chair Alok Mukherjee announced last month — it will mark a significant break with tradition.

Since the creation of the amalgamated Toronto police force in 1957, the chief has almost always been plucked from within. The sole exception, Julian Fantino, left his chief position with York Regional Police to become Toronto’s in 2000, but had more than 20 years of prior service in Toronto.

But there’s no reason to limit the scope of the search for Blair’s successor, said Mukherjee, while also stressing the board is simply casting a wide net, not discouraging internal applications.

“We have the biggest municipal police force in Canada, but also one of the largest in North America, so why shouldn’t we look more broadly for candidates who might bring some different approaches?” he said in an interview Friday.

Peter Cuthbert, executive director of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said he noticed forces moving away from the traditional model around 2000, citing police services in Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Waterloo and Ottawa among those who have opted for an outsider.

That’s affecting the career trajectories of ambitious officers, he said.

“There used to be a guarantee that you would come through the ranks and the chief would develop you, senior officers would develop you,” he said. “There’s no guarantee anymore.”

He believes police boards still favour internal candidates, but look for outside candidates “to test the local boy or girl.” Noting the strengths of Toronto’s current deputy chiefs — Mark Saunders, Peter Sloly and Mike Federico have all been named as potential replacements for Blair — “it’s hard to understand why they have to look outside.”

Not everyone is puzzled; the words “change” and “transformation” have been repeatedly uttered in the weeks since the board’s sudden decision not to renew Blair’s contract. In a request for proposals, seeking a search firm to locate candidates, the board states that successful head-hunters will “have an appreciation for the board’s focus on organizational change and renewal, including structural and cultural transformation.”

Mukherjee — whose email signature quotes Albert Einstein’s “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” — has spoken about the importance of reining in costs and re-evaluating how police services are provided. He’s raised the possibility of an organizational shake-up that could involve the force hiring domestic violence and youth workers.

Darrel Stephens, a former North Carolina police chief and current executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association (which has nine Canadian member forces, including Toronto) said about 25 per cent of the members choose to go outside the force. While the decision is sometimes made because no internal applicant is qualified, it’s often because there’s a need to go in a new direction.

“They believe that the best opportunity to bring that change about is from somebody that’s not a part of the organization or the culture,” he said.

This week, he noted, Pittsburgh’s force appointed an outsider for the first time in years, if ever. The police union expressed disappointment, but the decision was made in part because the police service needed a revolution following scandal-plagued tenure of the past chief.

But change doesn’t always work out. In Vancouver, Bruce Chambers was brought on as top cop from the Thunder Bay police force in 1997. But he was fired two years into a three-year contract, in part because of an uprising within the ranks. Upon his departure, he admitted he had trouble overcoming the stigma of being an outsider. Current chief Jim Chu is a 35-year force veteran.

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In Victoria, the decision to go with Elsner was not because of a scandal or even a lack of internal applications, but because he was simply the man for the job, said Barbara Desjardins, vice-chair of the Victoria Police Board.

Elsner’s experience in community policing and in forces comparable to Victoria were among his assets, she said.

“It’s always a hope that you can hire from within. But different experiences from around the country, or around the world for that matter, are not bad things sometimes, because you tend to get quite myopic when you’re just within,” she said.

Originally from BC’s Okanagan Valley, Elsner welcomed the opportunity to return to his home province. But he has noticed some differences between policing in Ontario and the so-called “left coast.”

“Things are more laid back. On the drug issue, possession of marijuana, (there’s a) far more laid-back attitude than in Ontario. You have to learn that type of culture,” he said.

Another major difference is on the issue of automatic licence plate readers, technology that allows officers to scan plates to determine if a car is stolen, among other capabilities. In Sudbury, where he was chief, the police board was “adamant” the force use the technology. In Victoria, community concerns over privacy has dissuaded the force from employing it.

“I thought, ‘Wow, there’s a difference in philosophy that two communities have,’” he said.

Despite challenges, such as those possible “landmines,” Elsner believes there are also advantages to being the new guy.

“Due to the fact that I didn’t know anyone here, I didn’t have any allegiances, or in the way that we traditionally always done business, it gave me an opportunity to have a bit of a clean slate to bring in new ideas, new blood into the organization,” he said.

Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, said Toronto officers look for credibility in a leader, and realistically, it could take a long time for someone from outside the force to build that up. Even then, he said, it would have to be “a very exceptional candidate.”

“We want somebody that empathizes and understands not only the political structure of Toronto, and satisfying the political masters, but also somebody who understands the complexities of what it’s like to be a police officer in Toronto,” he said Friday.

Though it may sound strange, Elsner said, the board should not base its decision on who is “the best person.”

“It’s who is the person in this day and time that fits the needs,” he said.

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