OPP/CP Former deputy commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police Brad Blair says that his firing was payback for his legal fight against Premier Doug Ford's government. (OPP/CP)

TORONTO — A former high-ranking provincial police officer alleges his firing this week was in reprisal for waging a legal battle over the controversial hiring of a long-time friend of Premier Doug Ford as commissioner of the force.

Brad Blair has asked the courts to force the provincial ombudsman to investigate the appointment of Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner to the Ontario Provincial Police top job.

The government has denied any political interference in Blair's firing as deputy commissioner, and said the decision to fire him Monday came from the public service because Blair released confidential OPP information through his court filings.

This is reprisal and an attempt to muzzle me.Brad Blair

Blair was fired by Mario Di Tommaso, deputy minister of community safety, and Blair alleges that was a conflict of interest because Di Tommaso was part of the hiring panel that selected Taverner and is therefore part of the case before the court.

"It is patently clear to me that this is reprisal and an attempt to muzzle me, and that this reprisal is directly connected to my good faith efforts to seek redress before the Divisional Court and the provincial ombudsman," Blair writes in an affidavit filed Tuesday in court.

If there were concerns about the material Blair was filing in court being in the public realm, the attorney general could have asked the court to seal the documents, Blair writes.

In a statement Tuesday, Blair said raising concerns about real or perceived political interference was the right thing to do, even though it ended his nearly 33-year OPP career.

"The cost of a compromised OPP is too great a price to pay," he said. "The OPP can be called in to investigate provincial politicians, and the citizens of Ontario need to have faith that the OPP is truly independent, above political interference, and free from abuses of power."

Di Tommaso's hand-delivered termination letter to Blair says that he recently filed internal OPP emails in court, after Blair had been warned not to do so in a Dec. 28 letter.

"Your failure to comply with my clear directions in furtherance of legal proceedings brought in your personal capacity has ruptured the trust on which the employment relationship is built," the termination letter says.

The Dec. 28 letter said that it shouldn't be construed as disciplinary action, but Di Tommaso wrote that he expected Blair to comply with proper procedures in the future.