Bill Blair

William Sterling Blair (born 1954) is a Canadian politician and former police officer who has served as the minister of National Defence since 2023.

A member of the Liberal Party, Blair represents Scarborough Southwest in the House of Commons.

Blair previously held the portfolios of Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction and minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Blair was born April 9, 1954, in Scarborough, Ontario.

Blair's father had served as a police officer for 39 years.

Blair considered pursuing a degree in law or finance, when he initially enrolled at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the mid 1970s.

Blair initially studied economics at the University of Toronto.

He left to follow his ambition of being a police officer, but returned later and completed a Bachelor of Arts in economics and criminology.

Blair is married to Susanne McMaster, and together they have three grown children (2 sons and daughter) and 2 grandchildren.

Blair joined the Metropolitan Toronto Police while in university to make money and began taking courses on a part-time basis.

Blair walked a beat near Regent Park and later worked as an undercover officer in Toronto's drug squad.

After Blair earned his bachelor's degree in criminology, he advanced his career in the police service in the late 1980s, taking part in drug busts involving the seizure of millions of dollars of cocaine.

Chief David Boothby assigned Blair to improve the poor community relations between the officers of 51 Division, which patrolled Blair's old beat near Regent Park.

Blair normalized police relations with the community by measures such as sending cops to read to kids in local elementary schools and engaging with local businesses and churches.

In 1999, Blair was considered as a candidate to replace outgoing Chief Boothby, but Mayor Mel Lastman, with the support of Premier Mike Harris, chose to hire Julian Fantino, then head of the York Regional Police.

After reorganization of the senior ranks after Fantino's ascension as police chief, Blair became head of detective operations.

Before entering politics, Blair worked for four decades with the Toronto Police Service (TPS), serving as the chief of police from 2005 until retiring in 2015.

Blair was selected in a 4–2 vote of the Toronto Police Services Board in early April 2005, and formally appointed Chief of the Toronto Police Service on April 26, 2005.

He succeeded Mike Boyd, who had served as interim chief after the expiry of Julian Fantino's contract.

Prior to his appointment as chief, Blair worked for approximately 30 years as a Toronto police officer, with assignments involving drug enforcement, organized crime and major criminal investigations.

Blair served as president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

In the spring of 2009, Tamil Canadians in Toronto upset by civilian deaths in the Sri Lankan Civil War, which included an overnight artillery bombardment that killed 378 civilians and wounded 1,100, allegedly perpetrated by government forces, staged a series of protests in Toronto, including shutting down the northbound and southbound lanes of University Avenue for four days while protesting in front of the US Consulate, and illegally blocking traffic on the Gardiner Expressway.

Blair and the police faced pressure to crack down on the demonstrations, arrest and deporting the protesters.

Instead, Blair used his experience in community policing to ensure that minimal force was used, spoke respectfully of the protesters' rights to expression, and negotiated the peaceful resolution of the events.

The Canadian Tamil Congress would later award Blair an inaugural "Leaders for Change Award" for his leadership during the protests.

During demonstrations against the G20 Toronto Summit nearly 1,000 arrests were made, making it the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.

In the aftermath of the protests, the Toronto Police Service and the Integrated Security Unit (ISU) for the summit were heavily criticized for brutality during the arrests.

Protests called for Blair to resign.

In a December 2010 interview, Blair indicated that he would not resign, despite growing criticism of his leadership during and after the summit.

A class action lawsuit was begun against TPS on behalf of all of those who were arrested in spite of the TPS's several attempts to stop proceedings.

In December 2010, following a critical report by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin, Blair admitted regret that he had initially interpreted the regulation at face value and did not promptly clear up confusion about the meaning of the regulation.

In 2013, Blair came into conflict with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford after confirming to the media that the police had obtained a video of the mayor smoking what appeared to be crack cocaine.

Blair said he was "disappointed" in the mayor.

As of November 10, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that it will not hear the Toronto Police Services Board's appeal, and the suit was able to proceed to trial.

On August 17, 2020, the lawsuit had resulted in a $16.5 million settlement.

Those arrested were each awarded dollar amounts ranging from $5,000 to $24,700.

Responding to questions about a controversial regulation enacted by the Cabinet of Ontario to increase police powers during the summit, Blair was supportive, stating that "it was passed in exactly the procedure as described in our legislation in Ontario."

Post-summit reports revealed that on June 25, prior to the start of the summit and shortly after Blair defended a widely reported misinterpretation of the regulation in a press conference, the police department received a government bulletin clarifying the misinterpretation and explaining that the new regulation accorded them no additional power to demand identification outside of the summit perimeter.

Blair's spokesperson stated that as of the press conference, Blair was unaware of the clarification; however, Blair did not retract his prior remarks to the press after receiving the bulletin.

When interviewed after the summit, Blair confirmed that there was never an extraordinary legal requirement for the public to present identification within five metres of the perimeter fence, but that he "was trying to keep the criminals out."