Julian Fantino

Julian Fantino,, (Giuliano Fantino; born August 13, 1942) is a Canadian retired police official and former politician.

Fantino was born in Vendoglio, Italy in 1942, and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 11 years old.

Before joining the Metro Toronto Police, Fantino was a security guard at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in suburban Toronto.

He volunteered as an Auxiliary Police Officer for the Metro Toronto Police from 1964 to 1969 and then joined the force as a Police Constable.

He was a member of the Drug Squad and was promoted to Detective Constable.

He subsequently served with Criminal Intelligence and then the Homicide Squad before being promoted to Divisional Commander and then Acting Staff Superintendent of Detectives.

Prior to his London appointment, he had been a Toronto police officer since 1969.

After 23 years of service with the Metro Toronto Police, Fantino left to accept an appointment as police chief of London, Ontario, in 1991.

In London, he presided over the highly publicized and controversial "Project Guardian", in which over two dozen gay men were arrested for involvement in a purported child pornography ring.

While several men were eventually convicted of crimes not related to the stated purpose of the investigation, such as drug possession and prostitution, no child pornography ring was ever found.

Journalist Gerald Hannon later published a piece in The Globe and Mail accusing Fantino of mounting an anti-gay witch hunt.

In response, Fantino filed a complaint with the Ontario Press Council, which ultimately ruled that the Globe should have more clearly labelled Hannon's article as an opinion piece.

John Greyson's CBC documentary After the Bath (1996) also covers the Project Guardian scandal in detail and makes similar conclusions as Hannon.

Fantino says that he is "not anti-gay or homophobic" and was simply arresting lawbreakers engaging in "a sick, perverted crime".

Fantino returned to the Greater Toronto Area as Chief of York Regional Police in 1998.

His tenure was brief and he returned to the Toronto Police Service two years later.

He was succeeded as chief by Robert Middaugh.

An incident in September 2000 involving five male police officers entering a woman's bath house sparked public outrage and drew attention to TPS's poor standing in the gay community.

In 2003, Fantino criticized the effectiveness of the Canadian gun registry.

Also in 2003, Fantino publicly named and identified several people as being under investigation for child pornography.

Despite the lack of evidence, and the crown subsequently dropping the charges, at least one of the men publicly identified committed suicide, naming Fantino's intentional destruction of his reputation as the reason for his suicide in the suicide note.

Fantino came under increasing scrutiny due to three corruption scandals which broke out during his tenure and his handling of those incidents.

Fantino was accused of having tried to deal with these cases out of public view and attempting to shield them from investigation by outside police services.

In one case, drug squad officers are alleged to have beaten and robbed suspected drug dealers.

In another, plainclothes officers were charged with accepting bribes to help bars dodge liquor inspections.

In the third, a group of officers who advocated on behalf of a drug-addicted car thief faced internal charges.

Two of these cases involve the sons of former police chief William McCormack, and came to light not as a result of investigations by Toronto police, but due to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation into gangster activity which inadvertently uncovered evidence of wrongdoing by Toronto police officers.

Mike McCormack was later cleared of all wrongdoing due to a lack of evidence.

In 2004, Fantino made an attempt to repair relations, primarily by appearing on the cover of fab in a photo which featured him posing in his police uniform with five other models dressed as the Village People standing behind him.

Fantino appeared to have little patience for protesters: he wanted them to ask police for permission before holding demonstrations.

In one report, he commented "a problem is now arising where portions of the public believe that Dundas Square is a public space."

In his new position with the OPP, Fantino took an aggressive posture with a native protest blocking a major highway: he stated he "would not/could not tolerate the 401 being closed all day."

However, the commander on site decided against a raid as "[he was] not about to put people at risk for a piece of pavement."

Prior to entering politics, Fantino was the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police from 2006 to 2010, Toronto Chief of Police from 2000 to 2005, and Ontario's Commissioner of Emergency Management from 2005 until 2006, and also served as chief of police of London, Ontario, from 1991 to 1998, and of York Region from 1998 until 2000.

According to an internal police report leaked in 2007, Fantino, as superintendent of detectives in 1991, had ordered a wiretap of lawyer Peter Maloney a police critic and friend of Susan Eng, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, the body overseeing the Toronto Police service.

Conversations between Maloney and Eng were illegally recorded despite a court order that only the first minute of Maloney's conversations were to be monitored so as to determine whether the individual who he was talking to was on the list of those being investigated.

He was the Conservative Party of Canada Member of the Parliament of Canada for the riding of Vaughan following a November 29, 2010 by-election, until his defeat in 2015.

On January 4, 2011, Fantino was named Minister of State for Seniors; on May 18, 2011, he became Associate Minister of National Defence; on July 4, 2012, he was named Minister for International Cooperation.

Fantino served as the Minister of Veterans Affairs from 2013 until 2015, when he was demoted to his earlier post of Associate Minister of National Defence following sustained criticism of his performance at Veterans Affairs.

He was defeated by Liberal candidate Francesco Sorbara in the 2015 election.