“The bad behaviour continues all the way up the ranks”: Hank Idsinga calls out the Toronto Police Service’s rampant corruption

Former homicide detective Hank Idsinga is a rare thing: an ex-cop who isn’t afraid to criticize the police force. His new memoir, The High Road: Confessions of a Homicide Cop, details his 34-year career with the Toronto Police Service in unflinching detail, providing surprisingly frank descriptions of “poor leadership, racism and dysfunction in the senior ranks.” Along the way, he shares his family’s history as survivors of the Holocaust as well as the backstories behind his most famous and gruesome cases, including the Bruce McArthur investigation. We caught up with Idsinga to talk about confronting the city’s ugliest moments, both inside and outside the police force.

You write that, by the time you retired, the culture in the TPS had become “so toxic that it was intolerable.” Can you explain what you mean? There are all sorts of things—rampant alcoholism, a corrupt promotional process, tyrannical behaviour and cronyism. You constantly read about members of the rank and file getting in trouble when on the job, but rarely do you hear the same about senior officers—and yet that behaviour continues all the way up the ranks, but the accountability wanes. I could have written a whole other book on just that.

What do you mean by “a corrupt promotional process”? It’s something that has remained pretty much the same since I started on the force in 1989. Officers up for promotion will get a mark from their unit commander and then take an exam of 110 questions based on a 300-to-400-page study packet. Then there’s a 30-minute interview that consists of five questions about situations one might face on the job. Over the years, there have been allegations of officers cheating on the exam or of senior officers corrupting the interview process. One officer I knew walked into his, saw who was at the head of the panel and said, “I’m done. I may as well walk out.” He already had a bad history with that officer, and it didn’t matter that he was eminently qualified. There were times when I’d see people get promoted and scratch my head wondering how—then I’d remember that they had the right friends. It leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.

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You describe the structure of the police force as “paramilitary.” Can you expand on that? It’s a hierarchical structure that tends to stifle innovation and make people not want to speak up. It’s been criticized several times, including by then-judge Gloria Epstein’s report into the TPS’s handling of the Bruce McArthur case. The rule is, “Obey my orders or face the consequences.” I wrote about a Black officer who became persona non grata in his squad, not because of racism but because he asked to change a procedure. The response was, “How dare you? Who do you think you are?” He wound up coming to work for me in homicide, and when he told me his ideas, we’d actually discuss them. Sometimes I took his points; other times he took mine.

Are you worried that your criticisms will lead to repercussions from old colleagues or the force itself? Not at all. If people choose to take that position, they can come talk to me about it. I’d respect their position. The book is out in the world now, and there isn’t a lot in it that people should find surprising. We deal with all of these same issues in society as a whole, and as a result, we can’t have blind trust in our institutions. When we call the police, those same societal issues are at play with the person on the other end of the phone, the officer coming to our house and the supervisor overseeing them.

Last Wednesday, the TPS said that the claims you make in the book risk undermining public trust in the police. What’s your reaction to that? Public trust has become a crutch for not addressing internal issues. That same day, the police emailed me a letter inviting me to participate in a complaint investigation. Clearly they didn’t listen to me when I said there’s no point in complaining. I’m not asking for an inquiry. I don’t expect discipline, and I’m not naming people. I just wrote a book about my experiences. It’s an ongoing problem, and short of turning the structure and leadership of the police service on its head, it’s going to continue.

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The TPS received a fair bit of criticism from the public for its handling of the Bruce McArthur case, allegedly for ignoring long-standing evidence. Was that fair? Ever since the first victim went missing, there wasn’t a single investigator involved who didn’t want to find them. I was involved in the first half of the investigation, in 2012 and 2013. We all thought, in the back of our minds, that there could potentially be a serial killer. But we weren’t sure, so we didn’t say so publicly, which led to it looking like the police weren’t treating it seriously. But, when the search warrants were unsealed in 2018, some of our critics came back to us and said, “Wow, I can’t believe how much you were doing.”

People also like to point out that a lot of the victims in that case were South Asian and that the case only hit a turning point once it came to Andrew Kinsman, who was white. I do presentations on the case to university classes, and when I get to Kinsman, I put his face on the screen and ask the audience what’s different about him. They say, “He’s white.” Well, yes. But the relevant difference was that Kinsman had a regular routine, and he didn’t show up for appointments he was expected at. At the end, I always ask the class what we could have done differently. No one is ever able to tell me. We busted our butts trying to get that one done. There may be officers with a bias against South Asian men or gay men. But, if I see one scintilla of that creeping in with anyone, they’re off my team.

Since you left the force, seven officers have been suspended over alleged corruption and connections to organized crime as part of the Project South investigation. What’s going on? Project South was absolutely flabbergasting to read about. My lingering question is, When are we going to see charges against the supervisory personnel? Those people were supposed to be watching those officers. If they couldn’t, why not? Many of the things those officers were allegedly doing have been going on since the day I joined the police service. And those are just the ones who got caught. Six officers being charged reflects poorly on the 6,000 others. But my response is, I don’t think it’s just six officers.

Last month, TPS chief Myron Demkiw said three officers accused of colluding to commit perjury in connection with the Umar Zameer case had been “exonerated” by an OPP report into the matter. What’s your take there? For one thing, the OPP report did not exonerate the officers—even if that’s what Demkiw and TPA president Clayton Campbell said. It isn’t a verdict; it’s just another expert review of the evidence. If anything, it just muddies the waters.

On my first day in the homicide unit, I was told that there were two things that could get me fired: not answering my pager and screwing up in the Superior Court of Justice. When Zameer was acquitted, Demkiw stood outside the court and said that he’d hoped for a different outcome in the case. If he were an officer in homicide under me, I would have had some choice words for him. To now come out and claim that those officers have been exonerated? No way. He could have just said, “The OPP conducted an investigation, and it didn’t find any grounds to convict these officers,” and left it there. Those officers went through something traumatic: they watched one of their co-workers get killed before their eyes. But they were also part of a stringent court process that acquitted Zameer, and the courts have the final say.

You had your own share of traumatic experiences on the job. How did you handle them? Several different ways. I stayed away from alcohol, and I avoided being around policing outside of work. I also stayed active—I’m a terrible athlete, but I played basketball and lifted weights, and now I cycle. I still get emotional talking about some of the cases, including the McArthur one. I find presenting on it helps, but I still get too emotional to read the victim impact statements out loud. Instead, I put them on screen and ask others to do it. I do another presentation that involves co-workers I’ve lost along the way, and I have to take pauses as I do it. It still affects me. Sadly, I’ve come out better than many other officers. I also have a beautiful wife and daughter, and I don’t know what I’d do without them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.