Eric Jolliffe aimed to be agent of change at York Regional Police

September 11, 2020 · 0 Comments

Eric Jolliffe wanted to be an agent of change – not just change for change’s sake, but in a way that transformed policing at the community level.

That was his vision when he sat down for the job interview that resulted in his appointment as Chief of York Regional Police just over a decade ago and now, settling into his retirement, it is an achievement he looks back on with pride.

Jolliffe retired from the force after more than 30 years in policing this past spring.

It has been a long journey for the Thornhill native and former student of St. Andrew’s College (including a stint serving in Edmonton where one of his first assignments was guarding Wayne Gretzky at a fan event when The Great One was with the Oilers) but a journey that was as rewarding at its conclusion as it was at the start.

“When I first applied here, there was no room at the inn,” says Joliffe of his first flirtation with the YRP. “Then I saw an opening with the City of Edmonton…and I desperately wanted to be a police officer and trucked halfway across the country to fulfil my dream.”

He found fulfilment in living the dream, but says he always wanted to come home.

“I loved working out there, but my heart was always here,” he says.

Eventually, an opportunity to come back to his roots presented itself and soon he was a frontline police officer in Aurora, Stouffville, King and Newmarket.

He worked on the frontlines for approximately six years until a change in command.

Before heading off to Edmonton, Jolliffe began studying criminology at York University before Alberta beckoned halfway through his undergrad. As he forged ahead with his career, he made a commitment to himself to finish his degree whenever he could, and this personal pledge ultimately stood him in good stead.

“The [incoming] Chief of Police found out I had a degree; I didn’t think anything of it because it was a personal commitment and I didn’t realize I was the only YRP member with a university degree,” he says.

This was in 1986 and now Jolliffe estimates that 95 per cent of the people that join the YRP have degrees.

That is a change that has come with time, and it is a change he has tried to foster after taking the helm, which he did after rising through the ranks of Inspector, then Deputy Chief of Operations, and a further four years as Deputy Chief of Administration.

Then, the opportunity came to take that final step.

“I felt I had an opportunity to offer change for the organization – not realizing I would be hanging out for 10 years,” says Jolliffe of the beginning of his tenure. “My fingerprints are all over the organization in terms of how it is placed in our industry and York Regional Police is seen as one of the foremost leading police agencies in the country, and it wasn’t that way 25 years ago.

“I promised (the York Regional Police Services) Board a few things: I told them that York Regional Police would be woven into the fabric of this community, that York would be technically innovative in its approach to solving crime, that York Regional Police would be a Top 100 Employer in Ontario – and I didn’t even know what that meant, but it sounded good. I told the Board on my last day that I held to my promises.”

Weaving the York Regional Police “into the fabric of the community” is one of the cornerstones of his time at the head of the force, and, at its roots is a simple philosophy.

“If you ask any investigator, they don’t solve any crime without someone from the community offering a hand, and if you haven’t built that relationship with the community, you’re not going to get the information required to solve crime,” says Jolliffe. “My day to day job was running YRP and its 2,500 employees and its $370 million budget, but my evenings were about connecting to the community seven nights a week.”

Demonstration of this philosophy in action can be seen all around York Region, from outreach programs to the continued development of the Community Safety Village in Whitchurch-Stouffville, to, here in Aurora, the YRP’s headquarters on Don Hillock Drive.

“When you’re able to bring in young people and teach them about traffic safety, bicycle safety, internet safety, stranger danger, the stuff around drugs, we have seen over 400,000 young people in this Region [come through the Safety Village]. Year after year, I was able to go to the Police Services Board and say, ‘I’m no scientist, I’m no mathematician, but one might think having 400,000 young people interact with its Police Service might pay off down the road.

“When we built this headquarters, the intent of the atrium was to invite the community into the organization. It doesn’t matter if it is Black Heritage Month, Asian Heritage Month, 500 people from our community here are interacting with their police service. It has built tremendous relationships in our communities.”

Next Week: How this relationship building has paid off during a time of police scrutiny outside York Region

By Brock Weir