{"id":27483,"date":"2020-09-11T13:51:05","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T17:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27483"},"modified":"2020-09-11T13:51:11","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T17:51:11","slug":"eric-jolliffe-aimed-to-be-agent-of-change-at-york-regional-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/eric-jolliffe-aimed-to-be-agent-of-change-at-york-regional-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Jolliffe aimed to be agent of change at York Regional Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eric Jolliffe wanted to be an agent of change \u2013 not just change for change\u2019s sake, but in a way that transformed policing at the community level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jolliffe retired from the force after more than 30 years in policing this past spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been a long journey for the Thornhill native and former student of St. Andrew\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first applied here, there was no room at the inn,\u201d says Joliffe of his first flirtation with the YRP. \u201cThen I saw an opening with the City of Edmonton\u2026and I desperately wanted to be a police officer and trucked halfway across the country to fulfil my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He found fulfilment in living the dream, but says he always wanted to come home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved working out there, but my heart was always here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worked on the frontlines for approximately six years until a change in command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe [incoming] Chief of Police found out I had a degree; I didn\u2019t think anything of it because it was a personal commitment and I didn\u2019t realize I was the only YRP member with a university degree,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was in 1986 and now Jolliffe estimates that 95 per cent of the people that join the YRP have degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, the opportunity came to take that final step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt I had an opportunity to offer change for the organization \u2013 not realizing I would be hanging out for 10 years,\u201d says Jolliffe of the beginning of his tenure. \u201cMy 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\u2019t that way 25 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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 \u2013 and I didn\u2019t even know what that meant, but it sounded good. I told the Board on my last day that I held to my promises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weaving the York Regional Police \u201cinto the fabric of the community\u201d is one of the cornerstones of his time at the head of the force, and, at its roots is a simple philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you ask any investigator, they don\u2019t solve any crime without someone from the community offering a hand, and if you haven\u2019t built that relationship with the community, you\u2019re not going to get the information required to solve crime,\u201d says Jolliffe. \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s headquarters on Don Hillock Drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re 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, \u2018I\u2019m no scientist, I\u2019m no mathematician, but one might think having 400,000 young people interact with its Police Service might pay off down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we built this headquarters, the intent of the atrium was to invite the community into the organization. It doesn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Week: How this relationship building has paid off during a time of police scrutiny outside York Region<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Jolliffe wanted to be an agent of change \u2013 not just change for change\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/2020-09-10-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-79h","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 14:21:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}