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Niagara’s police chief given $870,000 when he retired

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It looks like former Niagara police chief Jeff McGuire was actually terminated when he left the job last year, rather than retiring early as reported at the time. That’s according to analysis of the agreement he signed with the board, a document that was recently made public. McGuire is getting $870 000 in a so-called retirement allowance, which was made public Monday. He also gets to keep his car and computer.

Marvin Ryder from the DeGroote school of Business says that sounds like a typical agreement for someone being forced out of a contract.

“I don’t see it as a retirement agreement, I see it as a termination agreement. In this case the chief had a multi-year contract to 2020 and the board for whatever reason, didn’t want him to finish out his term. The problem is, if you sign a contract to pay someone until 2020 and you want them to go early, you’ve got to pay them for all that money.”

McGuire was a deputy chief in Toronto with 35 years experience before he was appointed chief in Niagara in 2012. After his five year contract ended, he signed a three year extension but midway through last year, he announced his retirement.

The President of the Niagara police union agrees that Jeff McGuire didn’t just retire. Cliff Priest told CHCH news that a new police services board took over after McGuire’s contract had been extended by the previous board and he said the new board did not have a good relationship with McGuire. He said they never showed McGuire any respect.

Priest hadn’t heard of any performance problems with McGuire and said the dismissal could have simply been prompted by a personality conflict. The so-called retirement agreement includes clauses that neither the chief nor the board can disparage each other; it also says the former chief gets a positive reference letter. The police services board says it will not comment.

Priest said the McGuire payout seemed like an awful lot of public money wasted, to make a chief go away, just because you don’t like him.