🚨Breaking: Ottawa Police Deputy Chief Steve Bell Sacked Contract not renewed. Sources confirm resignation expected soon. Internal OPS sources say the @OttawaPolice Service Board decided this week not to renew Bell’s contract, which expires December 23, 2026. Bell wanted a shot at the Chief’s job after Eric Stubbs retires. According to my sources, the Board closed that door. Upon Chief Sloly’s resignation in the middle of the Freedom Convoy protests, Bell was appointed interim Chief on February 15, 2022 and served about nine months. Sources say he was disappointed the Board didn’t confirm him in the rank and went outside to hire an RCMP officer – current Chief Eric Stubbs. In January 2023, following his stint as Interim Chief, Bell took on the role of Deputy Chief and Chief Administrative Officer. This past May, the Board put the CAO position out to open competition. On August 27, 2026, it was announced that Sean McGillis of the RCMP would become Chief Administrative Officer, effective September 21. The board announcement thanks Bell for his leadership “during his tenure” as Chief Administrative Officer and for more than 27 years of service to the community. It says nothing about what Deputy Chief Bell will be doing after September 21. When read alongside what my sources have confirmed about his contract, that language reads like a farewell. The decision comes in the same week the @AllisonInquiry finished hearing from people reporting vaccine injuries and families who lost loved ones. My sources say the inquiry played no part in the Board’s decision. They point instead to Bell’s abrasive management style and say he had lost the support of his own command colleagues long before the Board moved, and long before the Allison Inquiry. Still – interesting timing. Canadians should remember Bell’s conduct during the February 2022 Freedom Convoy protests. As Interim Chief, he told Canadians that people involved in the protest would be identified and pursued through “financial sanctions and criminal charges.” He described enforcement reaching from (illegal) federal financial measures to provincial licensing, the Criminal Code and municipal injunctions. His tyrannical statements deserve to remain part of his public record as he prepares to leave. Bell was also in command when Ottawa Police illegally wiretapped Detective Helen Grus and captured her family’s private communications on February 18 and 19, 2022. He had taken command on February 15. Grus had been suspended on February 4 amid an internal investigation concerning her inquiries into infant deaths. Police used emergency criminal wiretap powers against a suspended detective whose eventual charge was discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act. According to the account of testimony reported from her hearing, the wiretap produced no evidence against her. No evidence: None. Nil. Zero. I spent decades in public and private sector law enforcement, including work involving search warrants and wiretaps. I have no doubt that Bell, as Interim Chief, would have been directly involved in the decision to intercept Grus’s and her family’s communications. The timing, the disciplinary allegations and the evidence presented at her hearing are the basis for my conclusion that emergency criminal powers were illegally used against her. In short, Bell approved illegal wiretaps conducted in line with the brutal police enforcement of political government policies during the illegal Emergencies Act. Bell owes Canadians an account of his involvement in the destruction of human rights, and the imposition of mandated injections that injured and killed so many Canadians. His departure should bring that examination closer. Steve Bell leaves with the Board’s thanks but no contract offer.... an embarrassment and an impediment to the Ottawa Police regaining the trust of the community that was so abused during the Emergencies Act brutality.