Charles Bordeleau will officially take over as Ottawa’s new police chief Monday, the Ottawa Police Services Board announced at a news conference Friday afternoon.
Bordeleau replaces Vern White, who became Ottawa’s police chief in May 2007 and left his post for an appointment to the Canadian Senate. White officially became a member of the Senate Feb. 20.
Bordeleau is from Ottawa and is bilingual. He has worked for the Ottawa Police Service for 28 years and has been one of the police force’s deputy chiefs since August 2010, when former deputy chief Sue O’Sullivan left to become the federal ombudsperson for victims of crime.
The Police Services Board announced it would be searching for a new chief from within the service in January, a few weeks after White’s appointment to the Senate was announced Jan. 6.
Before being promoted to deputy chief, Bordeleau was the superintendent of the emergency operations division, a unit that coordinates security for protests as well as visits by foreign dignitaries. He has a bachelor of administration from the University of Ottawa and a master’s in disaster and emergency management from Royal Roads University, an online distance university based out of Victoria, B.C. He has also completed the University of Toronto’s police leadership program.
A change-of-command ceremony will happen at an unidentified later date, according to a Police Services Board news release.