Peter John Sloly OOM (born 5 August 1966) is a Canadian police officer who has served as the chief of police with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) since 28 October 2019. Prior to joining OPS, Sloly was a member of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) for 27 years, including as a deputy chief of police from 2009 to 2016. Prior to his police career, Sloly played soccer, including for the Canada men's national team in 1984.
Sloly was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to Scarborough at the age of ten.[1] He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children, a daughter and son.[2][1]
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from McMaster University in 1989 and a Master of Business Administration from York University's Schulich School of Business in 2004.[3][4] Sloly also earned a Criminal Justice Certificate from the University of Virginia, an Incident Command System Certification from the Justice Institute of British Columbia, the Major City Chief's Police Executive Development Program, University of Toronto's Rotman Police Executive Leadership Program and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.[2]
He is also a former soccer player who earned one cap for the Canadian national side against Egypt in a friendly match on 2 November 1984.[5] He also played with the Canada men's national under-20 soccer team in the 1985 FIFA World Youth Championship.[6] In 1986, he played in the National Soccer League with Toronto Blizzard.[7] In 1987, he played for North York Rockets in the Canadian Soccer League.[8]
He was the recipient of the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame's Brian Budd Award in 2011.[9]
After retiring as a soccer player, Sloly joined the Toronto Police Service in 1988,[10] where he served for 27 years. He was named deputy chief for Divisional Policing Command and Operational Support Command on 22 September 2009.[11]
In 2015, he was a candidate to succeed outgoing police chief Bill Blair, but was passed over in favour of Mark Saunders.[12][13]
In January 2016, Sloly gave a speech criticizing the size of the police budget as excessive, in which he said: "Until policing stops being focused and driven on that reactive enforcement model, it will continue to be exponentially costly." His comments were criticized by the Toronto Police Association and were viewed as a criticism of Chief Saunders.[14]
On 10 February 2016 it was announced that Sloly had resigned as deputy chief and that he had approached the Police Services Board several months prior with a request that he be released from his contract, which was to have ended in December 2017.[11][15]
On 28 April 2016 Sloly was hired by Deloitte Canada to serve as a consultant handling risk and forensic practices projects.[16]
In August 2019, it was announced that he would become Chief of the Ottawa Police Service, effective 28 October 2019.[17]