Saturday is the first day of retirement for North Bay Police Chief Scott Tod.
He’s wrapping up a 42-year career in policing with the people he’s worked with being one of the big highlights.
“Despite the experiences I’ve had that are traumatic and unfortunate, I always found the people that we have around us have been wonderful to a point where it encourages me to come to work every day for 42 years,” he says. “It’s the people that I work with.”
He also says working in North Bay has given him the chance to do a lot of community policing, work with organizations that help people, and see crime lowered in the community.
“Three years in a row now our serious crime rate has dropped in North Bay and I think that’s largely because of the work and the effort our members do every single day in this community.”
Tod says other rewarding opportunities included attending the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference while with the Ontario Provincial Police.
“I attended the Duke of Edinburgh Conference in regard to like-minded people from across the world coming together to change communities,” he says. “Those were incredible opportunities that I’ve been given in my career that I think helped me become a better leader and a better person.”
Tod says the next four to six months include working on family relationships and traveling with his wife Nancy.
“I’ve been told by some people, on advice, that in four to six months you’ll probably want to find something else to do and I will,” he says. “But right now I want to go home and spend some time with family.”
Tod became Chief of Police with the North Bay Police Service in 2019 after serving for three years as Deputy Chief.
Previously he was Deputy Commissioner, Investigations and Organized Crime, for the Ontario Provincial Police from 2010 to 2015.
He originally joined the OPP in 1982 after serving for several years as an officer in the Canadian Forces, Maritime Command.
Tod was recently appointed as an Honourary Colonel at 22 Wing CFB North Bay.
