Where were you born?
I was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Why did you become a police officer?
There are a couple of reasons. I come from a bi-racial marriage… people of mixed race, we had our own community. The police also were structured differently. There was a white rank structure and a black rank structure. Which means if you’re bi-racial, even if you looked black or even if you looked white, you were not allowed to become a police officer. So if you were a white officer, you joined as a patrol officer, you could become commissioner of police. Whereas if you were a black officer you joined as constable and the highest rank you could attain was sergeant major. So if I was a black man or woman and was a sergeant major and had 25 years on the job, a white patrol officer who joins    today becomes my boss. So all that said, we were kind of ostracized in the community because we were a mixed race. Whenever we were dealing with the police, it was very seldom positive. I can remember during the (liberation) war one time when a police officer came to my mother’s doorway, looking for somebody…he was asking for directions actually, to somebody we knew that lived just down the road from us, so my mother was trying to direct him and she was having difficulties. So I stepped in to help her out and he just turned and he was so mean to me, he was so rude, that I remember thinking, if ever I was a police officer, I’d want to help people, I’d never do what he did.

So how did you get involved with the police service there?
Out of mischief more than anything. My name is English sounding, my last name. Where our mail came in was in the white area. So they didn’t even know who I was until I walked in for the interview. The recruitment offices were in different places, for white and black. The form asked me to go to the central office, to the white recruitment office. I walked in and he almost fell off his chair. The first thing he said to me was, “Why would you apply? We don’t hire coloured.” That’s what he said. So I just sat down in the chair across from him and said, “You tell me what a white can do that I can’t do. A white man for that matter. I’m physically fit, I think I’m intelligent, maybe you can tell me why you think I’m not good enough.”  We discussed this. For about an hour we talked and talked and talked. I was just relieved, I felt good. Actually I did what I came to do. I didn’t expect to hear from him again. Within a couple of weeks I received a letter inviting me to an interview. So we’d drawn a line in the sand now. I’m not giving up. If you draw a line, I’ll draw a line. I kept going back for testing. Before you knew it, I’d done my psychological and everything. I think it wasn’t hitting me what was really happening to me. I think if I’d been given an opportunity to stop I probably would have. I might have left.

Why?
Because I was just doing it to prove a point.  Yes, I wanted to become a police officer. It was what I’d like to do but they kept calling my bluff. The final interview was with the three board members, then the officer with the most brass on his shoulders stood up and said, “Welcome to the BSAP.”

Did they give you any indication why they hired you?
No, I think it had to do with the guy who did my first interview. Because we had a long talk and the impression they had of black people mostly was that all we did was drink and make trouble. When the police came to our neighbourhood, that’s how they treated us. They were rude and unfriendly. It was very difficult to come home and tell my mother. My mother was pretty upset. In hindsight I can see that she realized that I was going into an area, a place where there’d be no one to protect me.  As much as they raised us not to let anyone define who we are…they were still there to protect us.

So what brought you to Canada?
We decided we really wanted to go to either Australia or Canada. We did a lot of research. Those days we didn’t have internet. We decided to go to Canada but then my ex said to me, “Where in Canada?” I’d heard about Toronto, I’d heard about Montreal, Quebec City…and he said, “But where, though? Do you want to go to Toronto?” I said, “Actually I like the sound of this one. Ottawa.” That sounds silly but that’s exactly how we ended up here.

Did you immediately apply for the police service?
No, my background is accounting. I would fill out applications to places that would advertise jobs and they would be very, very welcoming but the second I would walk in, it would be totally different. So I kept being turned down and turned down and turned down. I realized there were a lot of underlying issues there that I began to recognize from having grown up under apartheid….I met so many roadblocks…so I decided to go to the Toronto School of Business down on Bank and …while I was at the Toronto School of Business, I was pumping gas at a gas station and working at the IGA as a cashier….it was a crazy life….I applied to the Ottawa Police in ’91 and it was a bone of contention with my ex-husband so I withdrew my application. So in 1994 I called the recruitment officer at the Ottawa Police and I said, “I’m just thinking, are you hiring? I applied a few years ago.” I was hired on the 5th of June.

How do you deal with racial discrimination in Canada?
I prefer it when you can see it, you can deal with it; this is what I’m looking at. You can deal with something you can see but when you’re looking over your shoulder, it’s an awful feeling. I don’t look at it as racism or discrimination. I look at myself as, what am I bringing to the table? I try to remember what my parents taught me which was ‘don’t hate, educate.’ I know I’m in a very unique position because I can either let it get to me or I can use it as a tool to educate people. One of the down sides of that is I work really hard, sometimes to my detriment, I have very high expectations of myself … I put myself under a microscope because I suspect others will do that.