Hamilton’s Police Service Board briefly apologized on Friday for violating opening meeting laws on Thursday, but retracted the apology less than 20 minutes after issuing it.

The apology came after the Board’s Governance Committee changed its meeting time from 11:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. The public portion of the meeting ended at 10:54 a.m., depriving the public of its right to observe public meetings.

The Community Safety and Policing Act requires all police board meetings, and its committees, to be open to the public. Section 43(6) requires police board to provide “at least seven days” notice of meetings with an exception for “extraordinary circumstances.”

All of the Board’s notices for the meeting stated it would begin at 11:00 a.m. The agenda packages for the meeting also stated the 11:00 a.m. start time. The Board changed the notice on its website after the meeting adjourned.

“On Thursday, July 16, 2026 the Board’s Governance Committee met at 10:30 AM. In error, the published time of the meeting was listed as 11:00 AM. The Board apologizes for the oversight in not catching this error sooner,” read the statement issued by Board Executive Director Kirsten Stevenson.

The statement adds that “Committees of the Board may not make decisions on behalf of the Board; instead, they make recommendations to the Board as a whole.”

The apology was published by the Police Board at 10:35 a.m. on Friday. Sixteen minutes later, at 10:51 a.m., Stevenson issued a recall notice retracting the apology.

Ontario’s Inspectorate of Policing, which is the closed meeting investigator for police board meetings across Ontario, is investigating the violation.

A digital scan of an official press release document from the Hamilton Police Service Board dated July 17, 2026. The top left corner features the official crest of the Hamilton Police Service Board beside a bold, capitalized corporate header. Below a thick structural line, the text is marked for immediate release and titled to address an incorrectly published start time for the July 16 Governance Committee meeting. The body text consists of four paragraphs explaining that the meeting began at 10:30 a.m. instead of the advertised 11:00 a.m. time, offering an apology for the oversight, noting that the proceedings were livestreamed and recorded, and clarifying that all committee recommendations will be forwarded to the full board on July 23, 2026. The bottom of the document directs further inquiries to Executive Director Kirsten Stevenson via a blue hyperlink email address and indicates it is page one of two.
The Hamilton Police Service Board issued a formal press release on July 17, 2026, apologizing for incorrectly publishing the start time of its July 16 Governance Committee meeting, which began thirty minutes earlier than the publicly listed 11:00 a.m. scheduled. The apology was retracted 16 minutes after issue.

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Published: July 18, 2026
Last updated: July 18, 2026
Author: Joey Coleman

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