“It was a really beautiful day.”
That from Sault OPP Sgt. Monique Baker, given a surprise party at the Sault OPP detachment Thursday as she retires after 32 years of service.
It was a small gathering (large gatherings not possible due to the pandemic), including Baker’s daughter, a few good friends and OPP officers on duty.
Joining them was Acting Inspector Rick Foley and Superintendent Jon Dumond from OPP North East Region headquarters in North Bay.
Baker was presented with her retirement badge and certificates of recognition from Premier Doug Ford and OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique in recognition for her 32 years of service.
“They made me a beautiful cake. I have a very good friend in the communications centre in North Bay who asked me if I would like her to sign me off duty for the last time, which is something that is symbolic to a lot of police officers on their last shift,” Baker told SooToday.
“I was a little emotional, obviously. 32 years is a long time and I spent the majority of my career here in Sault Ste. Marie. I’ve met so many people from the community, colleagues that I work with from other organizations that I truly became close with. But, it’s also a rite of passage and I knew after 32 years it was time to move on, and so I was content with the decision to retire.”
“I had an amazing career,” Baker said.
“There’ve been so many significant events. I enjoyed my time on patrol. It was very satisfying to be able to immerse myself in investigations, to start an investigation and complete it to the best of my ability.”
Baker brought ‘that personal touch’ to her work, a familiar face in the community known for her humour and good heart.
“I really felt working with victims of crime was very satisfying. I took great pride in trying to make the best of a bad situation for someone and to help them get through it. Even though it wasn’t always a positive ending I always made sure that I did the best I could to make the situation as tolerable as I could for them.”
“I think that’s changing now, the stigma around police officers having the tough exterior and nothing bothers them. We’re human too. I wasn’t afraid to show my human side to people. I think that made the connection better,” Baker said.
That served Baker well as she transitioned from patrol and investigations into her role as the Sault OPP detachment’s community safety and media relations officer (interacting with the public and handling media inquiries).
“That was something that I really, really enjoyed. I loved interacting with the community.”
“I loved kids,” she said, reflecting on her visits to schools in which she connected as a police officer with young people.
“It was a time in my life when my children were also growing up during that period. It was parallel to my children growing up and I was involved in the schools and educating the children as well. It was fun. It was nice. I learned a lot from my own children that helped me in the policing world when I was dealing with young people.”
“Especially teenagers,” she added with a chuckle.
Baker served as the Sault OPP detachment’s community safety and media relations officer for several years before her promotion to sergeant and a new role, in 2017, as the OPP’s Northeast Region Critical Incident Stress Response/Peer Support Team lead.
“The role involves dealing with a lot of mental health awareness, dealing internally with police officers and mental health,” Baker told SooToday at the time.
“It was a really great segue into my last years on the job. I was able to leave this profession having helped people in the community and then leaving the profession having been there to assist my own members,” Baker said Thursday.
An Elliot Lake native, Baker said that she began to consider a career as a police officer when she was in Grade 10 and given a ‘ride along’ with Elliot Lake police officer Don Miller.
“There was something about the profession and the ride alongs that I did that really tweaked my interest. After that I spent some time with now retired OPP officer Ted Hyndman. I was friends with Ted’s daughter and he was a great inspiration to me. He used to come to the schools to do the career days. I had some interaction with those two officers that really tweaked my interest in policing.”
“I was interested in the law. I was looking to become a lawyer. I had gone to university and had a psychology and law degree with studies in criminology. Criminology was just becoming popular back then. I went to Carleton University and it was one of the first schools to have a criminology program in Ontario at that time,” Baker said.
“It was the law that interested me and interacting with people and the variety of things that you do on the job as a police officer. It wasn’t the same thing every day. You never knew what you were going to get when you walked into work that day.”
Baker joined the OPP in 1990, first posted to Chapleau for four years then Blind River for one year before coming to the Sault detachment.
Female police officers were already becoming more common when Baker joined the OPP, but she said “there was still lots of change to come in regards to women and policing. Although the opportunities were starting to become more and more, there was still a lot of work to be done.”
Those times have changed dramatically, with more female officers taking senior positions.
“We sure have (come a long way). Absolutely.”
“I never looked at it, even when I was hired, as a male or female profession. I looked at it as ‘was I capable of doing the job?’ Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and that’s what makes working on a platoon and on a team so important, is that you all draw on each other’s strengths and complement where the weaknesses are.”
Any advice for anyone thinking of becoming a police officer?
“Fitness is key, being physically fit, and being involved in your community. It’s that sense of community and also education. Education is part of it, but not all of it. We have a lot of people that are joining us in second careers now, coming on with backgrounds in other professions which are being utilized in their role as police officers.”
Baker pointed to trained psychologists (mental health) and bankers (fraud investigations) as examples.
Baker, who volunteers with the Alzheimer Society and enjoys visiting seniors at long term care homes, said she plans to enjoy the outdoors and maintain physical fitness in her retirement.
“I’m big on the outdoors and fitness has always been a passion and a priority in my life. I plan on running a few half marathons this summer. I’ve a little bit of training to do.”
“I say I run like a turtle in peanut butter, but that’s okay,” she said with a laugh.