During his thirty-one-year policing career, Jean-Michel (JM) Blais served with the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the United Nations (UN), and the Halifax

Regional Police (HRP). With the RCMP, he worked in Québec, Manitoba, Ontario,

and Nova Scotia in the areas of municipal, provincial, aboriginal, and federal policing.

He also worked nationally as the chief adjudicator and prosecutor for the RCMP’s

internal disciplinary tribunal.

During his tenure in the RCMP, he was first seconded to the UN in Haiti as a

frontline police officer in 1995. In 2008, he returned there as the Deputy Police

Commissioner in charge of UN police operations. In January 2010, following the

devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, he led the recovery mission of the bodies of

two Canadian police officers who had perished in the earthquake.

In October 2012, after twenty-five years, Jean-Michel retired from the RCMP at the

rank of Chief Superintendent to become the fourth chief of police of HRP, a service

of over seven hundred employees serving a population of some 400,000 people.

During his time in HRP, he collaborated very closely with the community, serving on

numerous local charitable boards and as a director of both the Canadian Police

Knowledge Network (CPKN) and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

(CACP). He retired from HRP in May 2019 after which he started Empiric Consultancy

Solutions, offering his services to private and public entities.

He has two degrees, one in political science and economics from McGill University

and another in law from Université Laval in Québec City.

He has published several works on international and national police-related topics,

including organized crime, Internet child pornography, human rights, the rule of law

in Haiti, aboriginal law, and the use of human sources in policing. He has also

lectured extensively on leadership and modern police management, with specific

emphasis on dealing with problem employees, unexpected events, legal obligations of

employers, law enforcement sustainability, as well as mental health and wellness in

first responder organizations. Jean-Michel has also a TEDx talk to his credit, available

online.

His interests include reading, writing, and hockey as a Hockey Canada Level III

referee. He is married with three adult children as well as two dogs.

In 2022, Jean-Michel published a book of memoirs and lessons in leadership and

complexity titled Working the Blue Lines - Lessons in Leadership from Hockey and Policing. In

2023, he contributed a chapter to a collective work of fiction titled Less Than Innocent.