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Former Saskatoon Police Service sergeant Robbie Taylor lost his job last year over a friendship with a Hells Angels associate, and on Friday he lost an appeal to get his job back.
Taylor was fired from the Saskatoon Police Service in March 2025, and was appealing the dismissal at an independent hearing that centered around his relationship with the associate, whose identity is protected by a publication ban.
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Hearing Officer Ronnie Nordell declared Taylor to be unsuitable for police service on Friday, Robbie Taylor’s lawyer Brian Pfefferle said.
He said the decision would be appealed.
“Our plan is to digest the decision and determine what grounds of appeal we anticipate putting forward,” he told 650 CKOM News in an interview.
“To be blunt, we’ll continue to appeal this so that the matter is heard to the fullest extent we need. It’s a case we take very seriously,” Pfefferle said.
During the hearing, held in November, Saskatoon police chief Cam McBride noted three specific examples from a report that highlighted why Taylor was dismissed.
In the first instance, he said Taylor had intervened in a traffic stop conducted by another police officer in October of 2023 in an effort to influence the officer not to issue a ticket.
Secondly, McBride said Taylor wrote a letter to the Parole Board of Canada, seeking to provide a character reference that would give his associate an advantage in seeking a pardon.
McBride said he found the letter to be inaccurate and inappropriate, and said it raised significant concerns.
“We have an individual who is the subject of the request for the pardon being a convicted drug trafficker and member of the Hells Angels,” he said.
Finally, McBride said Taylor made a direct attempt to influence other investigators, promoting his own opinion that “he’s not someone of concern, and that he’s a really good guy.”
McBride testified that Taylor had the training, advice from his peers and work-related experience in order to make a rational and informed decision about the relationship.
“I was confident that Mr. Taylor got everything a person should need to make a wise decision, and was choosing not to,” McBride said. “That was sustained over time.”
McBride stressed the importance of maintaining the public’s trust in the police service. He said that “trust was broken” and “irreparable,” and Taylor’s actions put the police service at risk.
During the hearing, Pfefferle said Taylor’s friend, who has a criminal past, was someone who’d had really negative experiences with law enforcement as a young person, causing them to be scared of and hate police officers, but Taylor was able to change that.
According to Pfefferle, it was Taylor’s compassion which cost him his job, and that Taylor made associations with people with prior criminal history in an effort to assist them by being a “pro-social person” in their lives.
He also said there was no suggestion that Taylor had shared any police information with the Hells Angels and he was open and honest about the relationship.
Pfefferle said on Friday that said losing the appeal isn’t the end of the road for Taylor and he could pursue the matter with the Saskatchewan Police Commission — the final appeal body in disciplinary and dismissal matters in the province — and “other avenues thereafter.”
“The reasons that she (Hearing Officer Ronnie Nordell) gave essentially were that she upheld the decision of the chief of police that due to an association which they felt compromised Taylor’s position as a police officer, he was deemed to be unsuitable,” Pfefferle said.
He said he was very disappointed in the decision, adding it has “a chilling effect.”
“This idea that a discreditable association or undesirable association can prevent a member from making connections … can have a lasting impact,” Pfefferle said.
Joshua Grella, spokesperson for Saskatoon Police Service, said in a statement the force was grateful to Nordal for her diligence and ultimately upholding the decision to dismiss Taylor.
“As a police service, we hold our officers to the highest of personal and professional standards and expect them to uphold the oaths they’ve sworn, to serve our community,” the statement said.
—with files by 650 CKOM’s and Marija Robinson
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