Prior to that, he was a psychologist with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board for 17 years. Phil consults to the Ottawa Police Service tactical team negotiators and provides support to police following critical incidents. He has consulted to the Department of National Defence, the City of Ottawa and Health Canada around critical incident preparedness, and has been involved in the response to a number of disasters including the crash of Swissair Flight 111, the OC Transpo shootings, the tsunami in Sri Lanka, and most recently, the OC Transpo/VIA train collision in Ottawa.