RCMP Watch

Michael Tutton, Halifax (Canadian Press) - Civilian agencies across Canada are gradually gaining more power over who investigates complaints against police abuses, experts attending a national conference on police oversight said Wednesday.

The topic arose during a meeting in Halifax of the Canadian Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, attended by some of the country’s leading jurists.

Patrick LeSage, a former chief justice of Ontario who studied the police complaints’ system in his province, said changes he recommended to give civilians more control of investigations are coming soon.

Under the new law, Ontario’s independent police review director will screen complaints and determine how they’re handled.

“They (the province) are in the process of actually implementing legislation, I believe by next spring, and clearly the decision on who investigates (a case) will be made by the independent director,” he said during an interview.

The issue of whether it’s appropriate for police to investigate their own alleged abuses also came up Tuesday in Fredericton.

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP released a report saying the federal police did a poor job handling their inquiry into the investigation of sexual abuse at the Kingsclear training school in New Brunswick.

The report said there was no coverup of police wrongdoing, but investigators didn’t take proper notes and public confidence was shaken in the process.

A key recommendation says “any sensitive or large-scale investigation which impact on the community’s trust of the RCMP should be tasked to another police service.”

Brooke McNabb, vice-president of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, attended the Halifax conference. He said there “is a general trend to modernize civilian accountability of police services.”

He said his agency has proposed draft federal legislation that would give it more power to decide whether an outside police agency is used for a review.

In British Columbia, a review by former B.C. Supreme Court justice Josiah Wood has also suggested reforms for his province’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.

Wood’s report recommended police be compelled by law to co-operate with internal and external investigations.

Bruce Brown, deputy commissioner of the B.C. complaint commissioner, said the changes would become part of “the agency’s toolbox to ensure accountability.”

In B.C., he said amendments are being considered to the Police Act that would allow the commission to use computers to monitor the inquiries into alleged police abuse.

“So I can sit at my desk and monitor what the police are doing in their internal investigation,” said Brown.

Brown said it remains up to the B.C. legislature whether that reform and others are passed as amendments to the province’s Police Act.

Unlike nations such as Ireland, where all complaints about police are handled by a civilian agency, in Canada the police usually investigate themselves.

In some cases, such as in Ontario - and more recently Alberta - special independent units have been created to investigate “serious issues” such as a death or allegations of sexual assault.