Someone to watch the RCMP

(Opinion, Ottawa Citizen) – The announcement from British Columbia this week that the province will set up a civilian oversight office to investigate police is both welcome and overdue.

The proposed Independent Investigations Office would answer numerous calls to end the practice of having the RC-MP investigate themselves. Among those recommending the move was retired judge Thomas Braidwood, in his report on the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski after he was Tasered multiple times in 2007.

The oversight office is a necessary step in repairing the damage done to public confidence in the RCMP -in British Columbia, in particular, but across the country as well -by the police force’s actions in Dziekanski’s death, as well as the death of 22-year-old Ian Bush, who was shot in the back of the head while in an RCMP detachment in B.C.

It is tragic that both of those deaths occurred “before the practice of police investigating themselves could be put to rest forever. But that day has arrived,” Braidwood told reporters after the announcement.

Now that the day has arrived, the British Columbia government must ensure the civilianled unit’s work is transparent, accountable and independent from outside influence.

British Columbia is one of the provinces in which the RC-MP operates municipal police forces, which means the RC-MP is much more visible and active there than in Ontario or Quebec, which have their own provincial and municipal police forces. Ontario also has the Special Investigations Unit, which, while not perfect, is a model for civilian oversight of police officers involved in serious incidents.

In the Dziekanski case, Braidwood found that officers were not justified in using a Taser multiple times and that officers involved in the incident later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.

In his report, Braidwood stressed that the case involved a few officers. “It ought not to reflect the many thousands of RCMP and other police officers who have, through years of public service, protected our communities and earned a well-deserved reputation for doing so.”

But, in fact, confidence in the RCMP, including the many hard-working, commendable officers, has been damaged. A new, more credible, oversight system will benefit those officers as much as it does the public by helping to restore confidence in a public institution.