Commissioner’s Statement: External Investigation or Review Policy

Today, the RCMP is announcing a new policy intended to ensure fair, effective, independent and impartial investigations of RCMP employees.

The External Investigation or Review Policy provides for a combination of external investigations, independent observers and independent review, as well as formal requirements with respect to potential conflicts of interest.

This new policy has been developed in consultation with federal, provincial and territorial partners, and addresses recommendations made by the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP.

The policy governs investigations where there is a serious injury or death of an individual involving an RCMP employee or it appears that an employee of the RCMP may have contravened a provision of the Criminal Code or other statute and the matter is of a serious or sensitive nature.

In these circumstances, the RCMP will refer the investigation to a provincially or federally established regime. Where no regime has been established, the RCMP will request an external law enforcement agency or other duly authorized investigative agency to conduct the investigation.

If an independent external investigation is not feasible or appropriate due, for example, to the lack of available resources, the policy outlines additional requirements. These include bringing in officers from a different province from where the incident occurred to conduct the investigation and the appointment of independent observers or providing for independent review.

If the RCMP must investigate its employees, cases will be assigned a team of at least two members who will be screened for any actual or perceived conflict of interest. The policy also provides that the rank of the primary investigator will, whenever possible, be higher than that of the subject being investigated. In addition, the policy provides for independent third party observers or independent review of investigations.

As I have often stated, the RCMP must strive to be as open and transparent as possible and fully accountable for our actions.

We would prefer the RCMP never to be called upon to conduct investigations of our employees.

In some provinces regimes are in place to conduct independent investigations, such as in Alberta, with the Alberta serious investigation response team. Similar models are being developed in Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

The new policy will serve as an interim measure while the RCMP continues to work with federal, provincial, territorial and municipal partners within existing mandates and legislative frameworks, to provide to the greatest extent possible for independent investigation, observation or review, and to work in support of new legislative and other initiatives to enhance this important aspect of police accountability.

The RCMP encourages the adoption of independent investigative bodies for all jurisdictions.

I believe that the RCMP has, in the past, conducted impartial, thorough and professional investigations of our members’ actions. This has been validated time and time again by the Commission for Public Complaints (CPC) Against the RCMP. While the CPC has acknowledged that at times improvements could be made, overall it found that our investigations were thoroughly and impartially conducted.

However, I am convinced that we collectively have to raise the bar in terms of how we respond to situations where life is lost, serious injuries sustained or sensitive matters of public confidence and trust are raised.

We consider this policy to be an interim step to provide further independence and assurances of impartiality whenever employees of the RCMP are under investigation.

Here with me today is Assistant Commissioner Bob Paulson from Contract and Aboriginal Policing. We would be happy to take your questions.