RCMP civilian watchdog report an indictment of northern policing, say critics

Critics say a recentreport from theRCMP's civilian watchdog group highlightingshoddy reporting by police in northern British Columbiais an indictmentof police practices there.

The Civilian Review and ComplaintsCommission for theRCMPreleased a report on Wednesday. Italso found serious record-keeping gaps, policy weaknesses or compliance issues related to police investigations of public intoxication, personal searches and use of force.

• RCMP watchdog's probe into review of northern B.C. policing thwarded by poor record keeping

One NDP politician says the report draws attention toashortcoming in the federal Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry, which was established last year by the Liberal government to examine the disappearances and deaths of thousands of Indigenous women across Canada.

That is, policing is not explicitly included in the inquiry's terms of reference,said New DemocratMP SheilaMalcolmson.

'Make women safer'

"I'm very afraid theinquirywillnot succeed if we don'texplicitlyinclude policepracticeswith a view toimprovingthem, to make police better respected, and to make women safer," said Malcolmson, the MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith.

The watchdog report took an in-depth look at how officers handled cases involving public intoxication, strip searches, domestic violence, missing persons, use of force and files including young people between 2008 and 2012.

It said some of the poor police record-keeping makes it impossible to tell whether many missing persons cases were properly investigated

It found that in nearly 50per cent of missing persons cases, police failed to investigate "promptly and thoroughly."

Commission Chair Ian McPhail saidin many instances, supervisors have failed in their duties to provide guidance and oversight.

Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, calledthe RCMP's failureto keep proper recordsa "shocking failure" on the part of police officers and supervisors.

"This is just being done inadequately across the north," Paterson said. "And that is the blockbuster revelation in the report today."

First Nations groupsin northern B.C. said the report reinforces suspicions long harboured by Indigenous people that missing persons cases weren't properly looked into.

Report 'not surprising'

"I think it's very alarming, it's very disconcerting," said Mary Teegee withCarrier SekaniFamily Services in Prince George.

"However, it is not surprising and I think the long history that we've had with the RCMP,the treatment of Indigenous people, we've heard this in the work that we do anecdotally."

The report focused exclusively on the North District, which is headquartered in Prince George and has 35 detachments and more than 600 members.

It makes 31 recommendations aimed at improving transparency and accountability through better reporting, policies, supervisory review and training.

The complaints commission initiated the investigation in May of 2013 in response to concerns about policing in northern B.C. raised by individuals and various human rights and civil liberties groups, as well as a provincial inquiry into missing women.

With a report from The Canadian Press and Meera Bains