After a week to review the BCCLA’s report on RCMP activities in rural and northern communities, the RCMP has issued a press release announcing that it is dismissing the report and any changes in policy that could be drawn from it.
“Unfortunately, the RCMP response dismissing this report is emblematic of a force that is appropriately facing a crisis of public confidence,” says David Eby, Executive Director of the Association and the report’s author. “If the RCMP ignore the trends and advice in this feedback, it is sad evidence that nothing has changed in the force’s culture since Air India and Dziekanski.” Eby noted that the RCMP has not asked for details on any specific incidents described in the report, and that the information is available to the force if they do wish to investigate further.
The RCMP media release inaccurately suggested that aboriginal leadership had been excluded from the process. In fact, a delegate from the Skeetchestn, delegates from the Ulkatcho First Nation, and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs participated in workshops. The RCMP also identified the report’s failure to consult with Mayors and political leaders a factor that made the report less reliable.
“While we’re interested in what the Mayors of these cities will have to say, it was not the focus of this report,” says Eby. “We wanted to talk to people who engage with the RCMP while the RCMP is enforcing the law in the street, not the people who deal with the RCMP while officers are wearing their formal dress uniforms.” Workshops were held in community centres, aboriginal friendship centres and homeless shelters to ensure that groups with regular and repeated contact with the RCMP were able to participate.
The RCMP release suggests that the negative opinions in the report “do not reflect the sentiments of the community as a whole,” but that the positive opinions are accurate. The force has yet to offer any public consultations of their own, or even the text of the provincial audit of the RCMP, to counter the public opinions contained in the BCCLA report.
Read the RCMP’s official media response to the BCCLA report here
Read the BCCLA Report – Small Town Justice here
MEDIA CONTACTS:
David Eby, Executive Director, (778) 865-7997
Robert Holmes, President, (604) 681-1310
