New category of complaint aimed at helping RCMP track discrimination by officers
CBC found more than 50 allegations — categorized as improper attitude — in 8 years of N.B. data
Police and Public Trust, a project of the CBC News Atlantic investigative unit, scrutinizes the largely off-limits police complaint and discipline systems across the region. Journalists are using access to information laws and, in some cases, court challenges to obtain discipline records and data.
Eight years ago, a woman filed a complaint about two New Brunswick RCMP constables in Moncton. She accused them of having "an improper and racist attitude" and of discriminating against her and her husband during an investigation into a stolen truck and trailer.
The couple's allegations aren't described in detail in the complaint. But the RCMP's description of the complaint itself, contained in data sent to CBC News, uses a derogatory term to describe the man's race, while also noting the complaints against both officers were "unsupported."
A few years later, in 2021, an investigation supported an allegation of improper attitude made against a different New Brunswick RCMP officer, a constable in the Oromocto detachment, who said that "all natives were wiped out of Newfoundland." It's not clear what, if any, action was taken against the officer.
Then, in 2022, a constable in the Moncton area was accused of laughing at the complainant's son with special needs. That complaint was still under investigation when the data was sent to CBC.
They are three of at least 52 allegations of bias or discrimination by RCMP officers across New Brunswick between 2015 and 2022.
But for years, the force's complaint system didn't have an internal system to track complaints related to bias.
Instead, these allegations, along with others across the country, were often put into a category called "improper attitude," which can include behaviour considered to be rude or abusive. This made it difficult to accurately track just how often the public complained about discrimination by RCMP officers.
The RCMP added a new complaint category, called bias, as of April 1.
It's meant to capture allegations of discrimination related to "race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability, or a conviction for which a pardon has been granted or a record suspended."
In New Brunswick, where Indigenous leaders have called for changes to the way the RCMP polices their communities, Chief Allan Polchies sees value in the public being able to know more about these complaints.
"You want to be able to track the employee or the officer," said Polchies, of Sitansisk (St. Mary's First Nation).
"If the officer has been called for five calls, and they're doing the same thing and it's not working, then they have that data. I'm not sure how performance reviews work with police officers or how they're promoted, but I'm guessing if there's enough complaints against them, if you're doing something wrong, and it's not being corrected, then that's not a service to the communities."
8 years of complaints
CBC obtained details from eight years' worth of complaint files through the access to information system as part of the ongoing Police and Public Trust project, which takes the public inside the often-opaque systems of police complaints and discipline across Atlantic Canada.
In a statement, a spokesperson at national RCMP headquarters in Ottawa said the new category will help the force identify and understand systemic issues more clearly and "drive meaningful change in the organization."
Having the information, and having it broken down into a specific category, can offer a fuller picture of what the public is complaining about, according to Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, who studies the intersection of race and crime.
"Even if those complaints often end up being found to be unconfirmed or unfounded, recognizing that level of sentiment amongst the public, and that the public are complaining about these things, is key in terms of community relations and identifying issues that need to be attended to, whether it is communication or it's a practice measure," said Owusu-Bempah, who teaches at the University of Toronto.
"We know that relatively few members of the public who experience mistreatment by the police will complain. And we also know, based on available data, that racialized individuals, marginalized individuals are less likely actually to complain because they don't believe that their complaints will be taken seriously or anything will be done with those."
The RCMP couldn't say yet what it's learned from the data it has collected on complaints of bias since April, since many of those complaints are still under investigation. But the force says it plans to evaluate the implementation of the new complaint category and the data collected as part of it.
The RCMP doesn't plan to go back in time to re-categorize old complaints that would fall under the new bias category.
Owusu-Bempah said this could be a worthwhile exercise.
"Making it a homophobic or a sexist or a racist slur is different than a simple problem with an officer's attitude," he said.
"And that really needs to be identified so that it could be first of all conveyed to the public, so the public has an understanding of how the police are treating members of the public, but also importantly for disciplinary reasons, for educational and for training purposes."
Issue flagged by civilian watchdog
The lack of a more specific category was a problem raised two years ago in a report by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, the independent agency that fields complaints about RCMP members' on-duty conduct. Members of the public can request a review by the agency if they are unsatisfied with the RCMP's review of their complaint.
The complaints commission reviewed the force's "bias-free policing model" and, among other changes, recommended creation of a new complaint-allegation category specifically to capture allegations of bias.
The RCMP had been tracking complaints alleging bias in a spreadsheet since 2018, but commission found the tracking to be "inadequate" because it wasn't integrated into the overall complaint process and didn't allow for independent review or reporting. Not having such a category made it difficult for the RCMP to fully understand the depth of the issue.
"We made this recommendation to support the RCMP in better identifying and understanding potential trends in biased policing, through improved data," Kate McDerby, the commission's director of strategic communications and outreach, said in a statement.
In its most recent annual report, the commission says it is "generally supportive of steps being taken to improve bias-free policing in the RCMP."
But it also plans to "closely monitor the introduction and management of the allegation, as well as policy compliance and training effectiveness of the RCMP's bias-free policing model."
While it's not yet clear how many complaints the RCMP have collected under the new bias category, the force requires all RCMP employees to complete two mandatory training courses on bias: one called "Cultural Awareness and Humility" and another called "Uniting Against Racism."
Only the cultural awareness course was mandatory when the complaints commission reviewed the RCMP's "bias-free policing model." That report called for the training to be periodic, but RCMP employees are still only required to take the mandatory training courses once.
"In the [commission's] view, one-and-done training is unlikely to achieve the desired result, as lasting change requires lasting learning," the report said. " As such, it is recommended that the policy be amended to include a provision for periodic training."
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