This is good news as far as it goes. But we need civilian investigations into all cases of police wrongdoing, not just death or serious injury.

The civilians should be free of one-sided loyalties. That would rule out Stan Lowe and his crew of ex-cops at B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, who “oversee” municipal police self-investigations.

While we can commend an NDP MP for his initiative, we should ask why the provincial NDP supports Bill 7. They’re helping the BC Liberals preserve the system of municipal cops investigating themselves, with “oversight” from Stan Lowe and his crew of ex-cops at the OPCC.

http://www.bcpolicecomplaints.org/media.html#ndp

Two independent prosecutors investigated the Bush death and found that the RCMP investigation was well done. To me Mr Cullen is just playing politics and delving into more Mountie Bashing a common game in western Canada. RCMP officers are the best trained police force in North America. Look at OLN network tonight for an excellent series on what the RCMP actually does in Canada. Many will be very surprised.

Fact that Mexico or Communist China has police force much worse than Canada, does not comfort Mrs. Linda Bush or Mrs. Zofia Cisowski.
In Canada we like to think that we have a best of British and American legal system. I feel that we got the worst. Police may not allow us to call our lawyer and perjury is permitted in Canada.
In US one could be executed in 1951 for it, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were, in Canada there are hardly any convictions for it. Members of the RCMP, keep fabricating evidence to testify under oath. Courts will forgive you, will we?

Don't apologize for the RCMP. Let them do it.
They are far from perfect. We drop the training standards and the results are gut wrenching at times. Tell them a taser is good for buzzing both the old and young. Don't take any lip (verbal abuse or verbal resistance). If they are still moving put the fattest cops knee on their neck and buzz them again. We'll all pretend that the victims deserve it (whatever 'it' is). There is a lost moral compass around here, somewhere.....
Oh yah, I almost forgot... The watering down of civil society has to do with money. Tax cuts for the greedy in proportion to their wants. Everyone else gets short shrift. The root of all evil.
Get the standards back up so these people can retrieve their humanity and respect. So they can feel it every day.

Greg Klein I agree with you, but not all of the OPCC Investigative Analysts are ex-cops. There is one, yup only one, who is not. William MacDonald is the only one at the OPCC not associated currently or formerly with the police or the Criminal Justice Branch. From my experience, the cops HATE him and know they're in for a tough ride if he oversees a complaint against them. If someone bothers to complain to the OPCC their only hope of a fair and unbiased investigation is if MaCDonald handles their complaint. If you recall, he's the one guy at the OPCC who refused to let the cops off over the Frank Paul case and ended up forcing a public hearing on the issue even though everyone else wanted to sweep it under the rug. I wonder what would happen if people who complained to the OPCC insisted that no ex-cops be allowed to handle their complaint because of potential bias? The bad news is that it looks like the OPCC will be taking over the oversight responsibility for the RCMP in BC as well in the very near future so it will still be mostly ex-cops overseeing cops with pretty much no civilians in sight.

Thanks, Spectator. I didn’t know about that.

Unfortunately this one exception is hardly a harbinger of change, because the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is still hiring ex-cops.

In fact sometime during the last year or so the OPCC hired Rollie Woods, who used to head Vancouver Police Professional Standards, which handles complaints against VPD officers. I think this raises concerns about possible cronyism in the OPCC’s hiring practices as well as in its decisions.

I agree that the Mounties should not be investigating themselves. I was once a victum of one of their self investigations.
The whole thing was a joke. They tried to sweep the problem under the rug. It didn't matter how far up the chain of command you went it was all the same!

The oversight needs to be conducted by a civilian agency. But surely it's likely that most of its working level investigators will inevitably be former police officers. How else are you going to find people experienced and knowledgable in the field of investigating crimes?

Rod Smelser

Bang on Roddy. I would venture that the RCMP are also badly in need of a union as well. Spectator is out to lunch on the the local Provincial group taking over for the CPC. Not happening. All you will see is a large expansion to the already totally civilian CPC with respect to the RCMP. Especially to its investigative oversight program established a short time ago. Remember the RCMP also employs fully federally funded federal squads in the Province and that none can be reportable to a Provincial body without some form of legislative change at both levels.

Ex-cops are inappropriate as civilian investigators. “Cameron Ward said there’s a culture of brotherhood that is unique to the police, and that it doesn’t generally allow an impartial and objective investigation within the ranks. This culture, according to Ward, isn’t found in other professions.” Check out this Straight article:

http://www.straight.com/article-111628/lawyers-demand-new-process

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin, the former head of the Special Investigations Unit (which investigates complaints against police in Ontario) says it’s naive to think ex-cops will be impartial about complaints against police.

People without police connections, like lawyers, journalists and others, are much better suited to conduct these investigations.

Also, I get the impression that police are recruited more for their personality type than for their ability to understand law and evaluate evidence.

I think an independent review of decisions from the ex-cops at B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner would cause a scandal. Unfortunately the OPCC answers to no one. In theory it answers only to the legislature. But the legislature doesn’t review its work for fairness, so the OPCC really answers to no one.