The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) claims it does not spy on journalists.

That assertion was made emphatically in a response to an inquiry from the Straight. In response, Staff Sgt. Randy Fincham maintained the VPD does not monitor reporters’ communications via their mobile phones.

“The VPD has never electronically monitored journalists electronic communications,” reads a statement supplied by the spokesperson for the force.

“Unfortunately I can’t speak to if a journalist has ever been a result of a criminal investigation, and has been the subject of a judicial authorization to obtain cellular data,” it continues. “But I don’t ever recall hearing of one, and we likely wouldn’t be made aware.”

In a brief telephone interview, Fincham explained that if a journalist was under investigation—for suspicion of drug trafficking, for example—the fact that they worked in media would be considered incidental, and the VPD’s media relations unit likely would not be informed of their occupation.

The Straight raised the question of whether police are spying on journalists in Vancouver following an admission by Montreal police that they had monitored activity on an iPhone used by Patrick Lagacé, a columnist for the French-language daily newspaper La Presse.

According to an October 31 report by the Montreal Gazette, the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) obtained warrants that allowed officers to monitor the telephone numbers associated with all incoming and outgoing calls and text messages to and from Lagacé’s mobile phone.

Police also had the ability to activate the phone’s GPS device and monitor the journalist’s location.

The objective of the Montreal police was to determine the identity of a source who had communicated with Lagacé.

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Following those revelations, CBC News reported on November 2 that the Sûreté du Québec, a provincial police force, had monitored the cellphone communications of six journalists for a period in 2013.

Three of those reporters worked for Radio Canada. Another was employed by the Journal de Montréal, while a fifth worked for La Presse. The identity of the sixth journalist monitored by police in 2013 remains unknown.