Updated: Mon Oct. 19 2009 4:48:00 PM CTV News
The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Ontario's new civilian agency to deal with police complaints fails to fully address the key problem of police investigating their own, critics said Monday.
The government on Monday opened the office of the independent police review director, an agency created in response to a report by Patrick LeSage, who recommended a new independent body to deal with public complaints about the police four years ago.
The new system, headed by Gerry McNeilly, will have more civilian oversight and keep people better informed about complaints about any provincial, regional or municipal police officer.
But Nathalie Des Rosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said those changes still give a fair bit of discretion to the office about whether to take a complaint out of the hands of a police force.
"When the police are involved in investigating their own, the concern is the absence of transparency, the inability for the public to be ensured that everything has been done according to the law," she said.
"Transparency is important if you're trying to ensure not only that justice is done but justice is seen to be done, and that's important when you're talking about police misconduct, because you're talking about rebuilding trust toward the police in general."
Attorney General Chris Bentley said he hoped the new office will make it easier for people to bring forth complaints and provide a more transparent system.
The level of police involvement in any case, he added, will be up to McNeilly's office, an arm's-length government agency staffed by civilians.
"They can have it done by their office, they can have it done by another police force, they can have it done by somebody within the same police force," said Bentley.
Des Rosiers said her association will be watching to see whether the complaints are done in an appropriate fashion or if they continue to stay within the police force all the time.
"When the ex-attorney general Michael Bryant was charged, they immediately thought that they had to retain an outside police force and an outside lawyer to prosecute him, because it was obvious to them that the public would not accept an internal investigation," Des Rosiers said.
"We're saying it doesn't matter whether it's Michael Bryant or Joe Blow police officer -- it's the same problem. The public is not certain that justice is done unless there is some outside and some civilian oversight."
Bryant was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving of a vehicle causing death in a fatal accident involving a cyclist on Aug. 30.
The Ontario government immediately hired top Vancouver criminal lawyer Richard Peck to prosecute the case in order to avoid any suggestions of political interference.
Progressive Conservative critic Garfield Dunlop said he was worried about the expense of the agency, a body he said may just create more red tape.
"My guess is it won't be a very busy oversight body. It will be expensive, but it won't be very busy," said Dunlop.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said her party supported a more civilian role in police oversight, but questioned why it took the government since 2005 to implement the recommendations.
"It's taken quite a long time and, although we're glad to see it's really up and running, it's taken far too long," she said.