Canadian Cops, a thread for policing in Canada

[Gurn]

WTF!

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/appalling-allegations-at-b-c-police-undercover-training-course-prompt-investigation/ar-AAXVQad?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=a1e325c2249740b1bb5746ecae34e259

AGlobal News investigation has uncovered disturbing allegations linked to numerous policing agencies in B.C., and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has confirmed that its own probe is underway.

According to sources, about 24 police officers were attending an undercover training course at a downtown Vancouver hotel earlier this month. In attendance were officers from the police departments in Surrey, Vancouver, Abbotsford and New Westminster, as well as the Metro Vancouver Transit Police.

 

Those officers were asked to role-play and show how they might convince those on the wrong side of the law that they weren't police officers. In one instance, this allegedly involved defecation on another person, food used in a sexual manner, and other even more perverse acts.

Sources tell Global News that the course immediately stopped, and some officers found the role-playing so disturbing that they reported it to their supervisors

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which investigates allegations of misconduct by municipal police, said municipal police chiefs reported what occurred to them and requested an investigation under the Police Act.

"The Commissioner has determined that it is in the public interest to disclose that information has been brought to our attention related to allegations of serious misconduct on the part of a number of officers participating in a recent BC Municipal Police undercover training course," the office said in a statement.

"The alleged misconduct involves municipal police officers from multiple BC municipal police departments and is alleged to have occurred within the course activities."

When asked about the investigation, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said any probe would also involve his ministry's director of police services

"It sounds disgusting, if those allegations are in fact correct. It's just appalling, frankly," Farnworth said.

Members of the RCMP also attended the training, but were not participating, Global News has learned.

"There is no RCMP internal or outside agency investigation dealing with any allegations against a RCMP employee or employees related to the course or the concerns you raised," the RCMP told Global News in a statement.

It's believed that nine of the participating municipal officers are under investigation.

 

[Gurn]

Man loses 'right' to jury trial:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/man-charged-with-inciting-hate-toward-women-loses-right-to-jury-trial/ar-AAY39FK?bk=1&ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8c7f8f3606454581a99fe5cdde196121

A man who visited three banks Monday morning, making him late for jury selection in a case where he is charged with inciting hatred toward women, has lost his right to be judged by a panel of his peers.

 

In a decision delivered Friday, Superior Court Justice Pierre Labrie said he did not buy Jean-Claude Rochefort’s excuse for why he didn’t make it to the Montreal courthouse on time for his jury selection.

Rochefort, 73, said he stopped in at a Caisse Desjardins to sign a document, and then panicked when he realized he did not have enough money in his wallet to take a taxi to the courthouse.

Though he had money in his account at that bank, he decided to go to his Royal Bank branch because he preferred to withdraw money there, he said.

He said he also ended up going to a Banque Nationale branch before finally arriving at the courthouse more than 90 minutes late.

By then, the judge had sent home the 230 people who had turned up for the jury selection process, and issued a warrant for Rochefort’s arrest.

“The actions of Mr. Rochefort show a flagrant and unacceptable contempt for the justice system and for the citizens who were summoned to come to the courthouse for jury selection,” Labrie said.

“Through his deliberate actions, Mr. Rochefort thwarted the administration of justice by sabotaging the jury selection. The court is of the opinion that Mr. Rochefort’s behaviour was designed to undermine the public’s confidence in the administration of justice. The court cannot take undermining the administration of justice lightly.”

The judge ordered Rochefort’s trial to begin Monday before a judge alone.

Rochefort is charged with inciting hatred against an identifiable group — in this case, women — based on comments he is alleged to have posted on the internet that referenced Marc Lépine, who killed 14 women and wounded 14 others at École Polytechnique de Montréal on Dec. 6, 1989.

Included in the blog was a photo of Lépine holding a firearm next to another photo of women gathered at a memorial for the victims of the mass murder.

Rochefort is alleged to have referred to the day of the killings as “the birth of Saint Marc Lépine.”

Reading from his judgment, Labrie said there is evidence Rochefort “invited the disciples of Marc Lépine” to prepare “their ammunition belts” and “polish their rifles.”

Defence lawyer Rodolphe Bourgeois suggested it might not be fair for Labrie to hear the trial, given that he has already found Rochefort to be lacking in credibility.

Labrie said he saw no problems with hearing the trial, and told Bourgeois he can file a motion if he felt otherwise.

[Playoff Beered]

On 5/31/2022 at 1:37 PM, gurn said:

WTF!

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/appalling-allegations-at-b-c-police-undercover-training-course-prompt-investigation/ar-AAXVQad?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=a1e325c2249740b1bb5746ecae34e259

AGlobal News investigation has uncovered disturbing allegations linked to numerous policing agencies in B.C., and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has confirmed that its own probe is underway.

According to sources, about 24 police officers were attending an undercover training course at a downtown Vancouver hotel earlier this month. In attendance were officers from the police departments in Surrey, Vancouver, Abbotsford and New Westminster, as well as the Metro Vancouver Transit Police.

 

Those officers were asked to role-play and show how they might convince those on the wrong side of the law that they weren't police officers. In one instance, this allegedly involved defecation on another person, food used in a sexual manner, and other even more perverse acts.

Sources tell Global News that the course immediately stopped, and some officers found the role-playing so disturbing that they reported it to their supervisors

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which investigates allegations of misconduct by municipal police, said municipal police chiefs reported what occurred to them and requested an investigation under the Police Act.

"The Commissioner has determined that it is in the public interest to disclose that information has been brought to our attention related to allegations of serious misconduct on the part of a number of officers participating in a recent BC Municipal Police undercover training course," the office said in a statement.

"The alleged misconduct involves municipal police officers from multiple BC municipal police departments and is alleged to have occurred within the course activities."

When asked about the investigation, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said any probe would also involve his ministry's director of police services

"It sounds disgusting, if those allegations are in fact correct. It's just appalling, frankly," Farnworth said.

Members of the RCMP also attended the training, but were not participating, Global News has learned.

"There is no RCMP internal or outside agency investigation dealing with any allegations against a RCMP employee or employees related to the course or the concerns you raised," the RCMP told Global News in a statement.

It's believed that nine of the participating municipal officers are under investigation.

 

 

[Gurn]

Imo- this needs to be looked at, very closely. Secret trials should never be allowed.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/lawyers-ask-quebec-court-of-appeal-to-shed-more-light-on-secret-trial/ar-AAY9wZF?bk=1&ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=eb7c027e25dc4faf87b08bd4938b0ea5

MONTREAL — The province's attorney general, the chief justice of the Quebec court and several media organizations went before the Quebec Court of Appeal today to demand more information about a secret trial.

Their lawyers argued separately that details must be made public regarding the trial, which has been criticized for being contrary to the fundamental principles of the country's justice system.

 

The trial's existence only became public earlier this year because a police informant accused in the case appealed his or her conviction, and the appeals court issued a heavily redacted ruling critical of the lower court proceedings.

Christian Leblanc, a lawyer for media organizations — including The Canadian Press — told the Court of Appeal that legal proceedings must be conducted in public to ensure the public's confidence in the justice system.

He said that while an informant's identity needs to be protected, the question becomes where to draw the line regarding what details remain confidential. 

The Court of Appeal justices will deliberate before rendering a decision at a later date.

Most details in the original case are being kept from the public, including the nature of the alleged crime and where it allegedly took place, the name of the police force involved and the names of the lawyers. As well, the original case had no official docket number.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2022.

[Gurn]

More disturbing info, about the Nova scotia shooting:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/lost-emails-and-unexplained-delays-mass-shooting-inquiry-uncovers-new-rcmp-snags/ar-AAYbaUy?bk=1&ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=b775013281f34ca98d96cc507dc42e39

HALIFAX — The inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia has revealed two new RCMP miscues that delayed a warning to the public that the killer was driving a replica police car.

In both cases, the commission of inquiry concluded the lapses could not be adequately explained, though it did offer some theories of what went wrong.

The inquiry has heard that on the night of April 18, 2020, officers were dispatched to Portapique, N.S., where they discovered an active shooter had killed several people and set fire to a number of homes. In all, 13 people were murdered in Portapique that night.

Early the next morning, the killer had still not been found, and investigators were unaware he had escaped out a back road driving what looked to be a marked RCMP patrol car.

The Mounties received a full description of the vehicle after the killer's spouse emerged from hiding in Portapique at 6:30 a.m., and relatives of the woman provided a photo of the vehicle, which was forwarded to the RCMP at 7:27 a.m.

But that photo was not shared with the public until almost three hours later, a fact that has been the subject of much speculation and public outrage.

In an evidence summary released Tuesday, the inquiry disclosed for the first time that the photo was supposed to be immediately forwarded to Lia Scanlan, the RCMP's director of strategic communications, but something went wrong.

In a previous interview with commission investigators, RCMP Staff Sgt. Addie MacCallum said he forwarded a photo of the killer and a photo of his replica car to Scanlan before 8 a.m. He also recounted how he specifically asked if she had a photo of the car, and she replied that she did not.

"So I sent her a picture of the car," MacCallum told the commission.

The commission later determined the photo of the killer made it to Scanlan, but the picture of the car went elsewhere. The evidence summary, known as a foundational document, says investigators found that MacCallum sent a second email with both photos at 8:10 a.m.

"It is unknown whether the 8:10 a.m. email and attachment were received by Lia Scanlan," the document says. "Ms. Scanlan told the Mass Casualty Commission that she was not aware of the perpetrator’s replica RCMP cruiser before 8 a.m." Notes that Scanlan took that day say nothing about the photo of the car.

At 8:54 a.m., the RCMP posted a tweet that included a description and a photo of the killer, as well as confirmation that the 51-year-old was armed and dangerous. There was no mention of the vehicle.

Previously released documents and testimony have confirmed there was discussion among senior Mounties who believed that releasing information about the replica vehicle could cause public panic and put police in danger.

"Whether or not there was a decision made at the command post to delay the release of information about the replica RCMP cruiser, it appears the preparations for such a release were underway shortly before 9 a.m. on April 19, 2020,” the foundational document says.

That’s when Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, an RCMP public information officer, emailed Scanlan to provide details about the vehicle. Clarke was told to "pull something together" for MacCallum’s approval.

Clarke testified Tuesday that the information she received, which included a photo of the car, probably came from MacCallum. She told the inquiry she worked as quickly as she could to prepare the tweet, which included making phone calls to assure its accuracy and using a computer program to highlight the car's call sign.

"We have to check every detail," she testified. "We can't be wrong."

By 9:40 a.m., Clarke sent a draft tweet with a photo of the vehicle to MacCallum, but he did not respond. MacCallum had left the command post in Great Village, N.S., to join the pursuit of the killer, who had been spotted in Wentworth, N.S., where he had fatally shot Lillian Campbell while she was out for her morning walk.

Clarke then contacted Staff Sgt. Steve Halliday, who approved the tweet at 9:49 a.m. She then sought approval from Scanlan, but there was a delay.

"I was pacing the floor," Clarke said. "It was the longest 27 minutes of my life."

The tweet wasn’t sent until 10:17 a.m. The foundational document does not provide an explanation, and Clarke did not offer one.

"Lia (Scanlan) was the conduit. That was the person I needed approval from," Clarke said.

"Look, I wish I could have 

gotten it out earlier. I don't know if I could have saved someone. I don't know that I could have worked any faster .... It wouldn't have been productive to anyone to start going rogue, so to speak, and trying to get approval from different sources."

At the time, the Mounties were dealing with a full-blown crisis. Shortly after 9:30 a.m., a series of 911 calls confirmed the killer had resumed his rampage. Soon after the RCMP learned of Campbell’s death, they were told that a body had been found next to a burning home in West Wentworth, N.S., about six kilometres away.

And just after 10 a.m., police learned of the shooting deaths of Heather O’Brien and Kristen Beaton, who was pregnant at the time. Both were killed on Plains Road in Debert, N.S.

On another front, the commission is looking into what happened after 9:11 a.m. when Chief Supt. Chris Leather, the RCMP's second-in-command in the province that morning, sent an email requesting a copy of an internal alert sent to police about the suspect and his car.

According to the commission, an investigation is ongoing into Leather’s role "in relation to the release of information about the replica RCMP cruiser."

During an earlier interview with the commission, Scanlan explained that Twitter has become the RCMP's main means of communicating with the public over the previous eight or nine years. She noted that she used Twitter to inform the public in June 2014 when a man fatally shot three Mounties in Moncton, N.B., and remained at large for 28 hours.

The Mounties have faced criticism for using Twitter to alert the public during the Nova Scotia mass shooting because the social media platform is not popular among those who live in rural settings and requires constant monitoring to be effective.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 7, 2022.

Michael MacDonald and Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press

 

[Gurn]

Worrying trend- civil forfeiture:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/can-t-justify-a-criminal-charge-take-their-stuff-instead-society-s-poor-and-addicted-hardest-hit-by-b-c-forfeiture-laws/ar-AAYk9L3?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=3278bbf956b3436bbc45081892eaadbe

 

 

Can't justify a criminal charge? Take their stuff, instead. Society's poor and addicted hardest hit by B.C. forfeiture laws

Food was on the table when Vancouver police arrived at Jason and Sabrina Thomas’s home, a 1987 GMC camper van parked by the recycling depot on Evans Drive, where a number of mobile homes can be found on any given day.

 

They arrested Jason over an argument he was alleged to have had with a bylaw officer — something Jason denies — and told the couple that they were clearing the area of campers.

“They placed me under arrest, they dragged me downtown and held me without charge for about six or seven hours,” Thomas said.

While Thomas was in custody, police used a backhoe to load the camper into a bin, the type “you would put construction concrete in,” Thomas said his wife told him, then impounded the vehicle.

“When I was released, I came back to nothing,” Thomas said, “and I was the only camper they took off the lot.”

Thomas said what he found most infuriating was that just a few weeks earlier police had suggested that he park by the depot instead of on a Downtown Eastside street, where he and Sabrina had initially parked. He had contacted police after trying to register the camper and discovering that the man he purchased the camper from wasn’t listed as its registered owner.

“What do I do about this?” he asked police. That’s when he said police told him to park by the bottle depot.

The loss of the camper left Jason and Sabrina homeless for several days, until staff at Carnegie Outreach were able to help them find a place to stay.

“Basically they just showed up on a Tuesday morning with this forfeiture thing, and took it,” Jason said of their home. “It was a nightmare.”

The 2020 seizure highlights a controversial and increasingly common police practice called administrative forfeiture, where law enforcement agencies can take  someone’s belongings, often without charging them with a crime, if the belongings are worth less than $75,000 and police believe the goods are the proceeds of a crime — typically theft or drug trafficking.

After seizing belongings, police can decide whether to ask for charges to be laid or file a forfeiture request. Forfeiture is a civil process not a criminal one, so the burden of proof on police is much lower in forfeiture cases than criminal ones.

Forfeiture requests are sent to the Civil Forfeiture Office, which decides whether or not to go ahead.

The office is required to notify subjects of the forfeiture, who can then file a dispute. If they do not file a dispute within 60 days, the confiscated belongings automatically become the property of the provincial government, which auctions them off.

While civil forfeiture cases involving multi-million dollar homes and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash get the headlines, the vast majority of forfeiture cases in B.C. — 85 per cent of cases in 2021 — are administrative forfeitures worth less than $75,000. Civil forfeiture cases are always decided by the courts, while the administrative forfeitures only end up before a judge in the rare cases when a seizure is disputed.

Administrative forfeiture was intended to “take the profit out of crime, big or small,” then-solicitor general Shirley Bond said in a statement when the law was passed in 2011.

Critics say it has largely been used to target street-level drug dealers and petty theft in lower-income neighbourhoods, particularly the Downtown Eastside, and called the law “predatory” and “a police consolation prize.”

A Postmedia analysis of five years of administrative forfeiture data in Metro Vancouver found that residents of lower-income neighbourhoods were significantly more likely to have their belongings seized by police than their wealthier neighbours. Nowhere was this more evident than in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and surrounding blocks, which made up a quarter of all seizures in Vancouver from 2016-2020, even though the neighbourhood is home to just 2.5 per cent of Vancouver’s population, according to the 2021 Census.

Critics of the law say the overrepresentation of the Downtown Eastside in the forfeiture numbers is proof of over-policing of marginalized communities and that taking people’s belongings — especially cash, phones or drugs — can force people into crimes of desperation and even put lives at risk.

Structural challenges within the legal system, including the high cost of civil litigation and the ineligibility of legal aid in civil cases, mean few of these forfeitures are challenged in court.

“This creates a totally Byzantine system that people who are in survival mode now have to navigate,” said Meenakshi Mannoe, criminalization and policing campaigner at Pivot legal services.

“If you’re someone who wholly relies on the informal economy to generate income or if you’re someone who is on income assistance or disability or a fixed pension, $100 or $500 or a cellphone is all of your discretionary spending for a month,” she said.

Despite the criticisms, police use of administrative forfeiture has grown dramatically in the decade since it was introduced.

Police in Surrey, Victoria, Burnaby and Prince George made 335 seizures in 2020, more than than any previous year, according to Postmedia’s analysis. Vancouver police used administrative forfeiture more than any other police agency in B.C., followed by the Surrey RCMP detachment and B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.

The three agencies accounted for nearly 40 per cent of all administrative forfeitures from 2011 to 2020, a period with more than 8,000 administrative forfeitures in B.C. during the same time period.

Despite the large volume of seizures made by police, the typical value of an administrative forfeiture is low. The median value of Canadian cash seized by the VPD was about $1,500. For Surrey RCMP, it was even less: $500. Even the median value of cash seized by CFSEU — a unit specializing in organized crime and gangs — was only $1,100.

“This is clearly people at the bottom echelon of the criminal world,” said Jason Sharman, after reviewing data compiled by Postmedia. He is a professor of politics at Oxford University who studies money laundering and forfeiture laws and was an expert witness at the Cullen Commission. “It would either be addicts or small-time dealers.”

“There were always the fears that the worst outcomes of civil forfeiture would be predatory,” said Bibhas Vaze, a B.C. lawyer with extensive experience working on forfeiture cases. “I think that they’re exactly borne out by the standard $1,000 forfeiture.”

“It doesn’t promote the public interest at all,” Vaze said.

“I think that there’s a perception that anyone who has cash on them is a potential criminal,” said Meenakshi Mannoe.

Andrew Leavens told a story about heading home in the Downtown Eastside at about 5:30 p.m. one day when he was stopped by four Vancouver police officers. He’d spent the day working on a construction site, he said, and tools and pieces of scrap copper stuck out the top of his backpack. The officers wanted to know where it came from.

“They thought I’d gone and broken into a place, so they took my backpack,” Leavens said. They also took his phone, which had “a big crack running down it,” he said.

“You can’t prove that you actually got this from work, can you?” Leavens said the officers asked him.

“They were just strong-arming me. I couldn’t keep up with their questions,” he said. “There was one cop here, one cop here,” he said, pointing to his left and right. “There’s one cop in the car; his partner’s outside, just watching. … It was just so overwhelming.”

Eventually, Leavens said, the officers confiscated his backpack, including the tools, scrap metal, his damaged phone and an MP3 player. Leavens said they packed the items in a plastic bag and loaded it into the trunk of the cruiser, telling him that if he wanted the items back, he would have to go to court.

“Or we can arrest you,” he said they told him.

Leavens said he was too intimidated and overwhelmed to ask for a case number and the police didn’t provide him one. So at the end of the day he was left without his phone, work tools and a small amount of scrap metal he had planned to sell for some extra income.

“They took everything I had,” he said.

In the blocks around the Downtown Eastside where most Vancouver seizures occur, the median value of confiscated cash is $965.

Police typically ask residents to produce receipts for possessions as evidence that they are not stolen, according to people who live or work in the neighbourhood.

Leavens said he has been asked to provide receipts on several occasions, including one instance where he said officers seized a bike he was riding near Commercial and 12th Avenue after he was unable to produce a receipt.

“Why would I have that?” he said he asked them.

Thomas said he’s used his phone to check serial numbers for friends in order to counter police claims about stolen goods, particularly bikes.

“We get jacked up quite a bit on the Downtown Eastside because of the bikes we ride,” he said.

“There’s this stigmatizing notion that if you’re poor, you are automatically seen as a criminal,” said Mannoe. “Why would you save up for something like a nice bike? But that’s fine if you’re middle class.”

Police often cite the presence of cash as evidence of criminal activity in forfeiture cases. But much of the Downtown Eastside’s economy is cash-based and operates on an informal level. People who make a living binning, bottle-collecting, being a day labourer or doing non-profit work are typically paid in cash, residents said.

Members of VANDU — the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users — will “regularly have hundreds of dollars” on them, said Vince Tao, an organizer for the group. “Because they don’t have a bank account or they don’t have a home.”

“I think that there’s a perception that anyone who has cash on them is a potential criminal,” said Mannoe, who said that residents “deal in cash for a lot of different work in the neighbourhood,” including work at non-profits and research organizations.

“And a lot of people prefer to use cash because then they just know how much money they have,” she said.

Leavens said VPD officers once stopped him and found what he says was $10 worth of drugs and $86 in cash — payout from a day labour job and something to relax with after work, he said. He said police took his cash, telling him they believed he’d earned it selling drugs.

“VPD officers do not seize or seek forfeiture of currency in cases of personal drug possession,” wrote Sgt. Steve Addison, a media relations officer with the VPD, in response to emailed questions. “Officers may seize currency in drug trafficking investigations, which often involve large amounts of money.”

While drawing a clear line between trafficking and personal use appears straightforward, in practice it’s not always so simple. Many people selling drugs in the Downtown Eastside are what Mannoe called “subsistence dealers” — selling small amounts of drugs in order to be able to afford drugs for themselves.

“We’ve repeatedly heard the VPD tell us that they are not going to prioritize charging subsistence dealers,” Mannoe said. “But it seems like they are willing to put resources into taking granular amounts of cash or technology.”

The need to replace seized items can increase the threat of violence, robbery and theft, and the risk of overdose as people are forced to seek a new supply of drugs of unknown quality, according to activists.

When police seize money and drugs from local dealers “they put you in harm’s way,” said Kevin Yake, a vice-president of VANDU. “When you don’t have your money and you don’t have your ‘medication,’ you might slip and do something stupid.”

Phil Tawtel, executive director of B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Office, acknowledged that “some of these street level traffickers are also subsistence users,” but said there “is a clear profit being made at the street level.”

“If they were doing armed robberies,” Tawtel said, “we would expect the police to do something.”

“For some reason, we get the sense that if they’re selling deadly fentanyl, purely for profit and killing these vulnerable (people), that somehow they should get a bye because they are equal victims. I think that is just maybe a bridge too far.”

Once possessions have been confiscated, there are a number of barriers facing lower-income residents trying to contest a seizure.

The law requires the forfeiture office notify the subject of a forfeiture that legal action has started against them, either by mail or through publication in the B.C. Gazette, an obscure online service where the government publishes regulatory and legal notices.

“I found it quite comical that smart people at the forfeiture office will be suggesting that we can just go ahead and put it (notices) in the Gazette,” Vaze said, noting that a typical resident of the Downtown Eastside “is for sure not going to be looking at the B.C. Gazette.”

The law gives a person 60 days to dispute a forfeiture, but it requires a sworn affidavit signed by a lawyer or notary, something few people in the Downtown Eastside can afford.

That also assumes a person is even aware that a forfeiture action has begun against them, something Mannoe and Vaze doubt, given the unstable housing experienced by many in the community and the Forfeiture Office’s reliance on publishing in the B.C. Gazette.

Because administrative forfeiture is a civil action, Legal Aid isn’t an option. Civil cases aren’t eligible for Legal Aid, which effectively blocks lower-income residents from contesting a seizure.

This is borne out in the figures, which show that fewer than eight per cent of administrative forfeitures are disputed, which is the first step in any attempt to reclaim possessions.

“The sheer math of it makes it untenable,” said Scott Wright, a principal with Pender Litigation, saying that part of why the dispute rate is so low.

“People aren’t going to be contesting $1,000,” said Vaze, “because they can’t. They functionally can’t.”

Vaze noted that the cost of a full civil trial could reach as high as $50,000. “You’re going to spend way more than you’re ever going to get back,” he said.

Tawtel believes there’s a different reason the rate of disputed forfeitures is so low.

“When you’re stopped in a car with a handgun, with a kilo of fentanyl, with multiple baggies with score sheets, with weigh scales and $7,000 cash, what are you going to say?” he asked.

Several experts Postmedia spoke with disputed that characterization.

“This whole notion of civil forfeiture is sold to the broader public as a means for the province to go after really dangerous, big-time gangs,” Mannoe said. “But really what we see is the targeting of the most marginalized members in our communities.”

“Have they evaluated how that destabilizes people and how that might lead them into the criminal justice system or the health-care system?” she asked.

Yake said a lot of Downtown Eastside residents simply cut their losses.

“A lot of times people just say ‘well, I didn’t go to jail. Cost me a lot of money, but I’m not in jail.’ That’s how they’ll leave it,” he said.

Tawtel called the cost of filing a dispute “relatively cheap.”

“All you have to do is swear the document and submit it to the office to dispute it,” he said.

“The interest holder is, of course, welcome to provide any information at that time for the director to consider discontinuing, and there are cases where we’ve done that,” he said, something Postmedia confirmed from legal filings.

The VPD’s Addison said police officers “are expected to provide a file number and explain the reason for seizure whenever property is seized.”

Many Downtown Eastside residents Postmedia spoke with said this doesn’t always happen.

Yake, who worked with VANDU on setting up the DTES Street Market, said police would often visit the market and confiscate goods being sold there as “proceeds of crime” but wouldn’t always provide file numbers.

“You have to give this guy a receipt,” he says he would tell officers. “So that when he comes to claim his stuff it’s marked down.”

“Out of probably eight cases,” Yake said, “none of the police did it, but one.”

Leavens says he never received a file number for his confiscated belongings.

Thomas received documentation for the forfeiture of his camper van.

Police only allowed him to gather a handful of things from it after the vehicle was impounded. “We only had a half an hour to get stuff out,” he said.

All of this contributes to driving a bigger wedge between police and the community, activists say.

“What people assume,” Tao said, is that “so much of this stuff just goes into the pocket of a cop.”

Leavens was even more blunt in his criticism: “It’s a licence to steal.”

Part II Monday: Administrative forfeiture ripe for abuse, say critics

[Gurn]

^ Absolutely disgusting.

This must be changed.

 

 

[Gurn]

Continuation of a story I posted June 4

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/blogger-says-his-posts-were-directed-at-feminists-who-were-too-aggressive/ar-AAYjIGl?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ac8e6fdf4d8f4aee8273e0b9c8652357

Jean-Claude Rochefort, the man charged with inciting hatred toward women by posting items on the internet criticizing feminists while praising the man who carried out the École Polytechnique massacre, confirmed Friday that he was the author of all the images and writing that led to his arrest more than two years ago.

Rochefort, 73, said several times during his testimony before Superior Court Justice Pierre Labrie at the Montreal courthouse that the items he posted were “exaggerations” intended to criticize feminists who he felt were too “virulent” or too “aggressive” in their opinions of men.

“In my opinion, when we were younger we would say we were in a free country and we had freedom of expression and all that. But later on it became more framed. I didn’t follow what was in the news so, without a doubt, in doing those blogs I wasn’t aware of what could be touchy,” Rochefort said. “I’m an old man who simply wanted to write about certain subjects.”

The accused said he often used the format of a comic book in his posts to express himself in an exaggerated or absurd way and that they “weren’t to be taken seriously.” He said that he was a fan of the Tintin books when he was young and he interpreted the main character to be “a 15-year-old boy surrounded by adults who were ridiculous.”

Defence lawyer Rodolphe Bourgeois asked Rochefort several questions about Tintin. Rochefort became excited as he said the book Cigars of the Pharaoh was his favourite. But Labrie interrupted and asked what the point was. Bourgeois said it was to provide context to Rochefort’s testimony in general. The judge allowed the questions to continue but joked that he was certain there is no jurisprudence of a “Tintin defence” in Canadian law.

Most of the items Rochefort posted between September and December 2019 included photo-edited images of Marc Lépine, the man who murdered 14 women and wounded 14 other people on Dec. 6, 1989, at École Polytechnique de Montréal. Lépine killed himself and police found a letter inside his jacket stating he intended to kill feminists.

Almost all of the doctored photos depicted Lépine holding a firearm or firearms.

Rochefort posted the items during the weeks leading up to the 30th anniversary of the massacre. On Friday, he said some of what he posted was a reaction to how certain media in Montreal had covered the anniversary in previous years. He said he felt one media organization in particular blamed “all men” for what happened.

“My criticism was against those who were more virulent or more aggressive,” Rochefort said on Friday. “I didn’t want to be the leader of some movement.”

Rochefort also said he felt the commemoration of the massacre had “almost become a religious ceremony.’

“(The blogs) were (intended) to mock that. It was (intended) to be an exaggeration. I was exaggerating from my end. If they were holding a religious ceremony with martyrs I would put my own in,” Rochefort said. “But it was not to be taken seriously.”

Bourgeois went over a long list of items Rochefort posted before the period that covers this case. The attorney had his client read the items, often written in English, aloud in court.

“Stop to put up your decorations and send out invitations for the annual celebration of Saint Marc’s day. Coloured lights, candles, ammo belts hung by the gun racks, a picture of Saint Marc above the fireplace. Decorations of a man’s home that make him feel there is hope. If you really want to hurt the feminists just commemorate the death of Saint Marc on Dec. 6. That is as simple as that,” Rochefort said while reading the item for the court.

Bourgeois asked Rochefort to explain what he meant by “hurt the feminists.”

“They expect that men should lower their heads on that day and say ‘I am guilty.’ So instead of saying ‘I am guilty’ they can say ‘I am not guilty.’ Something like that. Nothing more than that,” Rochefort said while laughing at his answer.

Rochefort will resume his testimony Monday.

[Gurn]

Secrecy in the court, on the rise:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/secrecy-in-the-courts-exclusive-study-reveals-increasing-use-of-publication-bans-in-canada/ar-AAYFfyG?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=086102e523d3446aa871aef3c85a7854

 

Next spring, a trial is scheduled to start in St. John’s, N.L., for a prominent lawyer charged with four counts of sexual assault of a female, starting when she was 12 years old, and yet the public can’t know who he is because a publication ban protects his identity.

The order was overturned last month after news organizations appealed, but it remains in place, at least until the lawyer’s team of blue-chip lawyers has a chance to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It’s a strange situation — one lawyer calls it “bizarre” — but it is only one of many cases raising issues of secrecy in the courts, including some involving Canada’s most notorious murderers.

“The open courts principle is pretty fundamental to our operation as a society. We don’t ever want to have situations where penal proceedings are taking place outside of public scrutiny,” said David Fraser, a lawyer based in Halifax who specializes in privacy and Canadian privacy laws.

Publication bans limit the ability of the media to report stuff, which really means taking away the public’s right to read about it, hear about it, and know about it.

Cases like the Newfoundland lawyer spark questions — about how often publication bans are used, by whom, in what kinds of cases, what information is trying to be hidden, and are they being used more often.

Previously, there have been few answers.

To study and track publication ban use in Canada, National Post sought studies, reports or analysis from justice ministries, court administrations, journal articles and legal academics — but found none.

To fill the void, the Post did an in-depth study of its own.

The Post’s study of all known discretionary publication bans requested during the past two years in courts across four provinces shows a 25 per cent increase from one year to the next.

The jump included 21 per cent more requests in civil court cases and 37 per cent more in criminal court cases.

This unique study is based on representative provinces — Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia — over the two most recent years.

An analysis found 71 per cent of requests asking a judge to prevent people from knowing something that would normally be public information were made in civil cases, such as lawsuits against people or businesses or family disputes.

The remaining 29 per cent of publication ban requests were made in criminal cases, where someone is charged with a crime.

Mark Bantey, a Montreal media law specialist who frequently represents the Montreal Gazette, said an increasing use of publication bans attacks a hallmark of democracy.

“All publication bans are intrusions on freedom of expression. There’s no question about that,” said Bantey. “A pub ban is an infringement of freedom of the press and the open court principle. So, the question becomes, is each publication ban justified?”

In criminal cases, most of the requested bans were made by the Crown — government lawyers who prosecute cases. Crown attorneys made 75 per cent of the requests to keep information secret, the Post study found.

Just 18 per cent of ban requests in criminal courts were made by the defence, meaning on behalf of a person on trial for a crime. The remaining seven per cent were made by third parties drawn into the cases.

Among the ban requests made in civil cases, 35 per cent were sought by the plaintiff (the one who initiated the lawsuit) and 21 per cent by the defendant (the one being sued). The most frequent requesters in civil matters, however, were third parties, accounting for 44 per cent of the applications.

The amount of secrecy across all requests varied greatly.

Some — 11 per cent of all requests in both criminal and civil — wanted a ban on all information presented at a hearing, at least temporarily, and some permanently. This was more common in criminal cases (16 per cent) than in civil (nine per cent.)

By far the most common information sought to be secret in criminal cases was to hide someone’s identity, at 62 per cent of requests. These were often made by the Crown to protect the identity of witnesses called to testify, including police officers and informants.

Of the remaining requests in criminal cases, 22 per cent wanted to ban some specific information other than identity.

By contrast, in civil cases, 23 per cent of requests were for identity bans and 69 per cent were for other information. These included requests to keep corporate or financial information private, for example.

Doug Richardson, a media law specialist in Toronto who often represents National Post, said too many publication bans threaten the public’s ability to be fully informed of significant community matters. The open courts principle means the public should be an assumed part of court proceedings.

“Some litigants treat it as a private club, a private membership, almost like they’re the only parties there,” Richardson said. “Often we (the media) don’t have the ability or resources to fight against those pub bans.”

While the time period of data collected in this study is short, the steep increase in the number of requests for information to be secret reflects concerns by media lawyers and other observers that transparency of what happens inside Canada’s courtrooms is eroding.

Wayne MacKay, a professor emeritus at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, said the cumulative impact of more and more pub bans can damage society.

“If too much of the vital documents that leads to a trial’s conclusion are not available, then that may not be a good way to promote respect for and the credibility of the justice system.

“There may be legitimate cases where third-party interests or compelling vulnerable interests need to be protected, but if it is in large numbers, you start to get concerned about why.”

Bantey’s experience supports the study’s finding of increased use.

“My experience is that the parties in both civil and criminal cases are now more brazen in their requests for publication bans because they are realizing the media no longer has the resources to challenge all of the requests,” said Bantey.

 

Just like the Newfoundland lawyer seeking to hide his identity, publication bans usually only come to public attention when they seem outrageous or unbalanced — dramatic cases when pub bans become an important part of a story because a confused public demands answers.

Such as when murderer Luka Magnotta asked a Quebec judge to completely ban reporters from the courtroom at his preliminary hearing in 2013. Or when defence and Crown lawyers both wanted the police interrogation of Toronto’s van attack mass murderer Alek Minassian kept from the public throughout his trial, even if it was shown in open court.

In Nova Scotia, a publication ban was placed on the identity of Rehtaeh Parsons in 2014, making it illegal for her own parents to tell her story or use her name in their campaign against cyberbullying and child sex assault. In B.C., a sadly similar case had a publication ban placed on the name of Amanda Todd at a trial, now underway, of a man accused of cyberbullying her, until it was overturned by a court challenge.

Both cases forced parents to fight to be able to say their dead child’s name in public.

The inflexibility of publication ban laws protecting the identity of victims of sexual assault — even when a victim wants to share their own story — sparked protests last year when a Waterloo, Ont., woman was fined $2,600 for speaking to family and friends about what happened to her.

Although rarely so directly in the news, publication bans are an always percolating, often frustrating and sometimes controversial part of the judicial system that usually stays behind closed doors.

For years there was little anyone could do about them.

Media would try to oppose some in court but an accused’s right to a fair trial typically won the day for a judge. Often media or the public never even knew a publication ban was requested until after it was imposed.

That started to change after a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 1994, called Dagenais v. CBC. It said the right to a fair trial must be balanced with other Charter rights, such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

Other important judicial rulings over the years have changed how publication bans are dealt with, including last year, when the estates of murdered billionaire couple Barry and Honey Sherman tried to keep their public estate files private, all the way to the Supreme Court. They eventually lost.

“Court openness is protected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression and is essential to the proper functioning of Canadian democracy,” the Supreme Court said in that decision. “Reporting on court proceedings by a free press is often said to be inseparable from the principle of open justice.”

In response to the various rulings, judges and lawyers have become more sensitive to the importance of open courts and freedom of the press.

Several provinces now send notifications of discretionary publication ban requests to media organizations and other parties, allowing objections to proposed restrictions.

Ontario, B.C., Alberta, and Nova Scotia are four provinces with a standard notification system. Ontario’s, Alberta’s and B.C.’s covers superior court level motions while Nova Scotia’s includes both provincial and superior court applications.

“In the beginning, the service was rarely used because there was no rule or policy requiring notice to be given,” said Jennifer Stairs, director of communications for the Nova Scotia judiciary. As rules and policies evolved, she said, the system became more active and inclusive.

Quebec does not have as robust a system.

“In Quebec, we don’t have any system for notifying media. It is very informal,” said Bantey. When a pub ban is requested, a judge might ask that the media be notified and suggest a couple of lawyers who frequently represent media organizations to be contacted, he said.

When requests to make something secret are themselves secret, no one can even object or complain. This led to the shocking revelation this past March in Quebec of a so-called “ghost trial” — a secret hearing of a secret defendant for a secret crime, conducted in a secret municipality by a judge, prosecutor and defence lawyer who are also all secret.

Even though more proactive than in Quebec, other provincial alert systems capture only some — a minority — of publication bans that are used each day in Canada.

Notifications are not given for statutory bans or mandatory bans.

Statutory bans are automatically in place by law and do not need a judge to order them — such as a ban on identifying a child charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and a ban on reporting when a confession is entered as evidence at an accused’s preliminary inquiry, until the trial is over.

A second class of publication bans are mandatory. They need to be ordered by a judge at a hearing — but a judge is required to automatically grant them if they are requested. These include bans on identifying a complainant in a sexual assault case, identifying child victims of adult crimes, evidence heard at a bail hearing (if requested by the accused) and evidence heard at pre-trial hearings until after a trial ends.

That leaves discretionary publication bans — those that may or may not be granted by a judge hearing a case — that can be challenged.

These discretionary bans are the focus of the National Post study.

The Post turned to the notification systems to track discretionary pub ban requests. All such notices from Ontario, B.C., Alberta, and Nova Scotia sent during 2020 and 2021 were collected and the information in the notices compiled into a database.

An analysis of the 577 cases in which a pub ban request was made provides the statistics for this story. The system does not track the outcome of requests.

Notifying the media is a policy or contained in practice guidelines from the courts and is not a legal requirement, and cases slip past, said Fraser, the privacy lawyer. It requires judges and lawyers to be proactive.

“When you’re applying for a publication ban you aren’t inclined to then suggest notice should be given,” Fraser said of courtroom tactics.

In fact, data recently released to Postmedia by the B.C. Attorney General’s office, six months after requesting it, shows that many more publication bans were imposed in the province than public notifications sent.

This new B.C. data confirms a strong trend of increased discretionary pub bans in B.C. Supreme Court over the past decade. There were 48 discretionary pub bans placed on witness and victim identities back in 2011/2012 and there were 111 in 2019/2020. (There were 54 in 2020/2021 with the ministry noting court operations were curtailed for portions of the year by COVID. The ministry uses fiscal years rather than calendar years.) There were an additional 38 discretionary identity bans on justice system participants in 2019/2020 and 20 more in 2020/2021.

Yet only 17 notifications of pub ban requests were sent by the B.C. court in 2020 and 51 in 2021.

Lawyers interviewed about the study’s findings offered explanations for some of the numbers and expressed surprise at others.

The Crown makes most pub ban requests in criminal cases because they are tasked with ensuring a fair trial and encouraging and protecting witnesses and victims, they said.

John Struthers, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, which speaks for criminal defence lawyers, said, contrary to what many think, there are few opportunities to protect defendants with discretionary pub bans.

“We can’t protect our clients. There’s no way that we can get our client’s name redacted from criminal complaints. There’s no process by which to do that. If you’re accused of something, it’s in the paper; if you’re the accuser, it’s not, necessarily,” Struthers said.

“It’s all about the complainants these days and about confidential informants. It’s not about the defendant. The defendant, for the most part, doesn’t get any protection at all.”

He would like that rebalanced, he said.

MacKay, the law professor, sat on a task force in Nova Scotia in the wake of the Rehtaeh Parsons case. He suspects the ease of information spreading on the internet may help explain an increase in pub ban requests.

“In an age where so much is public because of social media and technology, having privacy and trying to do what you can to maintain some privacy is something that people increasingly want,” MacKay said.

He is concerned pub bans might be increasingly abused by rich and powerful people to protect their reputation and privacy in ways that most couldn’t afford to pursue.

That’s a fear that echoes with both the Sherman estates case and the prominent Newfoundland lawyer.

“That’s another reason why we wouldn’t want publication bans to be too widespread. You wouldn’t want the numbers to be overwhelming or you start to lose a public system which is equal for all. At least that’s the hope that it is,” said MacKay.

Richardson, one of the media lawyers, said one of the biggest concerns raised by the study is that institutions aren’t already tracking the use of pub bans. He also said while the notification systems are a big step forward, those making requests should also be required to notify the outcome.

“That would help us all know and better understand the broader trends of what is happening. The whole system is still lacking transparency.”

Both Richardson and Bantey suggested better education and awareness among judges, particularly in smaller centres, on the need to balance pub ban requests with freedom of the press and court openness — even if the media isn’t present to object.

“The Supreme Court says, once you conclude a pub ban is justified, you, as a judge, have an obligation to narrow the ban as much as possible in scope, in length and duration. But often that part of the question is forgotten,” said Bantey.

Richardson said courts should consider a procedure, in some circumstances, of appointing an independent counsel, what’s known as an “amicus curiae” or friend of the court, to make arguments for openness and freedom of expression to assist in finding the right balance.

“I think a Crown — and a judge — has a duty to ensure that justice is done in accordance with the Charter and according to the openness principle,” said Richardson.

Meanwhile, the Newfoundland lawyer’s strange case could push Canada’s top court to take another deep dive into the appropriate balance of publication bans, the open courts principle and a public’s right to know.

 

[Gurn]

If the above article was too long- just read this, and know there is a problem with what is going on:

9 minutes ago, gurn said:

Both cases forced parents to fight to be able to say their dead child’s name in public.

 

 

[Playoff Beered]

[Gurn]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/deterrent-or-discrimination-quebec-defends-police-power-to-make-random-traffic-stops/ar-AAZha7U?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=fda71ea5e08543b9e0f4abe205b791e7

MONTREAL — The power of police to randomly pull over drivers remains an important tool for deterring dangerous behaviour on the road, a Quebec government lawyer argued Wednesday during a constitutional challenge to traffic stops.

Michel Déom told Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau that the problem isn't the power itself but its abuse by some police officers. 

Déom delivered his closing arguments in a case brought by a Black Montreal resident and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who say random police stops violate equality rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

"The problem is the behaviour of police officers who overstep their powers," Déom said, adding that it's up to police agencies and watchdog organizations, like the police ethics board, to fight racial profiling by officers.

Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a Black Montreal resident who said he was stopped by police nearly a dozen times without reason, and the civil rights group are challenging the power of Canadian police to stop drivers without a reasonable suspicion an offence was committed. The two plaintiffs, however, are not challenging structured police traffic operations, such as drunk-driving checkpoints.

Bruce W. Johnston, the lawyer for the civil liberties association, argued that allowing police to make random traffic stops opens the door to the arbitrary and discriminatory use of state power. 

"This power is not used randomly, but rather in a manner that is discriminatory and highly prejudicial to Black and racialized people, particularly Black men," Johnston and his colleague Lex Gill wrote in a summary of their oral arguments.

On Monday, Johnston told the court that police witnesses called by the government testified that racial profiling doesn't help police work, which he said indicates the power isn't needed. On Tuesday, he said, “When we know that this leads to a systemic violation of the rights of a group, we can’t close our eyes and say 'continue to use recourses that don’t work.'"

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says that since random police stops disproportionately target Black drivers — particularly Black men — the argument that the stops are a reasonable limit on mobility rights should be reconsidered.

If Yergeau sides with the civil liberties group, he'll have to overturn a 1990 Supreme Court decision. In that case, the court ruled that police were justified when they issued a summons to an Ontario driver who had been stopped randomly and who had been driving with a suspended licence. 

The high court ruled that random stops are the only way to determine whether drivers are properly licensed, whether a vehicle's seatbelts work and whether a driver is impaired.  

"In my view the random stop is rationally connected and carefully designed to achieve safety on the highways," Justice Peter Cory wrote for the majority. Cory added that there must be a "real element of risk of detection" for drivers who get behind the wheel without a licence.

"Random stops supply the only effective deterrent," he wrote.

The Supreme Court found that police powers during random stops were appropriately limited to verifications related to road safety, such as asking for a driver's licence and proof of insurance, and that while police officers could take further steps if they have reasonable grounds, any abuses can be corrected by the courts. 

Déom, who entered no new evidence about the dissuasive effect of random police stops, said it was the plaintiff's responsibility to prove that the Supreme Court's ruling on deterrence should be overruled.

"We still have people who continue to drive when they are prohibited," he said. "We still have people who drive when they don't have a driver's licence. The problem hasn't disappeared; therefore, the logic of the court, that it takes a system of verification and enforcement to ensure compliance … remains intact." 

Several police officers testified during the trial about the steps Quebec police forces are taking to fight racial profiling and increase diversity in their ranks.

At times, Yergeau challenged Déom about how long that will take. 

He said it's clear that a segment of the population is targeted by police and that the testimony heard by the court — which included 11 Black people who had been the subject of random stops — was not anecdotal.

"How many generations will it take to ensure that the rights guaranteed by the Charter to Black people are respected while they're driving?" the judge asked.  

The trial, which began May 30, is scheduled to end Thursday after the final day of closing arguments. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 6, 2022.

[Gurn]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/nearly-half-the-police-department-in-nelson-b-c-under-investigation-sources/ar-AAZi63A?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6948b0cdb9144a6f907278ce0f7e4542

The Nelson Police Department is the focus of an investigation ordered by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, Global News has learned.

 

The investigation is believed to involve nearly half of the approximately 20 officers who work there.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner would not comment on details of the investigation, including whether any allegations relating to racism or involve the use of department computers.

John Dooley, mayor of the town in B.C.'s West Kootenay and chair of the police board, declined a request for an on-camera interview.

"The report is not complete ... still under investigation ... we can’t comment at this time," he said in an email to Global News.

The department, which is the oldest municipal police department in the province, did not respond to a request for comment.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth also declined to comment.

[Playoff Beered]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:11 PM, gurn said:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/nearly-half-the-police-department-in-nelson-b-c-under-investigation-sources/ar-AAZi63A?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6948b0cdb9144a6f907278ce0f7e4542

The Nelson Police Department is the focus of an investigation ordered by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, Global News has learned.

 

The investigation is believed to involve nearly half of the approximately 20 officers who work there.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner would not comment on details of the investigation, including whether any allegations relating to racism or involve the use of department computers.

John Dooley, mayor of the town in B.C.'s West Kootenay and chair of the police board, declined a request for an on-camera interview.

"The report is not complete ... still under investigation ... we can’t comment at this time," he said in an email to Global News.

The department, which is the oldest municipal police department in the province, did not respond to a request for comment.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth also declined to comment.

Advocates hope for accountability as Nelson PD officers investigated for alleged racist messages

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/nelson-pd-racist-messages-1.6516076

[Playoff Beered]

Man shot by RCMP officer in B.C. detachment cells booking area

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/man-shot-by-pg-rcmp-1.6517323

[Gurn]

Travesty:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/beyond-the-pale-officer-pleads-guilty-to-lesser-bylaw-offence-for-shooting-car-five-times/ar-AAZAeRZ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8270a66c6bc441a488f14e987919d4bc

A police officer who fired five shots at a small SUV after the driver allegedly shoplifted from an Ontario liquor store east of Toronto has had his criminal charge withdrawn, and instead pleaded guilty to a bylaw offence for shooting a gun within city limits

The Durham Regional Police officer was fined $1,000.

“I have heard the officer clearly breached the rules, but, in the circumstances, I think any reasonable person who heard those facts could, perhaps, see why someone could behave like that,” said Justice Gregory Regis.

Ian Bulmer, a Crown attorney on the case, according to a court transcript from June 8, agreed that it was “no longer in the public interest to prosecute the criminal offence of a careless use of a firearm.”

But, Peter Scully, a Toronto defence attorney who represents the woman who came under fire from Kevin Wintle, is outraged.

“For this to be resolved in the manner that it was, is so beyond the pale it’s just incomprehensible,” Scully said. “It would be somewhat akin to charging someone that just robbed a bank with an illegal left-hand turn as he fled the scene.”

The woman, Scully said, also faces a number of charges, and that matter is still before the courts.

Wintle’s lawyer, Oshawa defence attorney Sandip Khehra, said his client only pleaded guilty to the bylaw offence in order to avoid the stress of a criminal trial, and that he did nothing wrong that day.

“He’s innocent, he did nothing wrong. He had to think in a split second, about the safety of the public, and he did what he thought was right,” Khehra said.

On April 16, 2021, Durham police were called about a theft at an Oshawa LCBO, one of Ontario’s government-run liquor stores; two women had allegedly stolen liquor by putting it in a baby stroller that contained a recording that played the sound of a crying baby. The two women left the store and proceeded to a Shoppers Drug Mart in a Nissan Rogue.

Police arrived, according to a court transcript, and waited for the two women in the parking lot of the strip mall. When the women came out, one of them got into the Nissan and reversed into a police car that had been parked to try and prevent them from escaping. The woman then drove forwards, onto the sidewalk, and fled, allegedly nearly hitting the other woman she was with.

Wintle, “ran after the fleeing vehicle … in an apparent attempt to intercept it,” according to an agreed statement of facts.

“The defendant stepped onto the curb median perpendicular to the Nissan Rogue and discharged his firearm in rapid succession five times at the vehicle,” the transcript says. “Neither the defendant nor anyone else in the Nissan’s path of travel was in the Nissan’s path of travel when the shots were fired.”

The woman was later arrested by police in Mississauga, having driven across the Greater Toronto Area on three tires, because at least one the five shots Wintle fired had deflated her front right tire.

“He did not fire at her. He fired at her wheel to get her to stop after she almost hit a police officer, almost hit her co-accused, and now was going to put the public at risk by driving like a maniac at around four o’clock in the afternoon,” said Khehra.

The Durham Regional Police Service prohibits officers from shooting at a car “except as a last resort intended solely to preserve the life of another person,” the statement of facts notes. In this instance, Khehra said, Wintle believed the public was in imminent danger.

Scully disagreed.

“The most salient fact is that she was leaving the scene and she was not endangering that police officer nor, indeed, any other civilian,” he said. “For him to have drawn his firearm, and fired at her five times for fleeing the scene of a shoplifting is ridiculous.”

One month later, the Special Investigations Unit, which investigates police following gunfire, death, serious injury or when an officer is suspected of sexual assault, charged Wintle with careless use of a firearm — a Criminal Code offence.

However, that charge was later withdrawn and Wintle pleaded guilty to a bylaw offence.

“This resolution demonstrates to all those persons that are charged with firearms in public to use them carefully,” said Bulmer.

Khehra told the court the officer had a 21-year career with an “impeccable record.”

“This has had a profound impact on him, just going through the whole process, being charged criminally, the stress and anxiety of all of it has had a significant impact,” Khehra told the court.

Chris Bovie, a spokesperson for the Durham Regional Police Service, said Wintle is on full duty, with no restrictions, including on his ability to carry a firearm.

 

[Ghostsof1915]

I've taken courses at the Justice Institute in New West. One of my instructors was saying BC need to bring back the BC Provincial Police. That way we have control over the police and not constables swearing an oath to the RCMP. He says it may sound minor, but a police officer who swears to protect and serve the public, not swear loyalty to the department itself. He says that's what effects doctrine and attitudes. It gives the province more control over internal investigations and discipline.

 

Sounds more reasonable to me than cities like Surrey trying to go it alone.

[Gurn]

Update? on story I posted June 20th- 0n this page of thread:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/quebec-court-of-appeal-says-details-of-secret-trial-must-remain-hidden-from-public/ar-AAZNalw?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7b714ea42e434805b7fe74cda54a0862

MONTREAL — Quebec's Court of Appeal has rejected requests to publicly disclose details about a secret trial involving a police informant.

 

The province's high court delivered a redacted decision today, ruling that the right of informants to stay anonymous supersedes the principle of court proceedings being open to the public.

Four motions seeking more information about the secret case were filed, including from the province's attorney general, the chief judge of the Quebec court and various media organizations, including The Canadian Press.

A three-judge Court of Appeal panel ordered all details of the case that could identify the informant to remain sealed. 

The panel, however, ruled that Chief Judge Lucie Rondeau could receive a copy of the ruling with several paragraphs unredacted.

The original case involved an informant who was convicted of participating in a crime that he or she had initially revealed to police.

The case was not given a docket number, and its details were kept secret, including the nature of the crime and where it allegedly took place, the name of the judge involved, and the names of the lawyers.

The existence of the trial only became public because the informant appealed his or her conviction and because the Court of Appeal released a redacted decision that stayed the conviction and that was highly critical of the secrecy surrounding the trial.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"justice" behind closed doors is not justice.

Getting closer to 'star chamber' territory.-

[Gurn]

No knock police raid in Ottawa 2 yrs back:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/ottawa-man-wants-accountability-for-police-who-carried-out-faulty-no-knock-raid/vi-AAZQdTB?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=bf7a74b087f04d6f9dce2de1a97305f5&category=foryou

 

Cops found $30,000 cash and prescription oxy.

22 months later charges of trafficking are dropped and some/most of the money returned.

Interesting to find out that 6 people have died, in Canada, during no knock police raids.

Lawsuit pending.

 

[Gurn]

The rise in secrecy in Canadian Courts Part 3:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/abuse-and-harassment-survivors-silenced-by-non-disclosure-agreements-fight-for-change-to-b-c-law/ar-AAZTrA7?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d9dd55e927094b83b20958869fe9f2c4

Not even the death of her father could free Susan MacRae from the legal restraints that prevent her from talking about the sexual abuse she allegedly suffered as a child.

Four years ago, a B.C. judge dismissed MacRae's application to nullify the non-disclosure agreement she'd signed in 1997 as part of a legal settlement, court documents show. 

Not only that, MacRae was ordered to pay her father's estate $500 in court costs.

"It's so insulting," the Vancouver woman said.

Though she is legally forbidden to speak about what happened to her when she was a child, MacRae's 84-year-old mother Marie is not and has confirmed MacRae told her about the alleged sexual abuse long before the NDA.

Now they've both joined the fight to have the provincial and federal governments bring in legislation that would severely limit the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), banning them entirely in cases of abuse, harassment and discrimination. 

"People cannot heal if they are still silenced about what happened to them," MacRae said.

'We don't want NDAs to be misused'

The movement is quickly picking up steam in Canada.

Just this spring, Prince Edward Island officially became the first province to limit the use of NDAs, and similar legislation has been introduced in Nova Scotia and Manitoba.

In B.C., representatives of the anti-NDA Can't Buy My Silence campaign say they've been meeting regularly with government staff.

A spokesperson for the attorney general's office told CBC in an email that the ministry is watching developments in other provinces to see whether any changes should be made to B.C. law.

"We know non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements can serve useful roles when used appropriately.  But we don't want NDAs to be misused to silence survivors of harassment, abuse and discrimination," the email said.

The Can't Buy My Silence campaign was launched by Julie Macfarlane, a professor emerita in the law department at the University of Windsor in Ontario, and Zelda Perkins, a former assistant to disgraced movie producer and sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.

Both have personal experience with NDAs. 

Perkins broke hers to speak out about what she experienced and witnessed while working for Weinstein. 

Macfarlane sued the Anglican Church over her sexual abuse by a minister and, during settlement negotiations, convinced the church to end its practice of using NDAs in similar cases. 

She said NDAs have been increasingly common in the academic world and employment disputes, becoming pervasive and normalized within the last decade. Those who've signed them in cases of abuse and harassment told CBC they were made to believe it was the only way to settle their complaints.

The goal of Macfarlane's campaign is to make sure these agreements are only used for their original purpose — to protect trade secrets from competitors in the business world.

She believes that in a post-Me Too world, restricting NDAs is critical to ensuring wrongdoers are held accountable.

"If you end up signing an NDA, which enormous proportions of these cases end up with … you haven't really achieved anything. The person who will have done the misdeeds is free to continue, maybe in a different workplace, and most often, the person who brought the original complaint will be out of a job with a small payment which will only last so long," Macfarlane said.

'It's absurd that they're legal at all'

She pointed out that victims who sign NDAs related to their work are often shut out of future employment because they can't explain why they left their last job.

That's what happened to a B.C. woman who signed an NDA in 2020 to settle a human rights complaint alleging relentless sexual harassment by her boss at a large public body.

The woman, whom CBC is not identifying because of the potential legal repercussions, said it would have been impossible for her to find a new job in the same field after her settlement.

Luckily, she was ready for a career change, but the process has left her feeling jaded and disillusioned.

"I cried a whole bunch. I don't trust anyone. I certainly don't trust institutions. It made me think, why does society hate women so much?" she said.

"This isn't a process meant to solve a problem or address an issue. It's meant only to silence victims and protect the reputation of institutions."

She said she filed her original complaint with the hope of receiving a public apology and protecting other women, but her lawyer informed her the best-case scenario would be a financial settlement with a confidentiality clause.

"I think it's absurd that they're legal at all. It keeps us in the dark ages. Institutions can't grow. Society can't change or evolve when no one knows there's a problem," she said.

Alleged victim of abuse was sued for breaking NDA

According to Macfarlane, many NDAs are likely not enforceable in Canadian courts, but trying to challenge them can be intimidating and expensive.

In 2016, an Ontario woman named Sherri Thomson was sued by her mother, Eileen Wilke, then a village councillor in Lions Bay, B.C., and her stepfather Ronald Wilke for publicly sharing details about her childhood sexual abuse allegations.

In defiance of a decades-old NDA, Thomson sent letters outlining the alleged abuse to various people in the Lions Bay community after learning that her mother was running for municipal office.

According to court documents, Thomson settled a lawsuit in the 1990s over allegations that Ronald Wilke had sexually abused her for years and Eileen Wilke failed to protect her.

Eileen Wilke resigned from council after the Vancouver Sun reported on her lawsuit against Thomson, and the case has never gone to trial or been settled.

The anti-NDA movement is a global one.

In the U.K., two private members' bills have been introduced based on model legislation developed by Can't Buy My Silence, and 67 universities have signed the campaign's pledge to never use non-disclosure agreements. No Canadian universities have signed the pledge.

A bill is also working its way through the approval process in Ireland, and the Australian state of Victoria has proposed similar restrictions.

Closer to home, lawmakers in the U.S. have introduced legislation that would prevent employers from enforcing NDAs in cases of sexual misconduct.

For Susan MacCrae, the momentum of the movement has been potentially life-saving.

"Last year in July, to be honest, I was suicidal … I just was totally exhausted by trying to convince people that this is a priority," she said.

"For the first time in many, many, many years, I feel that things are changing."

Support is available for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.