The head of a civilian police watchdog agency in Nova Scotia has been tapped to lead B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office.
Ron MacDonald will take over as chief civilian director of the IIO, which investigates police-involved deaths or serious injuries, on Oct. 24, the province announced Thursday.
MacDonald is considering expanding the agency’s mandate to include cases of domestic violence involving police officers, as well cases of less-serious injury that are in the public interest.
“Certainly, an examination of the IIO’s mandate is something that is on my radar and that includes the types of cases that have been investigated and will be investigated,” MacDonald told the Times Colonist.
Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team, which MacDonald shaped after a 30-year legal career, has a broad mandate to investigate criminal allegations against police officers that are of “significant public interest” and cannot be appropriately investigated by another body. That has included allegations of obstruction of justice, drug offences and assaults where the person was not seriously injured.
The Nova Scotia agency is made up of two former RCMP officers and two seconded police officers. This differs from B.C.’s IIO, which includes former officers and civilians who have never worked as police officers.
The agency was set up with a goal of being staffed entirely by civilians by this year, but MacDonald said he might not follow that plan. “The public acknowledges there are police who are successfully able to investigate other police officers,” he said.
MacDonald said during his five years in Nova Scotia, charges were laid in 24 of 120 cases investigated by the office — the highest proportion in the country. He said that’s likely due to domestic violence cases, which made up about 30 per cent of the cases investigated.
The B.C. office has concluded 151 cases since September 2012, 70 of which were sent to Crown counsel for consideration of charges. Twelve charges were approved, four resulted in no charges and nine are still being reviewed. The IIO has 54 open investigations.
MacDonald’s most high-profile case was an obstruction of justice investigation into senior Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers over their use of a criminal informant. The officers were cleared of wrongdoing after an 18-month probe.
“We certainly haven’t been afraid to lay charges when it’s appropriate, but we haven’t been afraid to tell the public when an officer hasn’t done anything wrong,” MacDonald said.
“That’s the most important thing the IIO can do, is when the officer hasn’t done anything, to assure the public through a thorough, complete and transparent investigation that that’s the case.”
MacDonald’s appointment was announced Thursday by B.C. Justice Minister Mike Farnworth and Attorney General David Eby, who pushed for independent oversight of police during his time with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
“The key today and the challenge ahead of our new appointee is to build on the foundation that has been built at the IIO,” Eby said. “The B.C. government strongly supports the oversight role of the IIO in building public confidence about police accountability.”
Bert Phipps has been interim director since January 2017, when Richard Rosenthal retired.
The IIO was set up after separate inquiries into the deaths of Robert Dziekanski, who was Tasered by police at Vancouver’s airport, and Frank Paul, who was dropped off in an alley by a Vancouver officer and later found dead of hypothermia.
