RCMP watchdog says public complaint backlog is getting worse

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SURREY (NEWS1130) – Canada’s RCMP watchdog says it’s waiting up to a year in some cases to get a response from the Mounties.

In its annual report, the Commission for Public Complaints (CPC) Against the RCMP says the delays threaten the integrity of the public complaint process.
    
“The timeliness of the RCMP Commissioner’s Notices, which are responses to the Commission’s Interim Reports that the RCMP is required by statute to provide, has been the subject of comment for the past two years,” the report states.  “While the RCMP made a significant effort to clear its backlog in 2009, the backlog returned and has continued to grow.”

More than half of the outstanding Commissioner’s Notices have been outstanding for more than six months, and two have been outstanding for a year. The report says this year the CPC’s National (Complaint) Intake Office in Surrey processed 3,904 general enquiries, alternative dispute resolutions, and formal complaints against the RCMP.

The Commission made the same complaint about outstanding notices in last year’s report.

Laura Colella with the commission hopes a new piece of legislation that’s being drafted will help speed up the process.

“It will hopefully give the commission more power to do its job properly and reinforce the public complaints system,” Colella says. “For example, it will hopefully include the power to compel documents from the RCMP, which is something that the commission has been asking for for a number of years.”

She says the RCMP made a significant effort to clear its backlog two years ago but the problem is getting worse.

The entire report can be read here.

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