It has been a week since the Federal Court of Canada condemned RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki for her failure to respond to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC). The case revolved around an interim report from 2017, but in her Judgement and Reasons Associate Chief Justice Jocelyne Gagné pointed to numerous other cases where the RCMP had acted in the same manner. 

“It is in the public interest to have a police oversight institution that functions properly and is unobstructed.” she wrote.

One of the organizations applauding the Court’s Decision to hold the police accountable is the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

“The recent decision calls into question and challenges the integrity of the highest ranking RCMP official in the land, Brenda Lucki, in regard to her complete lack of accountability,” explained Grand Chief Stewart Phillip. 

On January 12th, Lucki issued a press release stating: “I respect the Federal Court’s decision that the RCMP’s response to the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) matter was not provided as soon as feasible, as per the RCMP Act. In the past there had been delays in responding to CRCC interim reports due in part to the number of interim reports issued, the scale and complexity of the cases and the volume of relevant material to be analyzed … A 2019 Memorandum of Understanding between the CRCC and RCMP commits us to improving our service standards by providing a written response to CRCC reports within six months. We have made significant progress; in November 2021, we cleared our backlog of responses to CRCC interim reports and since April 1st, 2021 all new interim reports have been responded to within the agreed upon six-month time frame.”

This response did not satisfy the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

“Indigenous people are alarmed at the escalating militarization of the RCMP. There was a time when the RCMP were given a very strong mandate to keep the peace, but we all know that that has transitioned into a very dark place where the RCMP are finding themselves as the enforcement arm of resource development, extractive industries, oil, and gas pipelines, mines, and they’re coming down harshly and with pronounced measure of police brutality in regard to the citizens of this province of this country that simply seek to protect the integrity of the environment, the watersheds of riparian systems, wild salmon, and so on and so forth,” said Grand Chief Phillip.

“We saw that demonstrated at Fairy Creek where the RCMP were brutally assaulting the people that were standing there in opposition to old-growth logging, which the Horgan government promised to stop when they ran for the last election. And with respect to the Wet’suwet’en it’s far darker in terms of the full military assaults on the peaceful encampments of Wet’suwet’en people who are simply carrying out their rights  in regard to the declaration on the rights from indigenous peoples, the Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa case. All of these high court decisions have given them every right to protect their homelands from the predation of the industrial corporations that are out there, wreaking havoc.”

He added that the RCMP are carrying their assaults out in a manner that is virtually indistinguishable from military operations.

“Governments need to be held to account as well as the RCMP itself. That’s why the Union of BC Indian Chiefs applauds the court decision that calls into question Brenda Lucki and  her very racialized execution of her campaign against Indigenous peoples and the environmental movement who are simply seeking to protect the integrity of the environment.”

Top photo credit: Photo of RCMP taken from the Gidimt’en Checkpoint Facebook page

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