The Urban Indigenous Coalition First Voice has released a draft report on systemic problems in policing in the province and what it calls the inadequacy of existing oversight mechanisms to address them.

The problems, says First Voice, include widespread community mistrust of both the RNC and RCMP, with “little to no accountability” from the leadership of both police agencies.

The group also highlights “a convoluted process” for filing complaints against police officers, and a “critically flawed” practice of engaging police to investigate police in both criminal and non-criminal matters.

The report says the RNC Act requires a police complaint to be made within six months of the incident, but there is no reciprocal timeline or burden on the RNC’s Chief of Police to address the complaint. In the case of RCMP, it took so long for complaints to be addressed that in some cases the complainants had passed away or the officer involved had already retired. The draft report says in the most egregious example involving the RNC, a St. John’s man still did not have a decision on his complaint seven years after filing it with the Police Complaints Commission.

The draft report made 26 specific Proposals for Change, grouped into three core areas with the overall objective of laying the groundwork to implement two Calls for Justice issued by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry.

First Voice is calling on the provincial government to establish a new civilian-led police oversight board to provide independent policy direction to police, strengthen and streamline the public complaints process and improve confidence in SIRT-NL by “making it truly independent” of both police services operating in the province.