Letter to the Inquiry from the RCMPVA
Bernée Bolton
Director of Communications
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
PO Box 500, Station A
Vancouver, BC
V6C 2N3
Dear Ms Bolton,
This letter is in regards to the July 27, 2017, statement “National Inquiry has forensic team reviewing police files,” a copy of which I have attached, and your email statement quoted on the CBC Manitoba website:
According to Bernée Bolton, director of communications, looking at police conduct is mandated in the inquiry’s terms of reference. However, as it stands now the document makes no mention of investigating police conduct explicitly, but does say the inquiry can report misconduct of any kind to “the appropriate authorities. ‘
“The work by the forensic team will provide a credible basis for findings of fact and recommendations so we can identify systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls, Bolton wrote in an email.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans’ Association is a federally-registered not for-profit organization which has among its purposes the promotion of the “physical, social and economic welfare of the Association’s members and their immediate families. ”
Among our members are many former and retired Members of the Force who over the last 40 years or more conducted homicide investigations and handled reports of missing persons, including of Indigenous women and girls. Many now are elderly, and some others have passed away.
They and their family members are concerned that the reputations of these living and deceased former and retired members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be further besmirched with blanket insinuations of “misconduct” and “systemic racism” without any opportunity to speak up for themselves or to set the record straight.
They need to know more about how the Inquiry’s “forensic team” will provide a “credible basis for findings of fact” about alleged police misconduct in individual cases or about bias in collective policing policy and methods as well as with investigative and legal procedures.
One thought on “RCMPVA launches clarification letter to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls”
It is nice to see leadership of the vets getting out and expressing the opinions so many members of our organization have, many of us have served the force with pride and it is often hurtful to see and hear the abuse heaped on the organization by many who don’t have a clue how it works.