The Associated Press
TORONTO, Canada (CP) -- The Ontario government will overhaul the province’s police complaints system to end the practice of police investigating themselves, Attorney General Michael Bryant said Friday.
`What we want to do is have civilian oversight that everybody can have confidence in,” said Bryant.
He hopes to introduce legislation establishing an arm’s length civilian body by the end of 2004 to investigate complaints against police in an effort to make the system more fair and transparent.
“The police need to have complete confidence (in the new system) and the public need to have complete confidence in the police,” he said.
However, Bryant admitted it will be a challenge to convince police to co-operate with civilian investigators looking into complaints against officers.
“If police don’t have confidence in the system, then it’s not gonna work,” he said before entering a two-day Liberal caucus retreat. “I’m working very hard to make sure that we do have police believing that this is independent.”
“At the same time, people need to know it’s independent and transparent so they can get a good look at what happened.”
Six years ago, the then-Tory government scrapped the Police Complaints Commission, an independent civilian agency with the power to investigate public complaints against police and hold disciplinary hearings.
Now, police forces investigate complaints and their decisions can be reviewed by local police services boards, and if necessary, appealed to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services.
Conservative critic Garfield Dunlop said police do a “wonderful job” of policing themselves, and he doesn’t see a need to create a new agency to investigate complaints.
“I hate to see us . . . create some new bureaucracy that’s gonna divert the money that should go to hire a thousand new police officers,” said Dunlop.
Bryant said the premier has asked him “to look into the best way to get transparent, accountable and independent civilian oversight.”
“We need to have affected communities and police having confidence in whatever oversight process we put into place.”