The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that the RCMP discriminated against Indigenous survivors during the 2012 investigations of abuse claims at a day school in Burns Lake.
The tribunal found that the complaint of discrimination was partially substantiated, and ordered the RCMP to pay damages to the survivors and review all of its policies, practices, procedures, and training related to the treatment of Indigenous crime complainants.
The allegations were brought forward by Lake Babine First Nation members Cathy Woodgate, Richard Perry, Dorothy Williams, Ann Tom, Maurice Joseph and Emma Williams, who attended the Catholic Immaculata Elementary School in the 1960s and 1970s.
After the RCMP closed the investigation without criminal charges, the six then launched a human rights complaint in 2017.
The tribunal took place in May 2023 and continued into early 2024.
“I find that the complainants have proven on a balance of probabilities that race and national or ethnic origin were a factor in some of the adverse differential treatment or denial of service that was experienced,” tribunal member Colleen Harrington ruled.
Harrington found specific discriminatory conduct by the RCMP. She mentioned that the RCMP did not provide an update on the outcome of the investigation to any of the six complainants, and did not advise two other witnesses that they could separately report their own abuse.
She added that the RCMP also repeatedly asked a witness to take a polygraph after she disclosed being sexually assaulted as a child.
Harrington ordered the RCMP to pay $7,500 in damages to the six complainants and two witnesses for pain and suffering and wilful and reckless discrimination. She also ordered interest to be added to the amount.
“I accept that the complainants’ experience of the RCMP’s investigation into their allegations of abuse as children resulted in them feeling disrespected and that they were not listened to or believed,” Harrington said.
“While the findings I have made in this decision are made under the Canadian Human Rights Act, this inquiry has made clear that mistrust and a lack of cultural safety continue to be barriers to Indigenous people in northern BC accessing police services.”
Harrington added that she accepts that the complainants distrust the police for both historical and modern reasons, but heard evidence that there is a “desire and some movement” to change the relationship between the RCMP and the Indigenous community.
“[I] urge the RCMP to make continued efforts to shift the negative social memory Indigenous people in the region hold for the RCMP to a positive one,” she said.