Complaints raise concerns about how N.B. RCMP handled some allegations of sexual violence

Police and Public Trust, a project of the CBC News Atlantic investigative unit, scrutinizes the largely off-limits police complaint and discipline systems across the region. Journalists are using access to information laws and, in some cases, court challenges to obtain discipline records and data.

Three years ago, an RCMP constable from the Moncton area was accused of belittling and laughing at a woman while taking her complaint of sexual assault.

That same year, another complaint came in from the Oromocto area, from someone who felt a sexual abuse investigation involving her daughter was inadequate. She also said they weren't kept up to date on its status.

The RCMP found neither complaint to be substantiated, but they are examples of more than 30 allegations from members of the public about how RCMP officers in New Brunswick investigated complaints of sexual violence.

CBC Investigates obtained eight years' worth of complaints about how the RCMP investigated a range of crimes, totalling more than 2,600 allegations made against the RCMP. 

The data was obtained through access to information as part of CBC's ongoing Police and Public Trust project, which takes the public inside the often-opaque systems of police complaints and discipline across Atlantic Canada.

Of the more than 2,600 allegations made against the RCMP, only three per cent were found to be supported. Half were found to be unsupported, 17 per cent were resolved informally and 16 per cent were withdrawn. Some were still under investigation when the data was sent to CBC.

Another complaint, from the Sackville area in 2018, was resolved informally after a woman said she was yelled at by an RCMP sergeant over the phone "when she tried to inquire as to why her sexual assault complaint was concluded without charges being laid." She also said the RCMP failed to do a thorough investigation into her case.

Andie Marks works with Sexual Violence New Brunswick as an advocate for people who have experienced sexual violence. She works with the RCMP to review their sexual violence case files on a quarterly basis, and said she hopes the complaints made against the RCMP will help everyone do better.

"I think all of those complaints are things that will hopefully then allow the RCMP to put in place things so that they don't happen anymore, and that we can also support them in that work," said Marks, who is Sexual Violence New Brunswick's justice lead.

There were 2,168 sexual assaults and 1,138 "other sexual violations" reported to the RCMP between 2018 and 2022, according to the provincial government's crime dashboard.

Nearly 47 per cent of the sexual assault charges and 55.5 per cent of the "other sexual violations" were "cleared." That means police charged someone, recommended a charge against someone, or had enough information to lay or recommend a charge but didn't for a variety of reasons, such as the death of a witness.

In recent years, the RCMP rolled out a course for sexual offence investigators that is mandatory for front-line officers across Canada, according to New Brunswick RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Hans Ouellette.

The force still doesn't have 100 per cent of its officers trained in the specialized skills needed to interview victims. But as of October, 61 per cent of the RCMP's workforce in the province had taken the course, including 86 per cent of front-line officers.