RCMP watchdog concerned with delays in B.C. C-IRG probe

The RCMP's federal review agency recently hired an Indigenous-led law firm as concerns grow about delays in its probe of the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), a special unit created to police civil disobedience against pipelines in British Columbia.

The watchdog, created to ensure complaints against Mounties are handled fairly, launched a systemic investigation in March into the controversial C-IRG outfit, which is known for its Coastal GasLink and Fairy Creek tactical operations. 

"Progress is coming along well although delays in receiving the relevant material is a concern," said the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) in an Aug. 3 email seen by CBC News.

The CRCC hired Vancouver-based Turtle Island Law LLP based on feedback on the probe's scope, the email said, and the firm will gather testimony from those impacted, said founding partners and siblings Sharae Antley and Jaden Bourque. 

"What we've really been hired for is to do so in a decolonial, Indigenized and trauma-informed manner," said Bourque, who, like Antley, identifies as Slavey Dené, Cree-Métis and Canadian.

"We know it's going to retraumatize them," added Antley. "There's no avoidance to that. We're entrenched in a deeply colonial system."

The CRCC will assess whether the RCMP group's operations complied with law, policy, best practices and where appropriate, federal Indigenous rights law and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

B.C. Mounties formed C-IRG in 2017 after the massive anti-pipeline resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, expressing concern about potentially similar opposition against the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Over the next six years, activists, academics, civil liberties groups and even the courts would criticize the squad, which faces lawsuits and hundreds of individual CRCC complaints on top of the systemic investigation.

Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chief Na'Moks (John Ridsdale) was not surprised by reports of delays, pointing to understaffing and underfunding at the CRCC.

"I believe they're trying their best with what they got," he said. "But it is the tactics of the RCMP and C-IRG itself to stall, stall."

Na'Moks, who opposes Coastal GasLink, got involved with the investigation at the outset and remains optimistic.

"It must be abolished," he said of the C-IRG, linking it to the force's colonial past.

"The RCMP was created as the North West Mounted Police to settle the Indian problem. I don't think we're the problem," said Na'Moks. "We're the solution for a better future."