Has justice been obstructed at Kamloops?
The RCMP investigation was cut short and Canadians still have no answers
By James C. McCrae, former attorney general of Manitoba and Canadian citizenship judge.
How, in our often proudly-proclaimed democratic rule-of-law society, is it even imaginable that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) would stop investigating allegations of the worst crimes ever committed by Canadians in Canada’s history, turning over the “lead” to civilians, an Indigenous First Nation?
On May 27, 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced the GPR “discovery” of 215 Indigenous children’s remains in the former apple orchard adjacent to the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
On June 3, 2021 the RCMP confirmed that it had opened a police file, but in a statement said the local First Nations band (Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc) would be the “lead” on the investigation. (CBC News)
By way of background comparison, it might be instructive to look at a few other stories from the past, the crimes, and who investigated them.
The most recent case that springs to mind is the horrific Myles Sanderson murder spree on the James Smith Cree Nation and the nearby village of Weldon, in Saskatchewan. On September 4, 2022, Sanderson killed eleven people, including his brother and an elderly Weldon citizen, and wounded eighteen others. Did the James Smith Cree Nation or the Village of Weldon take the “lead” in investigating the crimes and bringing the wrongdoer to justice? No, the RCMP did that. Serious investigation requires serious, independent police resources and authority.
When the Cross Lake, Manitoba Indian Residential School was torched in 1930, killing twelve Indigenous children and a nun and injuring several others, did the Cross Lake First Nation take the “lead” in investigating probably the worst crime in Manitoba’s history, before or since? No, the RCMP did that. Two students of the school were brought to justice, convicted and sentenced accordingly.
Father of Confederation Thomas D'Arcy McGee, dubbed “Canada’s first nationalist”, was assassinated in Ottawa in 1868. He was Irish-Canadian, and a Catholic. Patrick J. Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer, was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime on 11 February 1869 in Ottawa. Should the investigation into this murder have been “led” by Catholic Irish-Canadians or other civilians? Of course not.
If the answer to the above questions is indeed “of course not”, why was it appropriate for the RCMP to step back from investigating the alleged worst crimes ever committed by Canadians and turning over the “lead” to the civilian Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation?
Is the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation properly equipped to deal with such a matter? The band has no police force of its own. The RCMP is its police force. Who is doing the investigating? It’s been two and a half years since the announcement of the alleged crimes. Given the gravity of the situation, it is fair to ask what progress has been made. And why it has taken this long to report any progress at all.
By this time, Canadians should have been informed of who those children were, who their families are, how they came to die and be so indecently interred. There has been no sharing of reports of missing children by parents, guardians or communities, or when such reports - if there were any - were made.
There are other errors of omission - or much worse - to be addressed in relation to this matter. The British Columbia Attorney General and Solicitor General are bound by law to see that crime in that province is properly investigated. The B.C. Coroner’s Office also has responsibility to investigate, as has B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office. Inquiries to learn how all these offices are handling their responsibilities are met with silence, or obfuscation.
The RCMP immediately opened a file, as should always be done when crimes are reported, but a few days later announced it was turning matters over to civilians. Since when is this the way criminal matters are handled in our rule-of-law country?
Did something happen between May 27 and June 3? Did someone obstruct or interfere with the initial RCMP investigation, resulting in the RCMP’s stepping back? On June 3, appearing before a parliamentary standing committee, former judge, TRC chair, and senator Murray Sinclair complained that the RCMP were indeed investigating. (He went on to lecture the committee on how the police should be conducting their investigation.)
Obviously, the first person who should have been questioned by police authorities would be the scientist who made the GPR “discovery”, Dr. Sarah Beaulieu, the witness to whom Sinclair referred in his complaint. The Globe and Mail reported, also on June 3: "The Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc are in charge of the investigation, and Mounties will continue to support the community, (RCMP) Staff-Sgt. Wallace added.”
What connection was there between Sinclair’s complaint and the immediate RCMP statement that the band was “in charge of the investigation”? It is doubtful we will ever know, but B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma should be doing her job to ensure such an enormous and complex criminal matter is properly dealt with. And if anyone has obstructed or interfered with that process, that, too, must be handled with the serious attention it warrants.
It is wrong in countless ways that justice for Indigenous people should be handled in this way. They deserve the same justice services as everyone else; they deserve much better than they’re getting.
With each passing day, more and more Canadians wonder when the RCMP will live up to its motto: “Maintain the right”.
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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Why do I do this?
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the real crime here is that the people of Canada have been labelled as genocidal towards these people without a defence of any kind supported by this Liberal Government led by Justin Trudeau! Any country in the world that has been accused of genocide has had their day in a court of law, why not Canadians? An accusation was presented publicly by a former judge who happens to over look the “Rule of Law” without an explanation as to why!
It’s shocking that the RCMP, BC Coroner’s Office, and Ministries of the the Attorney General and Solicitor General are complicit in making sure there is no investigation into 215 alleged murders at a shuttered residential school in Kamloops. It’s a lengthy cover-up to protect Canada’s genocide lie from the public.