Canada’s national police complaints watchdog has delayed releasing a long-awaited report on the RCMP’s Critical Response Unit BC, formerly known as the Community-Industry Response Group, pushing publication past British Columbia’s Oct. 24 provincial election and drawing sharp criticism from Indigenous leaders and journalism advocates.
The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission had planned to publish its findings Sept. 24, according to Peace Brigades International-Canada, which has tracked the investigation since it began in March 2023. The commission now says the report will come out no earlier than Oct. 26, two days after British Columbians vote.
The commission said releasing the report during the province’s election “caretaker” period would make it difficult for provincial authorities to properly respond to its findings, since governments avoid major policy moves once a campaign begins. “Publishing the report while the province is in caretaker mode would therefore make it difficult for the relevant provincial authorities to fully consider and respond to its findings,” the commission said in a statement carried by APTN News.
Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, called the delay “bewildering.” “Withholding this report today hurts the public’s ability to receive a dispassionate analysis about the conduct of agencies funded by taxpayer dollars,” he said, according to APTN News.
Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks said the postponement ignores “harms that have been committed” by the unit, according to Peace Brigades International-Canada, which noted C-IRG officers have also policed pro-Palestinian encampments. Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, called the delay inexcusable and said he worries the same enforcement tactics will resurface as new pipeline projects move forward.
The unit was created in 2017 to police resource-development protests and has since become one of the most complained-about branches of the RCMP in B.C. The commission received 572 public complaints about C-IRG’s conduct, though only 123 met the legal threshold for a formal investigation. Most of the rejected complaints came from people who were not physically present at the protest sites, according to APTN News.
Investigators examined the unit’s actions at three flashpoints. In Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C., hereditary chiefs have opposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline, and LNG Canada is now pursuing a second phase of the project nearby. On Vancouver Island, the Fairy Creek old-growth logging blockades produced the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. The report also covers the Argenta watershed in the Kootenays.
The unit’s conduct toward reporters is being tested in court too. Photojournalist Amber Bracken and The Narwhal are suing the RCMP over her arrest while covering a 2021 C-IRG raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, a case still awaiting judgment.
This is not the first delay. Peace Brigades International-Canada, which monitors policing of Indigenous land defenders, has documented the investigation’s release date slipping repeatedly through 2026, first blamed on the commission lacking a permanent chairperson, then pushed again in August when officials said publication could come “within weeks.” Brent Cotter was appointed interim chairperson in April to help move the file forward.
For young Canadians watching how the country balances resource development with Indigenous rights and press freedom, the delay means another month, at minimum, without answers on how a taxpayer-funded police unit conducted itself at some of the most contested land struggles in recent Canadian history, with no guarantee the findings will land any differently once B.C.’s new government is sworn in.
Via APTN News and Peace Brigades International-Canada.
