Public complaints against Nunavut RCMP nearly triple in 5 years

A new report from the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission found a big jump in complaints against RCMP members in Nunavut. In the past year, the Commission accepted 26 complaints against Mounties, that's up from 9, 5 years earlier. The Commission says greater public awareness may explain some of the increase. For instance, in recent years, the Commission has explained the process to Nunavut MLAs and Mounties themselves. But the number of complaints may not tell the whole story. The Commission's interim chair, Brent Cotter, said it may not hear about every complaint the RCMP receive. It is occasionally the case that the RCMP receive a complaint and Try to dispose of it right away and it maybe gets resolved just fine, but it disappears into the ether. We are not even then available to report to you and to the public that the RCMP are doing a good job resolving complaints because there are some we don't know about. Cotter says the Commission wants the RCMP to forward all complaints so they can be properly tracked. But for people who want to file a complaint, the process can come with its own challenges. Amy Matysiuk is a lawyer who works on police misconduct cases. She says the one-year deadline to file a complaint can be a barrier. Which can seem like a long timeline, but it is actually fairly short, especially for folks who are dealing with other family commitments and potentially criminal charges, especially if those charges involve spending time in custody. Matysiuk says some people only learn about the complaints process after it's too late. I very frequently speak to people who could have made a complaint, but by the time I was able to speak to them, the one year had passed in which they could have done that, and they just never were made aware that that process was available to them. Certainly, that happens all the time. CBC contacted Nunavut RCMP for an interview, but they did not reply by our deadline. Carl Gardner, CBC News, Iqaluit.