For the first time since its founding, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner will review a discipline decision. It involves two Vancouver police officers who handcuffed an Indigenous grandfather and his 12-year-old granddaughter after they tried to open a bank account for the girl.
In December 2019, a Bank of Montreal employee called 911 after Maxwell Johnson and his granddaughter Tori presented their Indian status cards, suspecting the cards were fakes. Johnson, an artist, is a member of the Heiltsuk Nation and was visiting Vancouver from his home in Bella Bella.
VPD constables Canon Wong and Mitchel Tong arrested the pair outside the bank and placed them both in handcuffs.
The original discipline proceeding into the arrests found that the officers committed misconduct by “recklessly arresting and handcuffing” the pair without due cause.
A retired judge acting as the discipline authority ordered several corrective measures, including requiring that Wong and Tong meet with Johnson and his granddaughter and make an oral apology.
While the officers gave written apologies, they did not attend a 2022 ceremony where, as part of a human rights settlement, VPD leaders met with members of the Heiltsuk Nation for a formal apology ceremony.
A gift given to Hereditary Chief Frank Brown by then-VPD chief Adam Palmer was rejected and the ceremony did not go ahead because the two officers involved in the arrest weren’t there.
On Wednesday, police complaint commissioner Prabhu Rajan said a retired judge, Wally Oppal, will adjudicate a review of the discipline decision.
In a statement, Rajan said new evidence was submitted by the Johnsons explaining “the importance of an apology ceremony under Heiltsuk law and the ongoing harm caused to the applicants because of the lack of a culturally appropriate apology.”
The discipline decision ordering an apology “was well-intentioned in seeking to improve the relationship between the applicants and the police,” said Rajan, but the officers’ refusals “appears to have worsened the relationship between the parties.”
“A review on the record will provide an opportunity for an adjudicator to determine, with the benefit of the new evidence and in the context of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, whether the officers should be required to provide oral apologies to the applicants, and if so, on what terms.”
This is the first time the OPCC has used its powers to reconsider a decision under the Police Act. A date for the review hearing has not been scheduled.
