Body-worn RCMP cameras ‘rolling out this month’ in NWT

Body-worn cameras for police officers are being introduced to the Northwest Territories this month, the NWT’s premier said on Tuesday.

Speaking in his role as justice minister, RJ Simpson said he understands the cameras will be worn first by RCMP officers in Yellowknife.

Officers in other communities will adopt cameras in the coming year, Simpson told the territory’s legislature while answering questions from Great Slave MLA Kate Reid about police accountability.

Reid wanted to know if Simpson was considering a “formalized relationship” with an external oversight agency for police in the territory.

Yukon, for example, has an agreement with the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which can independently investigate cases involving police that result in serious injury or death.

The NWT doesn’t currently have an agreement with that kind of agency.

The federal Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, which scrutinizes public complaints about RCMP conduct, can look at cases in the NWT – but it mostly relies on RCMP to carry out investigations, then reviews those investigations and their outcomes. The commission cannot independently investigate serious injuries or deaths involving police.

Simpson said discussions about some form of external oversight agency – or a relationship to one – had suggested it would involve having “a couple investigators on staff as well as a travel budget for them to travel around,” leading to a cost of “hundreds of thousands of dollars for zero or one or two cases a year.”

He told Reid he hoped the cameras would instead “provide some comfort to individuals … who want to ensure that the RCMP are held accountable.”

RCMP began field-testing body-worn cameras last year in Nova Scotia, Nunavut and Alberta. The cameras are being introduced nationwide to “help increase trust between police and the communities they serve,” RCMP have stated. When the rollout is complete, all front-line officers will have them.

In 2020, the federal government committed $238.5 million over six years and $50 million in ongoing annual funding to pay for the system.

Also on Tuesday, Reid asked Simpson if the GNWT was prepared to help find funding to support services like Street Outreach in Yellowknife. A review of that program, released this week, suggested an expanded outreach program to help the city’s street-involved population would cost just under $1 million a year.

“Once we see the outcomes of that review, we’ll have a better idea of what we actually need to do, what type of support they might need from the GNWT, and we can look at what types of funding that could be accessed at that point,” Simpson said.

The premier also said the safety of Indigenous women and girls remained a priority for him and for RCMP as a whole.

The Yellowknife Women’s Society issued a report this year that found Indigenous women were “overpoliced and underprotected” in the city.

Asked by Reid what steps had been taken since, Simpson said RCMP ” have a follow-up meeting with the Yellowknife Women’s Society, and so the work is ongoing and will continue to be ongoing.”