Alberta police unions say improving transparency must balance officers' privacy

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Police forces and unions in Alberta say they support making more of their disciplinary process public, but they argue that publicizing every complaint could have unintended consequences and intrude on the privacy of officers and people who file complaints.

They also say the issue should be dealt with as part of a larger overhaul of the province’s policing laws, which advocates and police departments themselves want to include an independent system to handle complaints and discipline.

Alberta’s Justice Minister told The Globe and Mail earlier this month that he supports making the discipline process more transparent, including providing better access to rulings against officers that are not automatically released right now. Experts say the current practices of withholding officer names, publishing only vague details about public hearings, and not routinely publishing the results make it impossible for the public to assess whether the system is working as it should.

The lack of transparency in the current system was underscored by a recent case involving two officers in Lethbridge who were disciplined for improperly conducting surveillance on then-NDP environment minister Shannon Phillips over a policy disagreement. The officers, whose conduct was reviewed by the Calgary and Medicine Hat police departments, received temporary demotions and the decision only came to light through a local media report.

Edmonton’s police chief, Dale McFee, said he has been calling for a system of oversight that takes discipline out of the hands of police forces. He said that could include increased transparency that would see discipline decisions automatically released to the public.

“We would like to see a different regime in relation to dealing with police discipline,” said Chief McFee, who is also president of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police.

“With that, I think, comes a discussion about should we be more transparent? I would say we’d be open to those discussions.”

Still, he argued that it wouldn’t make sense to publish every complaint against an officer, such as minor incidents or internal human-resources issues.

“You are a large employer and you don’t need all your HR issues disclosed to the public,” he said.

“I think there’s a balance between what should be released and what shouldn’t be released.”

Disciplinary hearings in Alberta are open to the public, and while the resulting decisions can be obtained by filing a freedom-of-information request, they are not made public as a matter of course and the names of officers are often redacted. Instead, police forces publish limited information about the process.

The Edmonton Police Service publishes a list of decisions that are available upon request, but that list includes no details other than the date of the decision and the broad category of offence, such as “discreditable conduct.”

In Lethbridge, cases are summarized on the force’s website. In the case of the two officers that were disciplined earlier this year, there was a list of charges against them and their punishment, but no mention of their names, any details about what happened or the fact that it involved a former cabinet minister.

Calgary’s police department publishes yearly reports that provide brief, one-sentence summaries of complaints and disciplinary decisions, also without the officers' names. The 2019 report was released in June of this year.

The chief of Calgary’s police force was not available for an interview. The department said in a statement that it is looking at how to ensure increased transparency while respecting privacy legislation. The statement said those decisions must take into account the privacy rights of victims, witnesses and officers.

John Orr, the president of the Calgary Police Association, the union representing the force’s officers, said he supports greater transparency but he said there needs to be a balance.

“Are we talking about every single complaint received by the police service having the names of the officers published? Then I would suggest that might be going a little too far,” said Mr. Orr, who worked in the homicide unit before becoming president of the association last year.

“It’s where that line is, where the public interest is and what is the purpose of publishing an officer’s name.”

Police forces argue that the current practice of releasing decisions by request and in some cases redacting the names of officers is designed to comply with provincial privacy legislation, which may need to be revised if the province decides to allow for greater disclosure.

The issue of public disclosure went to court in 2010, when a judge ruled against the Calgary Herald after a reporter requested all the disciplinary decisions from that city’s police force over a period of more than seven months.

The court ruled that only decisions involving a conviction for offences under provincial or federal laws needed to be disclosed, concluding that releasing other decisions would be an unreasonable invasion of the officers' privacy. The decision cited provisions within provincial privacy legislation that said employers must protect the personal information of their employees.

Erika Norheim, an Edmonton lawyer who often represents complainants in police discipline complaints, said she’s happy to hear that the province’s Justice Minister is considering ways to make the process more transparent.

Ms. Norheim said that right now, the process is “very secretive” and said opening up disciplinary hearings to the public without telling them anything about a particular case, which is what happens now, makes it difficult for the public to assess if the process is working or if complaints against officers are being handled appropriately.

“Even if you’re a lawyer, it’s really hard to get access to the information that I think members of the public want‚” she said. “I would also like to see not only the names of the accused officers, but also the witness officers. Frankly, I can’t see any good reason for concealing that information.”

Lisa Silver, a law professor at the University of Calgary, said it makes no sense to allow the public to attend disciplinary hearings but not also see the written records related to those hearings.

She noted that disciplinary decisions for other professions, such as lawyers, are routinely published.

“There’s a disconnect there,” she said. “The reasoning for it being public is that accountability that is only there when you know what happened and why.”

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