Officer involved in tracking Alberta minister in 2017 should be fired, lawyer tells appeal

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A police officer who failed to report a colleague who improperly targeted a former provincial cabinet minister should be fired, given procedural flaws in the disciplinary process that resulted in lesser punishment, the politician’s lawyer says.

Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) officer Jason Carrier, however, should not be granted a new hearing, lawyer Michael Bates, who represents Shannon Phillips, a New Democratic Party MLA and former cabinet minister, told Alberta’s Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) on Tuesday.

Mr. Carrier and and Keon Woronuk pleaded guilty to several counts of misconduct last year and received temporary demotions through the police disciplinary process. Ms. Phillips appealed the sentences to Alberta’s Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB), which heard final arguments in the appeal on Tuesday.

Ms. Phillips was initially kept in the dark about the allegations and related hearing after Mr. Woronuk tailed one of her dining companions and conducted an improper licence-plate search on his vehicle in April, 2017. Mr. Carrier, an LPS sergeant and one of Mr. Woronuk’s friends, learned of the illegal search but did not report it.

Mr. Carrier spotted Ms. Phillips in a diner and secretly took a photograph of her with four guests. He sent the picture to Mr. Woronuk, who was then a constable. The pair shared political views that clashed with the NDP and Ms. Phillips’ worldview, according to documents tied to the case. While Mr. Carrier was not involved in physically following the diners or conducting the database search, Mr. Bates argued he knew or should have known Mr. Woronuk’s actions were politically motivated, and therefore egregious.

“One of the key pieces of a police state is exactly that – the police target citizens for their political views,” Mr. Bates told the panel. “There’s no way around that.”

Despite years of dubious conduct, the Lethbridge Police Service is free to decay for another day

The lawyer argued the agreed statement of facts presented in the initial disciplinary processes excluded information Mr. Woronuk provided to police investigators from another force in Alberta.

“He saw this as legitimate police work – identical to targeting Hells Angels, drug dealers and pedophiles for traffic enforcement,” Mr. Bates said of Mr. Woronuk. “He did not make any distinction between the targeting of people suspected of being involved in unlawful activities and the targeting of people involved in lawful, political activities that he disagreed with.”

Mr. Woronuk told the investigators he disliked Ms. Phillips. According to Mr. Bates, he said: “We target people we don’t like.”

This information was excluded, indicating flaws in the process, Mr. Bates said. Had such information been included, a stiffer punishment would have been warranted, he argued. But while he says the punishment should be increased, he does not want the guilty plea to be invalidated.

None of the allegations have been tested in court. The lawyer representing Mr. Woronuk on this file did not return a message seeking comment. Mr. Woronok, who has since resigned, is among the LPS officers also accused of sharing inappropriate memes.

Meanwhile, Mr. Carrier’s lawyer, Dan Scott, said if the punishment is to be overturned, the case must start from scratch. Admissions and concessions in the agreed statement of facts, he said, were tied directly to Mr. Carrier’s plea agreement. LPS’s former chief, he noted, largely shaped the agreed statement of facts.

“The chief of the day did not handle this right,” Mr. Scott said. But Mr. Carrier should not be punished for another person’s errors. Further, Mr. Scott agreed it was improper to not inform Ms. Phillips and her guests of the officers’ actions and the subsequent disciplinary process.

The LERB panel said it will weigh the written and oral arguments in the appeal and produce a written decision.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which investigates the police, earlier this year said it would investigate the details surrounding the Phillips incident.

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