A B.C. judge has ordered that data from a group chat where it’s alleged RCMP officers made racist and sexist comments be kept as part of the police proceedings.
“The RCMP intends to seek termination of the members’ employment at the hearing,” said Port Coquitlam Provincial Court Judge Robin McQuillan.
In his Sept. 12 decision, McQuillan said an RCMP member in May of 2021 complained to superiors that other officers were making racist, sexist and harassing comments to him, other RCMP members, and members of the public on the RCMP’s messaging system, and on a private group chat on the messaging app called Signal.
Those complaints triggered a code of conduct investigation.
McQuillan said Const. Sam Sodhi complained to his superiors of the racist, sexist and harassing comments allegedly made by other officers on the RCMP messaging system and group chat.
Officers suspended
On May 14, 2021, Chief Supt. Michael Legault initiated an investigation into Const. Philip Dick and Const. Ian Solven for making racist, sexist or otherwise offensive comments about other RCMP members and members of the public, contrary to the force’s code of conduct.
On June 17, 2021, Legault ordered an additional conduct investigation into Const. Mersad Mesbah on the same allegations
McQuillan said Dick, Solven and Mesbah have been suspended since June 16, 2021 as a result of the allegations against them.
The RCMP initiated a code of conduct investigation after receiving the complaint, part of which involved the RCMP obtaining and executing a warrant to search the complaining officer’s phone and seize electronic data of the group chat.
The conduct hearing was initiated against three RCMP members, with two-weeks of hearings having started Sept. 16.
As part of its investigation, the RCMP sought a warrant to search Sodhi’s phone for electronic data that pertained to messages on the Signal app.
On April 28, 2022, the RCMP executed the warrant and seized electronic data from Sodhi’s phone, including 4,427 messages from the Signal app. Sodhi consented to the search of his phone.
Charter rights
On Nov. 21, 2023, Dick, Solven and Mesbah filed a motion with the conduct board to exclude the seized data from the conduct proceedings.
They claimed they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data, and that the seizure of the data was unreasonable and a breach of their rights.
In a June 7, 2024 decision, the conduct board concluded that the Dick, Solven and Mesbah had a reasonable expectation of privacy and that their Charter rights had been breached.
Prior to its decision regarding alleged Charter breaches, McQuillan said, the conduct board on April 16, 2024 issued an interim decision in which it stayed one of the allegations against the members as well as a second allegation against Mesbah because they were filed outside of the one-year limitation period set out in the RCMP Act.
The federal attorney general applied to McQuillan for an order that electronic data seized be detained in the possession of the RCMP until the conclusion of the conduct proceeding.
McQuillan ruled the data be detained by the RCMP until conclusion of the proceedings and that any procedural improprieties in the investigation should be dealt with by the board.
