Police associations one step closer to working together

This month marks 20 years since the Honourable Justice Archie Campbell released his report on the investigation of one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers — Paul Bernardo.

Bernardo, along with his wife Karla Homolka, were responsible for the horrific murders of three teenagers in southern Ontario. As the case unfolded before the courts, the public learned how he had stalked potential victims in several different police jurisdictions in southern Ontario before the duo trolled for and selected their victims. The public also learned that before becoming a serial killer, Bernardo was in fact responsible for numerous sexual assaults in the Toronto area and was dubbed “The Scarborough Rapist.”

Next year, 2017, will mark 30 years since Paul Bernardo began his reign of terror as The Scarborough Rapist.

In his report, Justice Campbell identified a key factor that enabled Bernardo to avoid detection as the Scarborough Rapist and morph into a serial killer without the police being able to identify and catch him, was the lack of information-sharing. Campbell was critical of police for not sharing information, and rightfully so. Even back then, technology had become a part of policing but we were operating in silos based on jurisdictional boundaries and rivalry rather than true cooperation.

Campbell’s most revolutionary recommendation was that he directed the Ontario Ministry of Justice to develop and implement a single Major Case Management (MCM) system to be used by all police services in Ontario to ensure the unified management of major and inter-jurisdictional serial predator investigations (homicides, sexual assaults and abductions).

Shortly after the Campbell Report, there was a level of government intervention into police operations that was rarely seen in those days. Within months of the report the Ontario government, through the Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General, mandated that all police services in Ontario would adopt a common or interoperable software system for Major Case Management that enabled investigative links and information to be shared throughout the province.

Since 2002, police services in Ontario have been using a common, interoperable system called Power Case. The early versions were effective but far from user-friendly. As with all technology, though, it has evolved and improved. It has proven itself to be an incredible tool to make linkages in investigations between police services irrespective of their geographical or jurisdictional boundaries.

More recently and closer to home was the Oppal Report that was issued in 2012 after an inquiry into the case of Robert Pickton and his numerous victims. Pickton’s murders went undetected for years before police finally made an arrest in the horrific case. At the conclusion of Pickton’s trial and his conviction, the inquest began to determine how the murders of so many women could go undetected for so long.

Justice W.T. Oppal’s recommendations focused largely on an electronic MCM system for British Columbia with the capacity to interface with other Canadian MCM systems. Justice Oppal largely reaffirmed the recommendations made by Justice Campbell 16 years earlier, but outside of Ontario only the Vancouver Police Service has moved to advance these recommendations in a meaningful way in B.C.

In Alberta, our police services are not there either. What is disturbing is that given the number of transient workers we have in the province when oil is booming, conceptually one could commute from another province, commit major crimes in multiple jurisdictions and go undetected. They could literally live two totally different lives in two jurisdictions and never even cause a blip on police radar. Until all police services in the country, or at least the province, are using an interoperable system, criminals will continue to fall through the cracks and some of the most serious of cases will go unsolved.

I am proud to let you know at the last Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police conference, I was able to get a resolution passed that “supports the adoption and implementation of a proven ‘best practices’ set of operational procedures and MCM technology as an essential aid in solving major criminal investigations.” The resolution goes on to urge the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police to do the same so every agency in the country is on board.

A few weeks ago, my column focused on the CSI effect and how a lot of what we see on television is purely fantasy. However, the ability to link major case investigations is well within the realm of attainable. The interoperable software Justice Oppal spoke of is in place and functioning in Ontario and Vancouver. But to take investigations to that next level of co-operation and information-sharing there needs to be a political will to make it happen nationwide.

In late May, I was fortunate to listen to Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde speak at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police conference Moving Forward: Safer Futures that was to discuss Truth and Reconciliation as well as the upcoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry. Grand Chief Bellegarde urged the audience to actually transition recommendations into practice. He cited numerous inquiries and reports including Justice Oppal’s.

I find it extremely frustrating that I have lived through the Campbell and Oppal inquiries yet we have not learned our lesson. Many of Pickton’s victims were young aboriginal women. As we lead up to the inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, I believe police leaders, police commissions, political leaders and the public must unite to demand the provincial and federal governments intervene and make standardized, interoperable Major Case Management a national policing standard based on existing best practice so that we have an additional tool that can help us to potentially solve these cases.

In Ontario, the mandated MCM software Power Case has successfully made criminal trend linkages, managed and helped solve numerous high-profile crimes. It has proven to be a “best practice” model for major case management and is also used by law enforcement to manage numerous policing projects beyond its original scope or intent because of its proven success.

If we do not recognize a proven best practice and have it as a national policing standard, there is too much potential for the selection process to get bogged down for another 30 years in federal, provincial or municipal procurement and tendering rules and policies. One need only reflect on the F-18 fighter jet replacement or the Navy frigate replacement debate and discussions over the past two decades to see how long things can get delayed. If there is a political will we can make it happen. It is only recently that all police agencies in Canada were mandated to submit electronic fingerprints so that we became more efficient and sped up the time required to submit and retrieve matches. It happened in a relatively short timespan because it was federally mandated. That demonstrates to me that things can happen expediently if we truly want them to.

Major Case Management deals with the most horrific crimes in society. As long as we have situations like the Highway of Tears and other pockets across Canada with disproportionate numbers of unsolved murders and missing persons, nobody should allow the recommendations and lessons that date back at least 30 years to go unaddressed.

In watching our current provincial and federal government, it is apparent that they are willing to challenge the old status quo. At times it is impressive and makes me optimistic that common sense and efficiency may be trumping bureaucracy in certain regards. I hope that common sense will prevail and get all police agencies across Canada on a common MCM system so we have better odds of solving society’s worst crimes.