B.C. police complaint commissioner’s office gearing up for systemic investigations

British Columbia’s police complaint commissioner says his office is gearing up to conduct systemic investigations in an expanded mandate that would go beyond individual cases of police misconduct in hopes of reducing complaints and improving public confidence in law enforcement.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner released its latest annual report this week, outlining how the oversight body dealt with more files in the last fiscal year than at any time since 2020.

The office handles complaints about police misconduct for 15 jurisdictions in B.C., most of them municipal, including Vancouver, Surrey, New Westminster, Delta, Abbotsford and four municipal departments on Vancouver Island.

Commissioner Prabhu Rajan said in an interview Tuesday that the increase in files was due, in part, to the Surrey Police Service replacing the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction in the fast-growing Metro Vancouver city.

“One would expect that as a police department grows in numbers, the number of complaints and potential issues rises,” he said. “It’s not a negative commentary on the service. So, one will expect as they fully take over Surrey that we will have even more complaints.”

The report said the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is currently building a program to carry out “systemic investigations” after its mandate was expanded under the Police Act last year.

Rajan said much of his legal career in Ontario centred on systemic investigations, and he looks forward to the oversight body examining issues “upstream” from individual cases.

“You can’t look at individual issues in a vacuum because oftentimes they arise out of broader systemic concerns, gaps in the system, what have you,” he said.

He said the sexual misconduct issues in the case of former Vancouver police officer Keiron McConnell, a senior officer subjected to a public hearing, are worth looking at more broadly.

“You have to deal with the individual cases, but you have to go upstream to understand how did those issues arise,” Rajan said.

Rajan said the last fiscal year, covering April 2024 through March 2025, saw fewer injuries reported from less-lethal police weapons such as Tasers, beanbag rounds and pepper spray.

The report says the increase of files under investigation highlights how the need for police complaint oversight is on the rise. Rajan said he’s particularly hopeful about the more widespread adoption of police-worn body cameras in B.C.

He said the objective evidence gathered by body cameras will potentially help shorten investigations, cut the number of complaints and reduce the complexity of some investigations.

“Prior to body-worn cameras, you have often just the perspective of the individual involved and the one or multiple officers that were involved and the challenge for an investigator and adjudicator to then weigh the evidence and determine credibility,” he said. “It’s not an easy process.”

The report says the office opened a total of 1,524 files in 2024-25, up by about five per cent compared with the previous year, but the number of files involving “serious harm” investigations dropped to 13, less than half the average of the previous four years.

There are two other agencies that either investigate police incidents or oversee police complaints in the province.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP looks into complaints made against Mounties, while the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. investigates incidents that result in serious harm or death by officers in municipal agencies and the RCMP.

Rajan said he’s “quite proud” about his office’s complaint resolution process being used more frequently this past fiscal year, which saw 89 per cent more files settled than the year before.

He said he’s hopeful that the outreach work outlined in the report has raised greater awareness of his office’s work, including marginalized and Indigenous communities that have “significant trust issues” involving police.

“We’re not a police body and I think it’s important for people to understand that we are here as a neutral body that will handle matters independently and impartially,” he said.

The report said the commissioner’s office is working on expedited processes for certain cases that it hopes “will reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the need for a lengthy investigation.”

The report also outlines how the commissioner made six recommendations to the Vancouver Police Board in response to complaints, including one about officers wearing “unauthorized patches with political connotations.”

The report says the Vancouver Police Department acted on the issue by posting bulletins about the ban on unauthorized patches, requiring officers to sign off on a policy reminder, delivering training on the implications of such patches and holding a yearly briefing to specifically address the force’s uniform policy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press