SIRT-N.L. investigating four police officers for alleged sexual offences
CBC
CBC has learned that four police officers in Newfoundland and Labrador are under investigation for alleged sexual offences by the province's police-oversight agency.
The Serious Incident Response Team-Newfoundland and Labrador has confirmed it is investigating three RNC officers and one RCMP officer. SIRT-N.L. told CBC that two of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers under investigation are retired, while the other is not, and did not provide information about the status of the RCMP officer.
SIRT-N.L. director Mike King said he could comment on ongoing investigations.
Neither police force would confirm to CBC whether the officers are working or retired, if they are in positions that bring them in contact with the public, or if they've been suspended — and if they have been suspended, whether it's with or without pay.
Lawyer Lynn Moore says the police forces should be more forthcoming with the public.
"I think that's a serious misstep. I believe the public have a right to know if they are encountering people who are under investigation for such serious matters, such as sexual assault, and, in particular, I think women would like to know whether or not that person who is pulling them over is possibly a suspect in a sexual assault," she said.
This past summer Moore reported she heard from a dozen women who said they were either sexually assaulted by a police officer or propositioned for sex in a police patrol car. She said the complainants named seven different RNC officers.
Those allegations were made public two months after RNC Const. Doug Snelgrove was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in her own home in 2014, while he was on duty.
On Nov. 12, Snelgrove was sentenced to four years in prison.
Moore says she has since heard from more women with a variety of complaints about abuse by police but the number of police she has heard complaints about hasn't changed.
She said she doesn't know the identites of the officers being investigated or if SIRT-N.L. has heard from any of the women who have come forward to her.
"I do know this is very disturbing, and upsetting, to be a member of a community where so many people are coming forward with these very grave allegations against people who really hold a lot of power," she said.
Moore says the police forces could say whether the officers under investigation have contact with the public without revealing their identities.
"I don't see that they could possibly identify anyone if they merely said this person has contact with the public or does not have contact with the public. There are a lot of jobs at the RNC where people do not have in-person contact with the public," she said.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.