Woman's complaint over arrest by Winnipeg police turned away for missing deadline by a day
CBC
A Winnipeg woman's complaint about police conduct has been rejected because it missed by a day the 30-day time limit that exists only in Manitoba.
Karen Robson came forward last month to tell CBC News the story of the night Winnipeg police mistook her for a thief and ordered her out of her pickup truck at gunpoint.
She says she filed a complaint with Manitoba's Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA) and was waiting to hear back.
She had no idea it was on the desk of the commissioner, about to be rejected for being one day late.
"That was the only reason," she told CBC News. "They thought it was well written. It was understood … what my plight was. But they decided just [because it was] one day late to reject it."
An analysis by CBC has found Manitoba is the only province in Canada that sets such a short limit for someone to file their complaint. The majority give at least a year, while Ontario and Newfoundland give complainants six months.
"That shocks me, that really shocks me," Robson said. "Because, I mean, why is it like that here in Manitoba? It should be the same … all over Canada."
Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen introduced legislation Thursday to extend the time limit for filing a LERA complaint to 180 days from just 30.
"The time limit is something obviously that was identified to us as being out of step with other provinces and not … making it accessible for some folks to be able to in a timely way raise a concern if they had one," Goertzen said.
Robson says she's glad the change is coming, and would like to see it made retroactive for people who have had complaints rejected because of the shorter deadline.
"That would give a lot of people a chance to voice their concerns or issue a complaint when they felt that they've been done wrong," she said.
Vancouver lawyer Wally Oppal, a former British Columbia judge and attorney general with decades of experience in the field of police reforms, told CBC News 30 days is an "unreasonable" time limit.
"If you want to have a fair process for the public, then it should be longer than 30 days," Oppal said in an interview from B.C., where the time limit to file such a complaint is one year.
Robson's run-in with police happened on Dec. 27, 2021, when she was driving home after a shift as a Winnipeg transit driver.
