Commission Counsel has advised us that Commissioner Oppal will render his decision respecting our application seeking disclosure of Det. Cst. Lori Shenher’s book manuscript on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. 

We applied for a copy of the manuscript after Shenher, a former journalist, confirmed under cross-examination that she had written a book about her experience with the missing women investigations and submitted it for anticipated publication by McClelland & Stewart in 2003.  The application was opposed by her counsel, David Crossin Q.C., on grounds that the book was irrelevant and/or private.  Commissioner Oppal accepted Mr. Crossin’s invitation to review the book himself to determine whether it should be disclosed to the participants.

According to the Commission’s website, the upcoming schedule is as follows:

Wednesday March 7, 2012
Staff Sg. Don Adam (Retired)

Thursday March 8, 2012
Cst. Dave Dickson
Insp. Gary Greer
Staff Sgt. Doug MacKay Dunn
Insp. Chris Beach

Monday March 12 to Wednesday March 14, 2012
Insp. Fred Biddlecomb
Insp. Dan Dureau
Sgt. Geramy Field
DCC Brian McGuinness

Hearings will not be in session March 19 – 23, 2012*

…..

*We do not know why the Commission is not in session during the week of March 19th.

The Province newspaper reporter Suzanne Fournier has followed the missing women case for over a decade.  She has written a story for tomorrow’s edition that includes the following excerpts:

Today’s evidentiary hearings started after 11:00 a.m. (following the hearing of a lengthy application by Darrell Roberts, Q.C.) with four Vancouver Police Department witnesses taking the stand at once.  Our objections to the process were summarily dismissed and Messrs. Beach, Greer, Dickson and Mackay-Dunn were led through their evidence by Commission Counsel for the rest of the day.  The appearance of former Inspector Chris Beach as one of the witnesses was a complete surprise, as Commission Counsel had failed to notify us that he would be appearing on the panel.

Independent Commission Counsel Robyn Gervais, originally appointed to represent aboriginal interests, announced her withdrawal from the hearings.  She is reportedly disillusioned with the process.

If so, she is certainly not alone.  The Commission’s main concern seems to be to hurry along to a self-imposed April 30, 2012 completion date.  To this end, it is now calling witnesses in groups.  We are finding that it is impossible to prepare and conduct effective cross-examinations in such circumstances.

At the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry yesterday, Commissioner Oppal revealed Practice Directive No. 3, a procedural decision taken without seeking any consultation with or submissions from us, the counsel for the families of 25 missing and murdered women.  The directive imposes a fundamentally different process, one that will see witnesses appear in groups, on “panels”.  The radical new approach seems to be driven by the provincial government’s decision to compel the Commission to report to it by June 30, 2012.

When this inquiry was established, our clients hoped that it would finally provide them with the opportunity to seek out the true facts surrounding the Crown’s decision to stay charges against Robert William Pickton arising from his attempt to murder a Vancouver sex trade worker in March of 1997 and the impotent police investigations of him that ensued until he was serendipitously snared by an unrelated investigation on February 5, 2002.  In our opening remarks to the Commission on October 11, 2011, we pledged to assist the Commission in its mandate by helping to pry the lid off the scandal and expose all the evidence to public scrutiny. 

We knew our task would be challenging, but we still underestimated just how difficult it would prove to be.  We certainly didn’t anticipate being the subject of vitriolic personal attacks for trying to represent our clients’ interests by pursuing the truth.

Vancouver Police Department Chief Constable Chief Chu looked for all the world like Captain Renault (“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here”) while announcing that 15 male members of his department had been discovered circulating pornographic files on their office computers.  Chu was quick to point out that the material was “not illegal”.  Vancouver Police Union President Tom Stamatakis soon weighed in, attempting to downplay the scandal by comparing the sleazy material to stuff routinely on display in the daily newspaper.

Let’s first take a harder look at these statements:  Who is making the determination that the content was legal?  Why, the police themselves…might they have a vested interest in clearing their own senior officers?  If the porn was actually no worse than what is found in the newspaper, why not produce all of it immediately for public, independent inspection to determine whether crimes were actually committed?

With that out of the way, this matter raises much bigger issues.  There obviously continues to be a pervasive culture within this police force that considers it acceptable to harbour sexist and misogynistic attitudes while at the same time falsely assuring the public that those anachronistic beliefs were rooted out long ago.  Make no mistake about it, VPD management would have covered up this unseemly matter and kept it under wraps had diligent blogger Alex Tsakumis not exposed it two days ago.  That’s not news either, but the public deserves much, much better.

Round up the usual suspects.