A judge in British Columbia has ordered that data from a group chat in which RCMP officers allegedly made racist and sexist comments be retained as part of the police investigation.

“The RCMP intends to seek termination of the members’ employment at the hearing,” said Port Coquitlam Provincial Court Judge Robin McQuillan.

In his Sept. 12 decision, McQuillan said an RCMP member complained to his superiors in May 2021 that other officers had made racist, sexist and harassing comments toward him, other RCMP members and the public in the RCMP’s messaging system and in a private group chat on the messaging app Signal.

These complaints triggered an investigation into the Code of Conduct.

McQuillan said Const. Sam Sodhi complained to his superiors about racist, sexist and harassing comments allegedly made by other officers on the RCMP messaging system and group chat.

Officials suspended

On May 14, 2021, Chief Supt. Michael Legault opened an investigation into Const. Philip Dick and Const. Ian Solven for making racist, sexist or otherwise offensive remarks about other RCMP members and members of the public, in violation of the Police Code of Conduct.

On June 17, 2021, Legault ordered an additional conduct investigation against Const. Mersad Mesbah on the same allegations

McQuillan said Dick, Solven and Mesbah have been suspended since June 16, 2021, due to the allegations against them.

After receiving the complaint, the RCMP initiated an investigation into its Code of Conduct. As part of that investigation, the RCMP obtained and executed a search warrant for the complaining officer’s phone to seize the electronic data of the group chat.

Conduct hearings were initiated against three RCMP members; two-week hearings began on September 16.

As part of their investigation, the RCMP applied for a search warrant for Sodhi’s phone for electronic data related to messages on the Signal app.

On April 28, 2022, the RCMP executed the search warrant and seized electronic data from Sodhi’s phone, including 4,427 messages from the Signal app. Sodhi consented to having his phone searched.

Charter rights

On November 21, 2023, Dick, Solven and Mesbah filed a request with the relevant committee to exclude the seized data from the proceedings.

They claimed that they had a legitimate expectation that the data would be kept confidential and that the seizure of that data was unjustified and constituted a violation of their rights.

In a decision dated 7 June 2024, the Conduct Board concluded that Dick, Solven and Mesbah had a legitimate expectation that their privacy would be respected and that their Charter rights had been violated.

Before making its decision on the alleged charter violations, McQuillan said, the Conduct Committee issued an interim decision on April 16, 2024, staying one of the allegations against the members, as well as a second allegation against Mesbah, because they were brought after the one-year statute of limitations set out in the RCMP Act.

The federal Attorney General asked McQuillan to order that the seized electronic data be kept in the RCMP’s possession until the outcome of the case.

McQuillan ordered that the data be withheld from the RCMP until the investigation is complete and that any procedural irregularities in the investigation should be addressed by the committee.