VICTORIA — Former British Columbia police officer Helen Irvine says she was driven out of the profession by a “weird” culture tolerant of sexual harassment — but now she’s hopeful change is on the way.
That’s because the province’s policing watchdog has launched its first systemic investigation into how municipal police departments handle complaints of sexualized conduct.
The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner announced the probe Wednesday, in its first exercise of the power granted after an amendment to B.C.’s Police Act.
“When they initially amended the Police Act to allow for these types of investigations, I mean, that was a win in and of itself,” said Irvine, a former member of the Delta Police Department.
She is now a plaintiff in a proposed class-action lawsuit against 12 municipal forces, launched by a group of female officers who allege they were subjected to various forms of harassment at work.
“Seeing this come out today was incredible. I mean we’re approaching it with cautious optimism, but it is absolutely a step in the right direction and we’re very happy about it.”
Police Complaint Commissioner Prabhu Rajan said in an interview that sexualized conduct in police workplaces “has been a recurring issue that I’ve seen far too often.”
Rajan said he hopes the investigation can shed light on how police forces can better handle sexual misconduct complaints, “to close any gaps and to protect people who may report and to strengthen public trust.”
He said using the office’s systemic investigation power for the first time would allow it to examine issues with “broad impact,” since sexualized conduct affects not only individual officers, but also potential police recruits and the public at large.
The investigation will involve the 15 municipal agencies under the complaint commissioner’s purview, and Rajan said all departments are expected to co-operate with the probe.
“It’s fair to say that many, if not most of the chief constables were concerned that a systemic investigation is a way of us somehow eliciting complaints,” Rajan said. “We made very clear that is not the purpose of a systemic investigation. It is not individual based.”
He said past victims or complainants will not be compelled to participate unless they want to, even though they could technically be compelled.
“That would not be a proper or trauma-informed approach,” he said. “Certainly we would not use this process and cause re-victimization of anybody.”
He said individual cases are often manifestations of broader workplace issues, and a systemic investigation can highlight the roles of not only police leadership in departments, but also police boards and unions in preventing problematic behaviours.
“Front line officers often get named in individual cases, but I am frankly as concerned if not more concerned with an environment that maybe allows that conduct to occur,” he said.
Irvine, who has said she was subjected to unwanted sexual touching and comments in the workplace, said that she and others involved in the lawsuit see the systemic investigation as a “big win.”
She said the lawsuit is locked in procedural wrangling, but the systemic investigation fits into their goal of trying to spur “behavioural change” in policing.
“Even though the litigation is all tied up in the courtroom, these things are still happening outside of the courtroom. So, we’re still effecting change,” Irvine said.
She said she hopes the investigation report will lay bare for the public the culture that drove her out of policing, and expose “just how bad it is.”
“I know many good police officers who did see what was happening to me and they didn’t speak up and didn’t say anything about it and they didn’t do anything about it and I can’t even be mad at them,” she said.
“They had to protect themselves in their own career because if they speak up then all of a sudden they’re the odd one out. It’s just this weird culture of silence.”
The Office of Police Complaint Commissioner said in a statement announcing the probe that sexual misconduct in police workplaces undermines “operational effectiveness” of law enforcement.
The investigation’s terms of reference say “sexualized conduct” includes “sexualized comments, jokes, gestures, advances, attention, propositions, threats.”
The broad definition, the terms say, also includes “unnecessary” physical contact, insults or “demeaning comments” around someone’s gender or sexual identity, sharing or displaying sexual content, gossip or rumours, career-related sexual propositions and “predatory or grooming behaviours by persons in positions of authority.”
Systemic investigations, the commissioner’s office said, allow the agency to “examine broader patterns, risks, and practices in policing,” rather than individual incidents of police misconduct.
Rajan said the investigation isn’t necessarily about further quantifying how prevalent sexual misconduct is in municipal policing, but identifying “best practices” that could potentially form a standardized approach to handle sexual misconduct cases.
“The focus of the systemic investigation is not to quantify how much is happening,” he said. “It’s a recurring concern. It exists. So what do we do about it?”
The Office of Police Complaint Commissioner said it expects to release the investigation report by April 2027.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2026
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
