“My experience with investigations of abuse is that the third party should be the RCMP or local police. Once there is the involvement of police all other processes should stop pending the outcome. If you feel that the CLBC investigation has not been sufficient and you have concerns about harm done and/or safety of a person then involving the police is appropriate. The involvement of the police is not a matter of choice for CLBC or any other body, agency or service provider.”

Is this helpful? One of the key issues that has come to the forefront in the community living advocacy campaign that we launched with a broad coalition of other partner groups in the fall is the lack of an effective independent voice to provide oversight, respond to complaints, provide public reporting, etc. The structure of existing complaint resolution/service quality mechanisms is simply not working and has emerged from our community forums and other feedback as a critical gap.