More than 600 RCMP officers faced gender-based violence disciplinary charges since 2014, CBC analysis finds

The screams were so loud that neighbours across the street in this quiet, prairie community called 911.

Within minutes, RCMP officers from the local detachment responded. Inside the house, a woman was crying. So were the kids.

And the officers found themselves investigating one of their own.

“He was screaming and yelling,” said the now ex-wife of the RCMP constable — the one the officers were investigating that night. “I was shaking. I was scared.” 

CBC has agreed not to name the woman because she fears telling her story could put her in danger.

Over the following months, she said, she repeatedly reached out to RCMP resources for help to deal with her husband’s anger issues. She suspected work-related post-traumatic stress disorder was to blame.

Then, one day, a phone call: an RCMP disciplinary committee had launched a formal investigation to determine if the officer’s actions violated the force’s Code of Conduct.

“They said we can only do this if you testify against him. We need you to be a witness for the RCMP,” said the woman, whose former spouse faced disciplinary allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence.

“I was terrified and I’d come to a point in my life that I thought if I don’t speak up now, this is never going to stop.”

Her case is among 639 disciplinary cases launched by the RCMP over the past decade that involved gender-based violence allegations against a member. 

A CBC News analysis found a total of 616 officers and civilian members faced disciplinary charges related to gender-based violence, including sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, sexual assault, domestic violence, pornography in the workplace and prostitution. Roughly two dozen officers were involved in more than one case.

Overall, that amounts to one in 10 of all misconduct and wrongdoing allegations made against RCMP personnel.

“We’re really just dealing here with the tip of the iceberg,” said Danielle McNabb, an associate professor of political science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.

She’s one of two academics who have examined CBC’s research, calling it possibly the most exhaustive analysis ever released on police-perpetrated gender-based violence in Canada.

“This data is so important because of the light that it is shedding,” said McNabb.

The dataset, obtained through access to information requests, details nearly 9,000 disciplinary charges involving members of various ranks and their outcomes. The charges range from the misuse of travel credit cards to impaired driving and assault.

Around 400 RCMP members were involved in a disciplinary case every year — roughly two per cent of the force’s total staff.

The records also reveal how the RCMP’s disciplinary process handled allegations related to gender-based violence during a pivotal era — starting with the department’s 2016 apology to female members who were victims of sexual harassment through the #MeToo movement and the pandemic-era surge in reports of intimate partner violence.

“There’s a real issue in Canada of a lack of attention to police-perpetrated violence against women,” said Sunny Marriner, national lead of the Improving Institutional Accountability Project.

The project examines policing data across the country and issues guidance on criminal justice systems and sexual violence, including for the RCMP.

“For me, accountability looks like a heightened transparency … because of the level of power and the level of authority that is given to these folks,” Marriner said.

The head of the RCMP, Commissioner Mike Duheme, whose team also examined CBC’s key findings, said transparency is a priority for him.

“This is how you build trust,” said Duheme, noting the organization has evolved a lot in terms of tackling gender-based violence claims over the past decade, especially in the past 18 months.

“I’m very excited about our new code of conduct that came in 2024…. We should be aggressive in our approach when we’re dealing with conduct.”

Quarter of cases were domestic violence

CBC asked the RCMP to provide data on every disciplinary allegation made against a member between January 2014 and May 2025 — and then identified every charge related to gender-based violence.

We found nearly half of these 973 allegations were categorized as sexual misconduct, while one in four were labelled domestic violence and one in six were described as sexual assault.

Allegations related to gender-based violence were substantiated less often than other types of misconduct or wrongdoing: 30 per cent of those disciplinary charges were proven, compared to 42 per cent of all other charges being proven.

The RCMP’s data also suggests that, proportionally, disciplinary cases involving allegations of gender-based violence take longer to conclude: nearly one in five was labelled as still pending, with some cases dating back as far as 2021, while nine per cent of other cases remained open.

“An investigation is not always simple. Sometimes it leads to multiple interviews, multiple phones, multiple computers to look at. So sometimes it could take a while — sometimes if there’s a criminal investigation as well,” said Duheme.

McNabb, whose research specializes in criminal justice and police oversight, said CBC’s findings highlight similarities with the criminal justice system. In both systems, these types of allegations are proven less often.

Complaints, including sexual assault, are also systematically underreported, she said.

“For gender-based violence in general, we know through decades of research that there is something very different about these cases. We know that they tend to have a lower charging rate. They tend to have a lower rate of these types of complaints being investigated in the first place,” said McNabb. “It’s often what we might call a ‘he said versus she said’ scenario.”

Researchers, including McNabb, say the fact the RCMP released this data is a positive step forward and shows a willingness to deal with an important problem.

“I’m pleased that they have co-operated in this way,” said McNabb.

“I think the data that you have here, it provides a couple of answers around what’s going on,” she said. “But there are still questions.”

For example, the dataset does not specify the gender of the complainant or of the subject of the allegations. It doesn’t say if criminal charges were also pursued and it doesn’t specify whether the complainant is also an RCMP member.

Marriner said it’s also crucially important to examine how allegations are being categorized in the system and what’s missing. For instance, she says it’s not uncommon for domestic violence calls to police to end up as break-and-enter or vandalism charges.

“That does not necessarily get treated as a domestic violence report within the police service.”

McNabb agrees. “There’s probably hundreds of other cases within this dataset that we simply cannot conclusively say this is gender-based violence.”

1/3 of gender-based violence charges dropped

Some RCMP disciplinary cases end because of “loss of jurisdiction.” The force told CBC the vast majority of these were dropped because the subject of the investigation resigned or retired and the remainder were closed because the one-year period to complete the investigation had expired.

The data reveals a consistent trend: one in three allegations related to gender-based violence concluded with the force losing its jurisdiction over the case, while only one in five of the other types of allegations end this way.

Sexual misconduct and sexual assault appear among the 10 disciplinary charges most frequently dropped because of a loss of jurisdiction over the past decade.

CBC’s tally suggests that 138 RCMP members were involved in a gender-based violence disciplinary case that ended in a loss of jurisdiction.

“For the victim, it’s probably not satisfying because the person’s resigned, but the goal for us is to get rid of the person,” said Duheme, noting the investigation does continue.

“So if the person, for example, decides to apply for another job somewhere and he or she puts down a reference check for the RCMP in that personal file, there should be documentation of the investigation.”

Sanctions more ‘serious’

CBC’s analysis found that when charges related to gender-based violence are proven, the consequences are often more significant than for other types of charges.

Roughly half of all proven charges including sexual misconduct, sexual assault and domestic violence end with what the RCMP calls “serious” disciplinary measures — which could involve a transfer to another division or a demotion.

Proven allegations that do not involve gender-based violence end with “serious” measures less than 15 per cent of the time.

“Once it’s somewhat substantiated, we’re going for the person’s employment,” said Duheme regarding gender-based violence. “We didn’t have that before, and this is far more aggressive than the process that we had before.”

Dismissals are listed as a separate sanction in the records released to CBC.

The data provided to CBC suggests 183 RCMP members faced one or several allegations of gender-based violence that were ultimately ‘established’ — the force’s official term for proven — following the conclusion of the disciplinary process.

Of that total, 13 members were dismissed.

The data provided by the RCMP suggests that the remaining 170 officers with proven allegations including sexual assault and domestic violence faced other disciplinary measures, such as transfers and demotions, but were allowed to return to work.

“Police officers found to have committed a form of gender-based violence, I don’t think that they should be serving in the front lines, working in a specialized domestic violence unit,” said McNabb. “It really undermines public trust.”

The RCMP did not specify whether it has a formal or informal policy regarding members with proven allegations of gender-based violence and whether they can respond to calls or investigate cases involving sexual assault or intimate partner violence.

“Every file is different and it’s based on information that’s generated from the file,” said Duheme.

CBC identified a number of disciplinary cases that resulted in a member losing their job.

They include a case heard in 2021 involving a Calgary officer found “texting” a 16-year-old girl, a Mountie in B.C. who was fired “immediately” in 2024 after a tribunal found he had had sex with a “vulnerable woman” whom he’d first encountered when on duty and an Edmonton officer who was dismissed in 2025 after a tribunal found he’d held a woman by the throat and sexually assaulted her.

The adjudicator in the last case, Colin Miller, said in his decision that letting the corporal keep his job could “erode the public trust” in the RCMP.

‘I would still do it again’

The woman who was asked to testify against her RCMP spouse after neighbours called 911 did appear as a witness at his disciplinary hearing.

“I’m not responsible to protect him,” she said.

It is one of 170 disciplinary cases that have made it to a formal hearing since 2015.

CBC was told by the RCMP that all cases sent to a disciplinary tribunal are cases in which the force is seeking dismissal.

When she attended the disciplinary tribunal, her ex-husband was there and represented by a lawyer. As is common, the adjudicator was a retired RCMP member.

“It was a terrible environment to come into,” she said. “I felt like spotlights were on me … I felt unsafe.”

No expert witnesses were invited to explain the nuances and complexities of intimate partner violence, she said, adding the process lacked any independence from the RCMP.

Duheme told CBC the force has recently implemented training so officers take a more trauma-informed approach. But he said they are constantly looking to improve the system.

“I would welcome any comments from the people who are observing some of those gaps.”

Ultimately, the disciplinary charges of domestic violence and sexual assault laid against the woman’s ex-husband were “not established” — the RCMP’s term for unproven.

He remains an officer today.

The woman found support through other RCMP wives and former spouses who’ve experienced similar situations. Hundreds of them are part of a private social media group. She said she hears stories like hers almost every week.

“He got to go on with his life, but he was told to stay away from me. So I feel safer,” she said. “I would still do it again, just in hopes that something changes, someone’s held accountable.”

She said the RCMP has done a lot to raise public awareness around workplace harassment, but more needs to be done.

“I think it’s time to definitely just shed light on the spouses and the families.”

METHODOLOGY: How CBC analyzed the RCMP’s disciplinary data Through Access to Information, CBC obtained datasets representing nearly 9,000 allegations of disciplinary misconduct and wrongdoing made against 4,300 RCMP officers and civilian members between 2014 and 2025 and their outcome. Allegations related to gender-based violence (GBV) were identified by the CBC reporting team and verified by two independent researchers. The following RCMP allegations were included: workplace sexual harassment, domestic violence, pornography in the workplace, prostitution or soliciting, sexual assault and sexual misconduct. CBC excluded all cases still identified as “pending” when calculating the percentage of each disciplinary case outcome (e.g.: established, not established, loss of jurisdiction). As the majority of cases reported in 2024 and 2025 were still marked as “pending” in the dataset provided, those years are less represented in the outcome statistics. CBC excluded all allegations not explicitly identified in the data as ‘established’ when analyzing the specific types of disciplinary measures imposed. More than 1,500 allegations (17.4 per cent) classified as a ‘loss of jurisdiction’ were omitted from these calculations. The RCMP noted that a loss of jurisdiction occurs if a member retires or resigns before an investigation concludes or if the one-year limitation period expires without an extension. The department added that, once jurisdiction is lost, no measures can be imposed. As a loss of jurisdiction does not constitute a formal finding that is the result of an RCMP investigation or the formal conclusion of the official adjudication process, allegations ending in a “loss of jurisdiction” were not included in the calculation. Consequently, percentages for disciplinary measures are calculated based solely on allegations that reached a formal conclusion. Roughly half (44.5 per cent) of cases involved more than one allegation. A minority of RCMP members (7.16 per cent) were the subject of more than one misconduct case. Data cleaning and analysis by Valerie Ouellet Additional research by Julie Ireton