By Matt Nemeth

Policy for naming homicide victims on its way

Jul 14, 2017 | 5:03 PM

MEDICINE HAT, — It’s becoming an increasingly common thing in our province; police choosing not to identify homicide victims because of privacy concerns.

The practice varies across different police services in Alberta, but a new policy may put them all on the same page soon.

Murder is the most serious offence in the Criminal Code of Canada, and for years it’s been deemed part of the public interest to release a victim’s name.

Medicine Hat has had four homicides in the last year, each time the victim’s name was released.

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“Of course there’s that balance of the communities right know and the victim’s privacy, and the victim’s families privacy,” says Medicine Hat Police Service Chief Andy McGrogan.

That balance lately in Alberta though has tilted towards not releasing homicide victim’s names in certain places.

The RCMP — bound by the Federal Privacy Act — often withhold a murder victim’s name, and the Edmonton Police Service has not named 13 of their 27 homicide victims so far in 2017.

Driven by media, McGrogan, who is also the president of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police (AACP), says a province-wide policy is in the works to address the discrepancy.

“I’ve read it and I think it’s very sound,” he said Friday in his office. “It’s a great template to consider every time we have a murder and that we are considering releasing the name of the victim.”

McGrogan says they’ve sent the policy off to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the specifics of it won’t be made public until she reviews it.

The policy, which was put together by legal staff of various police services and members of the Solicitor General’s office, will be more of a guideline than anything else because McGrogan says the AACP doesn’t have the authority to make anybody do anything.

“But we’re a pretty tight group and we’re very respectful of each others differences, and we try to come up with solutions that will cause some uniformity across the province in areas like use of force and all the things that are important to the community, and this is one of them.”

Sara Lewans, an attorney with Yarshenko & Heidinger Law Office, believes having a uniform policy for all police services in Alberta will be a good thing.

“Privacy laws both on the federal and provincial (level) say that their name can be released,” she says. “It’s an overriding public interest to know about the crime, especially with murder being one of the most heinous crimes.”

Lewans says it’s a relatively new trend having police not release a victim’s name because they don’t believe it’s in the public interest, but she adds one of the biggest benefits public interest provides by releasing a victim’s name is having the crime be more impactful on our society.

“You hear people saying that they would rather know the name of the victim versus the name of the person who did it, and that that name should be available and that’s who people should be remembering, not the name of the accused.”

The AACP are meeting as a group the first two days of August. McGrogan hopes that the privacy commissioner gets back to them with her thoughts on the policy before then so they have the option of adopting it at that time.