Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard denied Wednesday that he lied during his testimony at a Vancouver inquiry probing the investigation of the disappearances and murders of dozens of women<strong>BY NEAL HALL
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VANCOUVER - Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard denied Wednesday that he lied during his testimony at a Vancouver inquiry probing the investigation of the disappearances and murders of dozens of women.
Lawyer Darrell Roberts, representing First Nations interests at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, suggested LePard gave "false evidence" to deflect the blame away from Vancouver police and onto the RCMP for the flawed police investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton.
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"I have done my very best for the last 10 days and take great offence at being accused of not telling the truth,'' LePard responded.
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Roberts suggested that LePard prepared his report, which reviewed the mistakes made by the Vancouver police and RCMP in the Pickton investigation, on the false premise that Pickton committed no crimes in Vancouver.
And this was intentionally done to take the heat off Vancouver police and put it on the RCMP, Roberts charged.
"I couldn't disagree more," LePard replied.
He said there was no evidence that Pickton used a ruse to kidnap sex trade workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and take them to his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., to kill them.
Roberts suggested that LePard had considered that Pickton committed the crime of kidnapping by fraud in Vancouver before preparing his report, which was released last year.
"Here you gave false evidence," Roberts again suggested to LePard's denial.
The inquiry is investigating why it took Vancouver police and RCMP until 2002 to catch Pickton when they were receiving detailed tips as far back as 1998.
Pickton, 62, is serving a life sentence for the murders of six women. He initially was charged with killing 20 more but those charges were stayed in 2010.
The serial killer has been linked by DNA to the deaths of 33 women and has boasted to an undercover police officer that he killed at least 16 more.
Lawyer Sean Hern, representing the Vancouver police, objected to Robert's accusations.
"I'm deeply concerned by those kinds of questions," he told the inquiry commissioner.
Hern said LePard was called as an expert witness to give his opinions about policing, but he is not a legal expert.
He said Roberts' questioning of LePard was inappropriate.
Roberts has repeatedly asked LePard about Vancouver police's failure to exercise a search warrant on Pickton's farm in 1998 after receiving tips reporting that he was killing women there.
LePard said it was the legal jurisdiction of the RCMP to investigate the murder allegations because Pickton lived in the jurisdiction of Coquitlam RCMP.
Roberts even drafted a mock search warrant that Vancouver police could have prepared in 1998, based on information known then.
The mock search warrant also contained information about a Downtown Eastside prostitute who was attacked at Pickton's farm in March 1997 but survived.
Roberts said the details from 1997 indicated Pickton was using a fraud - offering women money for sex - in order to lure them to his farm to be killed.
LePard has said that police don't know when Pickton formed his intent to kill, pointing out that 13 women stayed at Pickton's farm for between one and 40 nights and lived.
The RCMP lawyer, Cheryl Tobias, will be the next to cross-examine LePard.
Earlier on Wednesday, inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal interrupted a lawyer's cross-examination to ask how much longer he was going to take.
"We've got timing problems here," Oppal told Jason Gratl, the lawyer for ``affected Downtown Eastside individuals,'' who began his cross-examination on Monday. "The fact is, we've got to get this inquiry moving.''
"We have a deadline here. We can't go on forever," he added.
The inquiry began Oct. 11. Oppal initially had a deadline of Dec. 31 to file his report to government, which has granted an extension until the end of April next year.
On Monday, a job ad was posted seeking a new host for a CBC children’s program. They were seeking a male between 23 and 35 years of age who could carry a tune. Oh, and “Any race except Caucasian.”
The job ad was quickly pulled down and amended — the “no whites” bit was deleted. The CBC said it was looking into the incident, and the casting agency that had published the information apologized quickly, calling it a mistake.
A mistake? No doubt. But for those who’ve dealt with the CBC before, it’s hard to accept that it was an accident.
The idea that a casting agency would just randomly decided to exclude an entire race of people was always implausible. A better guess was that the CBC had communicated to the agency what kind of candidate they were looking for. Would CBC execs have said, “Whitey need not apply”? No, of course not. But was it possible, even likely, that while discussing the ideal candidate for the job, they might have strongly implied that it would be terrific if the candidates were anything but white? Oh, yes.
The casting agency has all-but confirmed this. “We were asked to seek a cast of diversity,” the company said. “We mistakenly took that to mean that the production was not seeking Caucasian actors. This was a mistake that was made entirely by the casting company.”
Well, yes and no. Being so blunt about it was the mistake. But were they mistaken to assume that the CBC didn’t want a white guy? Doubtful.
I’ve had a taste of this myself. Part of my job is going on radio and TV programs to represent the Post and speak about what’s in the news or expand upon something I’ve written. The overwhelming majority of the time, the process is simple: A producer emails me, tells me what they want to talk about and when, and I say yes and give them a phone number to reach me at.
But the CBC, which has more staff than your typical private-sector station could even imagine, has a much more involved process. Before you ever get on CBC, you conduct a lengthy pre-interview with a producer, who tests out your answers on a variety of angles. It’s actually not unusual for the pre-interview to last longer than the real interview.
One of the first times I went through this process, after spending about 20 minutes on the phone with a very earnest and friendly producer, she told me, “This sounds great. This is exactly what we’re looking for. Would you be able to be at our Toronto studio tomorrow?” I confirmed that I was able. “Great!” she said. “Then we’re all set, except for one thing. We’re trying to get a woman on the show to have more balance, and if we get one, we’ll have to take a raincheck for you.”
Bemused, I thanked her and hung up. Several hours later, I got a call back. “You’re off the hook!” she said cheerfully. “We found a woman!” (I tuned in the next morning, and it was the Post‘s very own Tasha Kheiriddin, as it so happens.)
I’ve been on the CBC a bunch of times since, and would be happy to go on again at any time. But I’ve been pre-interviewed two or three times more often than I’ve been on the air, and have been repeatedly told that I’m being bumped for diversity reasons. A few times I’ve even been told the entire segment has been scrapped, but I’ve then heard it on air as planned, featuring people who can check off more diversity boxes than I can.
This doesn’t offend me. Producers pick the best guests to meet their show’s needs. But what does stick out about these experiences is how blase the CBC’s staff is about it. Based on how openly and cheerfully they discuss the needs to fill positions — even just guest commentators competing for eight minutes on The Current — based on the race or gender of the candidate, you can be absolutely positive that the CBC’s entire culture is steeped in diversity. It’s Priority One.
The casting agency that said whites need not apply wasn’t as polished as the CBC might have liked. But they knew what their client wanted. Their only mistake was stating it in such blatant terms.
