Regardless of whether the RCMP emergency response team did everything by the book or members of that team deserve to face criminal charges, some truly appalling details came out of the coroner's inquest into the death of Greg Matters.
Matters spent 15 years in a Canadian military uniform, including a tour of duty in Bosnia. His years of service left him with chronic back problems and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In thanks for his willingness to risk his life for his country, he was given a $6,000 lump sum payment and a paltry pension of $123 per month, which works out to a whopping $1,476 per year.
Matters received that amount even with his medical conditions, meaning his buyout and pension would have been even more ridiculously low if he had left the Canadian military in one healthy piece, both physically and emotionally.
Yet the Conservative government believes it is doing everything it can for the military and for veterans. Just look at how Stephen Harper, in the same year Matters died, was busy celebrating the anniversary of the War of 1812 with an expensive ad campaign and special events to mark a conflict that happened before Canada was even a country.
While Harper was trumpeting Canada's glorious military tradition during the bicentennial of a war that is nothing more than a question on a history test, Matters had become a problem for Prince George RCMP.
The week before he died in Sept. 2012, Matters served a day in jail as part of a sentence that also included nine months probation for uttering threats during an incident in June 2011. The day before he died, Matters ran his brother Trevor's car into a ditch and punched him. The dustup began after Trevor showed up at the home where Matters lived with his mother at about 3 a.m. after having some drinks with friends.
That situation led to the RCMP surrounding his Pineview property later that day.
Thirty hours after that, Matters was dead.
Rob Stutt, the chief investigator sent by the Independent Investigations Office to handle the Matters case, testified before the inquest that there is a school of thought that "memory improves after time" to defend why three of the ERT members weren't questioned until the following day and why the IIO had to wait 11 days before getting a written statement from Cpl. Collin Warwick, the officer who shot Matters.
For starters, there is no way the RCMP would wait 11 days before getting a witness statement after the death of one of their own officers, so why was this delay acceptable?
Secondly, there is no reputable school of thought that believes memory improves over time. Psychologists are well aware that "flashbulb memories," vivid recollections of emotional and traumatic events, are increasingly unreliable as time goes by. Memory is not stored in our brains like computer data. Instead, the human brain literally recreates a needed memory every time it's needed. Eventually, memories become fixed, meaning that even when confronted by a written record of what we remembered immediately after an event, many people will insist that their first memory is wrong and the current memory, months or years later, is the true account.
Furthermore, one of the inquest's recommendations is ridiculous and should be tossed aside. Police dogs should be trained in apprehending armed suspects and dog handlers should be prepared to deploy them in those situations, the jury wrote.
Good luck finding RCMP members who would be willing to put a dog at great risk of harm from a suspect armed with a gun, a knife, a bat or a hatchet . And even if such dog handlers could be found, they'd be breaking the law.
Section 445.1 (1) (a) of the Criminal Code of Canada states: "Every one commits an offence who
willfully causes or, being the owner, willfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird."
This is a minor issue, compared to a federal government that neglects veterans and pays pennies on the dollar, particularly to the ones with physical and/or mental conditions brought on by their time in uniform, to help them move into civilian life after their military careers are over.
On the other end was an investigation that believed memories improve over time and that it was acceptable to not receive a written statement from the key witness until 11 days after the incident.
In the middle was a problematic and troubled man who deserved better from the government, the military and the police force.
