Sexual assault allegations by a former civilian member of the RCMP's B.C. communication division is just the latest controversy for the force in a province where the Mounties are under increasing scrutiny.


In a claim filed Aug. 1 in B.C. Supreme Court, Atoya Montague alleges a superior committed acts of sexual assault against her. Montague has also cited alleged incidents by fellow officers.


The RCMP has grown and taken on a wide range of policing responsibilities across the country since the first officers were recruited in 1873. The force has been entrenched in B.C. for decades and polices all rural areas and all municipalities except for 13 cities where local police forces have jurisdiction.


Here's a look at some of the biggest controversies for the RCMP in B.C.


B.C. Mounties complain of harassment


In 2011, CBC News revealed a well-known Mountie spokeswoman's claims that she was sexually harassed for several years. It led many other female officers to come forward with their own stories.


In total, almost 300 current and former female Mounties have joined a class-action lawsuit alleging harassment within the ranks of the RCMP.


On Aug. 1, 2013, Atoya Montague, who held a senior civilian position within the RCMP's B.C. communications division, announced she is suing the force and a former top spokesman for alleged sexual assault.



Montague alleges Insp. Tim Shields abused his position of authority over her to commit acts of sexual assault. The lawsuit also alleges that on one occasion, she was surrounded by the male members of the police dog unit who rubbed up against her. None of the allegations have been proven in court.


According to the lawsuit, Montague worked for the RCMP from 2002 until 2011, when she went on sick leave. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2012.


RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, who has been in the job since 2011, has called some of the harrassment claims of the past few years "outlandish," but has also said that his key priority is to eliminate sexual harassment in the force.


Mistreatment of Aboriginal women


On Feb. 13, Human Rights Watch released a report alleging that some aboriginal women in northern B.C. had experienced police threats, torture and sexual assault at the hands of the RCMP.


Researchers spent several weeks last summer visiting 10 communities in northern B.C., where they gathered accounts from aboriginal women of alleged mistreatment at the hands of police.


The First Nations communities they visited are linked to B.C.'s so-called "Highway of Tears," where 18 women have disappeared over the past several decades.


Human Rights Watch has acknowledged that individuals making claims must come forward if police are to conduct a proper investigation. The report called on the Canadian government to launch a national inquiry.


Robert Pickton investigation


The RCMP faced criticism over its handling of the Robert Pickton case. In December 2012, an inquiry found jurisdiction issues meant two police agencies — the Vancouver Police Department and and Coquitlam RCMP — were investigating the same crimes and didn't know whose case it was.


RCMP Commissioner Paulson has said eliminating sexual harassment in the force is one of his key priorities.RCMP Commissioner Paulson has said eliminating sexual harassment in the force is one of his key priorities. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

In the inquiry's conclusion, commissioner Wally Oppal blamed years of inadequate and failed police investigations for allowing Pickton to prey undetected for years on women in the sex trade on Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside.


Death of Robert Dziekanski


Robert Dziekanski died after being stunned multiple times by a Taser during a confrontation with Mounties at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.


In the final report after a two-part inquiry into the case, retired B.C. Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood concluded the RCMP were not justified in using a Taser against the Polish immigrant, and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.


A report released in October 2012 indicated that Taser use in B.C. has declined by 87 per cent since Dziekanski's death.


On July 29, 2013, Const. Bill Bentley, one of four RCMP officers who confronted Dziekanski at the airport, was found not guilty of perjury .


Death of Ian Bush


Ian Bush was shot in the back of the head at the RCMP detachment in Houston, B.C., shortly after he was arrested for having an open beer at a hockey game in October 2005. The shooting sparked a public outcry.


The chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP concluded the officer who shot Bush acted in self-defence and that the police investigation into the shooting was conducted fairly and without conflict of interest.


Ian Bush's mother, Linda, dropped a lawsuit she had launched against the Mounties in 2010 because of changes made by the force and its commitment to having deaths-in-custody investigated by external investigators.


1997 APEC summit in Vancouver


A high-profile inquiry into RCMP actions at the 1997 APEC summit in Vancouver concluded that the force bungled its handling of the demonstrations.


Inquiry commissioner Ted Hughes said that many of the complaints from protesters were well founded, that the officers' use of pepper spray against demonstrators was unnecessary, that strip-searches of women were inappropriate, and that the way some protesters were dealt with was inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But he laid the bulk of the blame for those problems on the RCMP leadership and the poor job done planning the operation, rather than on the officers on the ground.