Progress Alberta editor loses appeal over alleged EPS intimidation at 2023 news conference

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The Alberta Law Enforcement Review Board (ALERB) has dismissed an appeal from the editor of a progressive news website who alleged Edmonton police intimidated him at a news conference.

Duncan Kinney filed a complaint with the Edmonton Police Commission following a news conference in February of last year where he claimed he was mistreated by members of the Edmonton Police Service (EPS).

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Kinney is the editor of the Progress Report, the media arm of left-wing advocacy group Progress Alberta. He claims to have lost his accreditation to EPS media events in 2022 due to his prior critical coverage of the police.

The commission dismissed his complaint as “frivolous and vexatious” in November but Kinney appealed that ruling to ALERB the next month.

Last week, a three-person ALERB panel affirmed the commission’s decision to dismiss the appeal, stating Kinney’s allegations were based on speculation.

“The board finds that the complainant’s allegations lacked the evidentiary foundation to have any reasonable chance of success and are bound to fail,” the panel’s Aug. 20 ruling states.

“The commission’s dismissal of the complainant’s allegations on the basis they are frivolous and vexatious was, in light of its legal and factual context, justifiable, intelligible and transparent and therefore reasonable.”

Intimidation allegations

The news conference Kinney attended was held on Feb. 1, 2023, to announce the provincial government’s plans to deploy sheriffs alongside Edmonton police in the city’s downtown.

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The event was put on by the provincial government, though it was hosted at EPS headquarters.

Kinney alleged that when he arrived at the venue, he was spotted by an EPS officer who “immediately” went into a room where Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis were waiting ahead of the start of the event.

Soon after, two officers came out and informed him that he would not have a chance to ask questions at the news conference and that he would be escorted out of the building if he made a scene, an interaction Kinney recorded in part on video.

Kinney hypothesized McFee was upset at his attendance, something the ALERB ruling states there is no direct evidence of.

While the news conference was underway, he claimed another officer came close enough to him that the officer’s holstered gun contacted Kinney’s side and elbow, and that the officer initially refused to move when asked.

He was not among the four reporters who were selected to ask questions of McFee and Ellis.

His complaint alleged the police’s conduct violated parts of the Police Act, Police Service Regulations, the Criminal Code, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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There is no appeal mechanism for ALERB decisions.

‘The ruling is wrong’

EPS stated it was “satisfied” with the ruling and that the unspecified issues related to Kinney’s credentials have not yet been resolved.

Kinney declined to comment and deferred to his lawyer, Tom Engel, who said “the ruling is wrong, in many ways,” and that Kinney’s complaint went beyond speculation.

“You take a known set of facts and then you determine whether you can infer other facts from that,” he said.

“We still don’t know what involvement the chief had with what happened in that room.”

He added Kinney’s complaint appears to not meet the ALERB’s own criteria stated in the ruling for being vexatious.

Kinney is also awaiting trial on a mischief charge after being accused of spray painting a bust of Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian nationalist figure linked to massacres of Jews and Poles during the Second World War.

Engel said the case will be back in court next month ahead of a trial set to begin in April.

— with files from Jonny Wakefield

mblack@postmedia.com

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