No charges against police officers in database searches of former MLA Shannon Phillips

No charges will be filed against three police officers accused of illegally surveilling former Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips.

No charges will be filed against Lethbridge police officers accused of illegally surveilling former Lethbridge MLA Shannon Phillips.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team issued its final report on the matter Thursday, saying that while it found reason believe three LPS officers had committed a crime, the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service (ACPS) had determined there wasn’t a likelihood of conviction and thus no charges were laid.

In 2017, Phillips, who was then Alberta’s environment minister, was discussing a proposed new park with a constituent in a coffee shop and was overheard by Lethbridge officer Keon Woronuk.

Woronuk, a local all-terrain-vehicle user, was concerned that what he heard might have an impact on his hobby.

Woronuk subsequently posted photos of the meeting on a Facebook page under the name “Mike Corps,” which included identifying the stakeholders and a long caption criticizing Phillips and the NDP government.

That prompted Phillips to complain to Calgary police, who found Woronuk had conducted an unauthorized database search. Calgary police then passed the investigation on to Medicine Hat police.

Woronuk was later convicted of five counts of violating the Police Act. They included wrongly subjecting Phillips to a police database search, singling her and others out for traffic enforcement, misleading supervisors and using his position as an officer for political reasons.

The other officer, Jason Carrier, also an off-road enthusiast, was convicted on two counts under the Police Act — being an accessory to Woronuk’s offences and failing to report them.

A third suspect, a retired LPS officer, was found to have made comments on social media that suggested he had illegally accessed Phillips’ file on the police database.

The report found that some of the database searches officers conducted were lawful while others were not.

“As a result of ASIRT’s investigations, there were reasonable grounds to believe that the criminal offences of unauthorized use of computer and breach of trust were committed (by three officers),” the ASIRT report concluded.

“Accordingly, as required by the Police Act, these matters were referred to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service (ACPS) for an opinion on whether charges should be laid.

“On December 8, 2023, ASIRT received the requested opinion from ACPS, which recommended that no charges be laid.”

The report noted that the two investigations applied different metrics to investigations. ASIRT assesses situations based on criminal code standards, while ACPS assesses situations based on the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, “and whether it is in the public interest to proceed with a prosecution.”

‘The fault continues to lie squarely with the Lethbridge Police Service’

Thursday afternoon, Phillips sent CTV the following statement in response to the release of the final report.

“It is nice to see ASIRT has finally released this report. It has been a year and a half since I first learned that there were grounds for criminal charges, but the Crown declined to proceed.

“It is appalling that Alberta’s Crown Prosecution Service continues to allow police to get away with misuse of databases, a practice that is not tolerated in any other regulated profession.

“It is shockingly common and will remain so for as long as there are no consequences.

“I remain of the view that there has been no meaningful recognition of the harm that the LPS has caused to me, to the rule of law and our respect for liberal democratic institutions.

“This not the fault of ASIRT - they did their job, however belatedly. The fault continues to lie squarely with the Lethbridge Police Service.

“The Lethbridge Police Service has disgraced themselves through these many years. They could have simply owned up to misconduct and apologized both to me and to the community.

“They have never done that. One can only conclude that on some level they approved of a system that allows officers to misuse their power to target a Minister of the Crown. As a result, they have problems with reputation management and public trust. This is a situation of their own making.

“I would welcome actions from the LPS that would recognize the harm done to me and to the public trust. It has been almost a decade, so while I do not hold out much hope, it is always possible the LPS or the Police Commission might someday choose to do the right thing.”

With files from The Canadian Press