Take note: RCMP note-taking falls short

Audit finds that long-standing problems with notebooks persist

RCMP officers continue to break rules around investigative note-taking, despite a decade-old commitment to fix the problems.

An audit this year found the force is making the same mistakes that were highlighted in a previous internal review of note-taking, when RCMP supervisors committed to improvements.

“[I]ssues identified from the 2014 audit persist and opportunities remain to improve information management practices relating to investigator’s notes,” says the report.

Officers’ notes taken during investigations are often key pieces of evidence for courts hearing criminal or civil cases. Improper note-taking, or failure to keep any notes, can hamper police investigations and jeopardize prosecutions. Incomplete notes can weaken the testimony of police officers in court.

Police failure to take proper notes or to retain notebooks was a key criticism of the Mass Casualty Commission, which investigated the brutal 2020 murders of 22 people in Nova Scotia by a gunman impersonating an RCMP officer.

Several “police officers’ notes were incomplete, illegible, missing, or simply did not articulate their observations, decisions, and actions as required by national policy,” says the commission’s final report (Vol. 5) from 2023.

For example, of the three officers who investigated an assault complaint about the perpetrator in 2013, only one could locate any notes, and those were incomplete. Another officer who investigated a firearms complaint about the perpetrator in 2010 was unable to produce any notes at all about the interactions. The commission flagged note-taking across the force as “deficient.”

The latest audit was carried out after the Nova Scotia murders, between 2021 and 2023. Auditors asked 90 officers in Alberta, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island to turn over their notebooks for inspection.

Only 69 of the 90 notebooks “would likely be sufficient to support testimony in court,” the report concluded. The rest were missing too much information, such as key details of the arrest, statements made, or relevant times. Some officers had made no written notes at all on incidents.

Supervisors are required to review each officer’s note-taking at least twice a year to ensure the rules are being followed. Interviews showed the requirement was only loosely followed. In some cases, there were no reviews at all.

Officers’ notebooks are the property of the RCMP. They must be kept secure at the detachment, and never taken home. Retiring members are also required to surrender their notebooks permanently.

In a sampling, the auditors asked to see 102 notebooks, and found some were missing – though the statistical results are censored in the public version of the audit report, posted last week. “The rationale for missing notebooks included a lack of space in RCMP locations to store the notebooks and challenges recovering notebooks from [REDACTED],” says the report.

Some officers and Brenda Lucki, head of the RCMP at the time, told commission hearings that they kept their notebooks at home, in violation of Mountie policy.

The Mass Casualty Commission determined that problems with police note-taking are long-standing, highlighted as far back as a 1991 inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service. A 2016 review of RCMP detachments in Nova Scotia’s Cumberland County found most supervisors did not review notebooks, and that the notebooks lacked sufficient detail. The RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission also acknowledged it’s a persistent problem across the force.

The commission’s recommendation No. 120 called on the RCMP to heed repeated calls to improve note-taking, to ensure notebooks are kept secure and that supervisors regularly review them.

“The national note-taking policy is not adhered to, including with respect to custody of the notebooks, and there is no consistent supervisory practice of monitoring the quality and content of member notes,” said the commission’s report.

In an addendum to the 2025 audit, RCMP management said it’s committed to “improving the processes and practices used to maintain investigator’s notes and ensure compliance with relevant policies.”