Top B.C. Mountie’s missing notes turn up as OPP weighs options for renewed criminal probe

OPP audit RCMP investigation into death of immigrant at Vancouver airport.

The missing notes of a retired senior B.C. Mountie that were supposed to be part of an Ontario Provincial Police investigation into the behaviour of top RCMP brass in the wake of a Tasering death at Vancouver’s airport years ago have turned up after all, in the national police force’s B.C. headquarters.

And confirmation of their existence didn’t come through official channels to investigators with the OPP’s Project Eastbourne, but rather through an access to information request by a former Mountie, Chris Williams, who asked for them on his own behalf, he told CTV News.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Williams said in an interview. “I think that it definitely questions the reliability of the very lengthy, likely very expensive Project Eastbourne investigation. If there was in fact evidence that should have been relied on by those investigators that was not provided, whether willingly or by accident, I think that needs to be addressed.”

The OPP says it’s now weighing its options about what to do with the notes, whose absence caused delays and possibly missed investigative avenues, according to its report.

“The Ontario Provincial Police is aware that notes believed to be connected to the former Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner have been located. We are currently determining next steps,” said Detective Insp. Kevin Veillieux in a statement.

The missing notes belonged to former B.C. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr, who commanded the Mounties in B.C. for two years until her retirement in 2019.

The notes were sought during an investigation into a complaint of obstruction of justice against her and other senior officers relating to how the senior officers behaved amid tremendous public pressure after the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport in 2007.

The RCMP’s initial explanation was shown to not match a bystander’s video of the event, which shows four officers quickly Taser Dziekanski and kill him, even though it later emerged that he was just distressed and lost. The responding officers were grilled in a public inquiry and two were found guilty of perjury, while the other two were found not guilty.

Allegations that higher-ranking commissioners Brenda Lucki, William Elliott and Robert Paulson, deputy commissioners Butterworth-Carr, Jennifer Strachan, and Craig Callens, Insp. Kevin Cyr and others committed the offence of obstruction of justice were unsubstantiated, according to the OPP review, which CTV News obtained in late 2025.

Butterworth-Carr told the OPP she had turned over her hard copy and electronics note to the RCMP upon her retirement in 2019, but when the notes couldn’t be found, investigating officers had to acknowledge they didn’t have all the information.

“Given her recent retirement and rank she held within the RCMP, it is concerning that her notes could not be located. This issue alone was the cause of delays in this investigation,” the OPP report says.

Earlier this year, Williams had made an access to information request for some information related to him in those notes, and in correspondence an RCMP consultant told him, “There are no missing notebooks.”

“Retired D/Commr. Butterworth-Carr’s notebooks which are in fact being held by the current D/Commr.’s office contain no notes about you,” the consultant wrote in February.

In a statement to CTV News, the Mounties didn’t address why the OPP didn’t get those notes during their criminal investigation.

“The written notebooks of former Deputy Commissioner Butterworth-Carr are being managed in accordance with RCMP policy on the retention of files. All current and former officer notebooks are retained in accordance with this policy. The RCMP Division in British Columbia reviewed the ATIP applicant request and identified that there were no relevant records or notes in the notebooks related to his questions, therefore information in the notebooks was not released for the ATIP request,” said spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton on Monday.

All of this means the struggle to get to the bottom of how senior officers behaved in the wake of Dziekanski’s death may continue, said Chris Lewis, a former OPP commissioner, in an interview.

“Missing notes for any officer involved in an investigation of any kind are concerning. If that occurred, it’s unacceptable. The public won’t accept it, and it’s just within what policing views as proper practices,” he said.

Lewis said the OPP still has many options, including getting a search warrant to obtain those notes formally.

“The investigation needs to be furthered, so let’s see what was in the notes and at least reassure the public that there’s nothing being hidden or otherwise, but that has to occur. It just can’t be dropped now,” Lewis said.