The agency that investigates serious injuries or death involving the police says it wants to better connect with New Brunswickers, including those from marginalized groups.
The Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) recently issued its annual 2024-25 report. The Nova Scotia-based agency was designated as the police oversight body for New Brunswick and opened an office in 2023, according to director Erin Nauss.
“It’s been a journey. We certainly have strived to ensure that operations in both provinces have been operating well,” Nauss said by phone last Wednesday. “Having that office fully staffed has been very helpful, obviously New Brunswick covers a large geographic area.”
The agency investigates cases including death, serious injury, allegations of sexual assault, intimate partner violence or other matters of the public interest that result from the conduct of police officers, with Nauss as the civilian director making the call whether to issue criminal charges.
In an emailed statement, Public Safety Minister Robert Gauvin said that SIRT’s work “ is critical for enhancing police accountability and transparency.”
“We are proud of our strong partnership with Nova Scotia in supporting the Serious Incident Response Team in both our provinces,” said Gauvin, a Liberal MLA for Shediac Bay-Dieppe. “Their work has been thorough and essential in maintaining public trust.”
The New Brunswick office in Fredericton came online in 2023 and was fully staffed as of last year, including an assistant director, two permanent full-time investigators and one officer seconded from the RCMP, Nauss said.
Nova Scotia’s office also has two full-time investigators and one officer each from the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police on secondment. The agency also has a manager of business administration and a manager of communications and special projects.
“During co-operation, we’ve learned from the experience that the team has here in Nova Scotia, which has been very helpful in onboarding the investigators in New Brunswick,” Nauss said.
Changes the organization has made this year include a new head office in Nova Scotia moving from Halifax to Dartmouth, a new website that is available in both official languages and a new case management system known as Crossfire, which has helped, Nauss said.
She said there is “always room for improvement,” saying they are working to establish a community liaison committee. In the last year, the agency brought back its committee in Nova Scotia, featuring representation from Black, Indigenous, Muslim and newcomer communities.
She said a committee would “help us connect with all the communities that we work with in the province,” saying they engaged a community liaison for a police-involved shooting in Elsipogtog .
“That was progressive for our team and really helped the investigative team … and so we’re really hoping to improve that work going forward,” Nauss said.
The team has also offered a standalone professional development conference for staff, and liaised with both province’s public prosecution service on training.
Nauss said the agency has taken a “travelling roadshow” presentation to police agencies throughout the province over the past year to make sure management and officers are aware of how SIRT operates.
“We’ve been relatively well received by the police agencies and the public in New Brunswick, and we’ve hope that has inspired confidence,” she said.
Prior to becoming the full-time agency for New Brunswick, initial investigation would be done by local officers before an out-of-jurisdiction investigator could arrive. Now SIRT can take over the investigation as soon as the referral is made, Nauss said.
“Our goal is to ensure public does have confidence in our investigations and does have trust that they are independent,” she said.
With some types of services such as forensic services, they still may need to ask for help from a police department, but try to reach out to another force than the one subject to the investigation.
“For example, if there’s a file involving the RCMP and we need digital forensic services, we’ve called the Kennebecasis police services,” she said.
The agency’s investigators are generally former police officers, currently those who worked inside the province, Nauss said. That’s combined with the civilian oversight from Nauss as the director, who is not a former officer, she said.
Nauss said they recruit “experienced investigators with integrity,” noting that officers that are seconded from agencies agree not to be involved in an investigation of their own agency.
The agency had a budget of about $1.5 million in 2024-2025, with a 2025-26 estimate of $2.5 million as per the Nova Scotia provincial budget.
Provincial justice and public safety ministry spokesperson Jadesola Emannuel said Friday that the total budget “ for SiRT oversight and investigations in New Brunswick” was set at $1.5 million for 2025-26.
When asked whether the agency has had enough resources, Nauss said they’re “very, very busy” and that it’s a small team in both provinces.
“When the arrangement began with New Brunswick, it was a bit of an unknown as to what to expect, the caseload,” she said. “We’re engaged in ongoing discussions with both provincial governments about resources, we would certainly welcome additional resources.”
A change of investigator had been mentioned as a source of some delay in at least two cases in the past year.
Nauss said the organization has “fairly limited” turnover, but any turnover will impact a small organization, noting that there are “new files coming in on a daily, weekly basis” that may need to be prioritized while the evidence is fresh.
“We have strived to be very timely in our responses,” she said, saying the agency has always “met or exceeded” the required timeline of three months after an investigation closes to file a report.
Nauss said they want “to be a place where people know they can come” to report an issue, saying they have a toll-free number, 1-855-450-2010,
and are working on a contact card in as many as eight languages.
“We’re trying to get that message out there … so that communities know that’s an option and what we do, that investigate police and that we’re not the police,” she said.
The organization received 62 referrals from the police and public in New Brunswick in 2024-2025, 33 of which were judged not to meet SIRT’s mandate, 10 of which were reviewed without starting a formal investigation and 19 of which became an investigation.
SIRT laid charges against four New Brunswick officers during the reporting period, including for aggravated assault, child internet exploitation and child pornography, breach of trust and theft and voyeurism and child pornography.
Nauss said she takes “no stance” on the numbers and cannot comment on active cases, saying the agency’s goal “is to conduct thorough and fair investigations.”
“The types of charges that we’re laying are very serious, and they’re certainly outside of the scope of behaviour that one would expect,” Nauss said. “So I think it shows a need for us to be here and it shows that we are doing our work and laying charges where appropriate.”
Rob Weir, opposition justice and public safety critic and Progressive Conservative MLA for Riverview, said he hasn’t received any complaints about SIRT as critic, “which is usually a sign that things are moving forward.”
The agency’s work is “terribly important to the public trust that people have in our justice system,” he said. “Policing is the front line of our justice system, and it’s a challenging front line. Without this confidence, it’s not good for the citizens, and it’s not good for the frontline workers.”
Weir said it’s “way ahead of what we were doing before” and while he hasn’t heard any request for more resources, he said it’s something he would ask about at the public accounts committee.
Megan Mitton, Green MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar, said the organization is still in the “beginning stages” of impacting public trust in the province. With a fully staffed a fully bilingual office, saying there’s “evidence that things are finally coming together.”
She said that New Brunswick is “lagging behind Nova Scotia in some ways,” and benefitting from work done by Nova Scotia around gender-based violence, the recommendations of the Mass Casualty Commission and other reports.
Mitton said the agency “needs to move” to set up its liaison committee, saying there’s a “lot more to be done.”
She said the report doesn’t offer a clear picture of whether the agency is adequately resourced, noting resources have been cited as an element of delay in at least one past case.
Benjamin Perryman, a UNB associate professor, said it’s “better that New Brunswick has a more permanent model in place” to add efficiency and familiarity with the area for investigators.
Regarding the numbers, he said that with small sample sizes, it’s important to ask whether the rate of investigations and charges were similar between provinces adjusted for population.
In both provinces, about 30 per cent of referrals resulted in an investigation, with six per cent resulting in charges in New Brunswick and 13.7 per cent resulting in charges in Nova Scotia.
He said the reality in the Maritimes is that all the provinces are small comparatively, and said that if “the implications of capacity shortfall are felt evenly, then it makes sense to share resources.”
“The concern would always be, if SIRT is stretched, and it is, what does that mean in terms of them being able to fulfil their mandate?” he said, noting that delays can impact the “quality of the investigation.”
Perryman said an independent police review agency experiences “a tension” between needing experienced investigators and ensuring “distance” from their former employers that’s “hard to make go away.”
He said that means a need for civilian oversight, which he said is a potential benefit of the liaison board.
“There’s always a risk … that what looks normal to somebody who has experience in a profession does not seem normal or correct for people that don’t,” he said. “So it is important to have so-called ‘normal people’ involved.”