Vancouver lawyer encourages Terrace, B.C. women to create record of RCMP stops

A trip from Prince Rupert to Terrace for a berry festival took an unsettling turn for a woman and her friend along Yellowhead Highway 16 in northern B.C. Symbia Barnaby said it happened around 5:30 p.m. close to the Shames Mountain entrance on July 23. “We had just come back from cultural duties,” Barnaby said. “We had a tea with hereditary chiefs in Prince Rupert. We saw two police cars on the road … there wasn’t anybody in the middle of the road directing traffic, and I said to my friend ‘what do I do?’ and he said, ‘we’ll voluntarily stop and then we’ll ask what we should do.’” An officer directed them to pull over. “We said ‘Hello, officer’ and we were trying to be cordial,” Barnaby said. “And he was like, ‘this is a mandatory breathalyzer stop.’” Barnaby said this confused her and she wanted to know why. She works as the Indigenous practice advisor for the Family Support Institute in B.C., which supports Indigenous people with disabilities. She said she doesn’t drink and neither she nor her friend had consumed alcohol. Her friend is autistic and a Gitxsan firekeeper, and she said they are both respected in their community. She said he didn’t want to share his name because he is afraid of repercussions from the RCMP. “My friend extended his hand toward the officer to show he was being cordial, and tried to shake his hand … the police officer put his hand through the window, grabbed my friend’s hand and squeezed it really hard, and then started to pull it, as if he was going to pull him across my lap out the window,” Barnaby said. She described the incident as “very aggressive.” Knowing her friend is autistic, she took his hands and tried to help him self-regulate because they were both distraught. “To us, what do you see in the public? Indigenous people being brutalized by the police,” Barnaby said. The incident prompted Barnaby to make a post on Facebook, calling on residents of the Terrace and Prince Rupert areas to share any similar experiences. She has since reached out to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) for the RCMP, a local MLA, and said she intends to contact the officer’s supervisor at the Terrace detachment. Since putting out the call on Facebook, dozens have commented, including Arlene Lincoln. Stopped for mandatory breathalyzer  Lincoln, a Nisga’a woman from Lisims First Nation, said she filmed a traffic stop by the same officer with her cellphone. In the seven-minute video she shared with APTN, Lincoln repeatedly asks the member of the Terrace Highway Patrol for a business card. “So, you’re the one that’s been pulling people over,” she tells him from the passenger seat. “That’s my job to pull people over,” he says from outside the driver’s side window. Lincoln questions why she and a male driver were stopped. She sounds irritated when the officer doesn’t answer. “I’m not talking to you,” he replies, speaking to the driver instead. “I’m talking to you,” Lincoln interjects. “I need your card. Why the f*** are you doing this?” The Mountie asks the driver why he’s in the area, what he last had to eat or drink, and whether he’s had a cigarette. “Oh, my God, are you kidding me?” says Lincoln. “I didn’t know they have to ask you about cigarettes when they pull you over.” The Mountie then informs the driver of a mandatory sobriety test allowed under Bill C-46. “You see that, Facebook world?” adds Lincoln. “This is the guy that’s pulling everybody over.” But a spokesperson for the RCMP said the officer is just doing his job. Staff-Sgt. Kris Clark, a senior media official with the B.C. RCMP, said police across Canada have the power to impose mandatory screening on the roadside since impaired-driving laws were updated in 2018. “With respect to the change in legislation that occurred in 2018, I will direct you to a Department of Justice frequently asked questions page on alcohol-impaired driving laws. Specifically, the legislation now allows for mandatory alcohol screening roadside,” Clark said in an email to APTN. “While I will not comment on the specific concerns of local residents, I would encourage anyone who has concerns about an officer’s conduct to report their concerns either by contacting the management of any RCMP detachment, or through the (CRCC) for the RCMP.” APTN is not naming the officer, a former special constable with the Vancouver Police Department, because he is not officially accused of or charged with any offence. Lawyer warned lawmakers in 2018 Lawyer Kyla Lee testified before a Parliamentary committee in 2018 about amended drinking and driving laws. Photo: Kyla Lee The complaints are a concern for Vancouver-based lawyer Kyla Lee, who has a large TikTok following for her legal advice, specifically on impaired driving. Lee said it’s the kind of scenario she warned lawmakers about when they were debating toughening up the country’s impaired driving law in 2018, because drunk or drugged driving is the leading cause of death and injury in Canada. “I even gave the example in my testimony at the House of Commons of police parking outside the entrance to a (First Nations) reserve and testing people coming and going,” she told APTN. “If an officer is disproportionately using these powers against Indigenous people that is a problem.” Lee viewed Lincoln’s video at the request of APTN. “So far it looks like a routine traffic stop for sobriety,” she said. “Police do have the power to [do] random stops of any vehicle on the roadway to check sobriety. The questions he asked are screening questions because what he asked about can interfere with tests. “Police have also since 2018 had to power to do random breathalyzers without grounds.” @kylaleelawyer What do you need to do when pulled over by #police in Canada? The #law around your obligations at a #traffic stop is complex. Here are five things you need to know if you are ever pulledover. #kylalee #lawyer #dui #fyp #canadianlaw #bcpoli #cdnpoli #britishcolumbia #duilawyer ♬ original sound – Kyla Lee Multiple complaints launched Meanwhile, Lincoln’s driver, as seen in the video, passed the breathalyzer test, but was fined for speeding. Barnaby noted that dozens of people have posted complaints about the same officer. The CRCC told APTN under privacy legislation it can’t comment on complaints against a specific Mountie. But it said it could provide complaint statistics for the Terrace detachment. “Between April 1, 2025 and July 31, 2025, there were 10 complaints lodged for the Terrace and Prince Rupert RCMP detachments,” said a spokesperson in an email. Lee said Barnaby and Lincoln were doing the right thing by documenting alleged misuse of the law. “When the law was passed by Parliament in 2018 there were concerns that it would be (allegedly) abused (in a discriminatory manner),” she said. “We have started to see the manifestations of that in many cases now.” She said there is “no safeguard in the law to prevent biased policing” and very little “mechanism to discover it or deal with it since in many cases if the (sobriety) tests turn up nothing (then) no records are generated.” Lee encouraged the women to create an official record of their community members being stopped and the reason why. “If they have the data to show disproportionate or biased policing that could go along way,” she suggested. Continue Reading