The Mounties will cease investigating their own in cases of police-involved death or serious injury, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has announced.

Civilian oversight bodies, where they exist, will be called in to look at what went wrong and whether to press charges. In provinces where such bodies don't exist, other police forces will be drawn upon. In the Far North, Mounties will have to continue to investigate their colleagues because so few other police forces exist there.

It is not unusual for Mounties to call on outside police forces to investigate misconduct, but it has been a matter of discretion rather than policy – until now.

“The RCMP must strive to be as open and transparent as possible,” Mr. Elliott told reporters Thursday in Ottawa.

The first civilian appointed to head the police force, Mr. Elliott added that “we collectively need to raise the bar in terms of how we respond to situations where life is lost [or] serious injuries sustained.”

The hope is the policy shift will help insulate the RCMP from perceptions of bias and cover-ups. Observers characterize the new policy as a “goodwill gesture” meant to restore public faith, though they caution more needs to be done.

For decades, judicial commissions have urged the RCMP to be more accountable, and the force's image has suffered after the deaths of prisoners taken into their custody.

The death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski after tasering by RCMP officers at Vancouver Airport also raised public mistrust.

These cases led to allegations of police misconduct, but failed to result in criminal charges. That Mountie detectives participated in investigations of Mountie suspects helped foster perceptions that the system was rigged.

Vic Toews, the newly appointed Public Safety Minister, suggested Thursday that more changes are coming.

“This government will continue its work on measures to reform and strengthen our national police force,” he said.

Mr. Elliott's new policy follows a slate of recommendations put forward by the RCMP complaints commissioner last year.

“It's a good faith gesture on his part,” said Paul Kennedy, the RCMP complaints commissioner whose term was not renewed by the Conservatives in December.

“It's a step, but there are many more steps to be taken,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview.

He pointed out the policy shift doesn't have the force of law, as he had recommended, and that will be for federal and provincial legislatures to decide.

Misconduct scenarios do not always include allegations of police-involved death or serious injury, and the lines between police action and consequence are sometimes blurred.

In 2006, a federal judicial inquiry urged greater oversight of RCMP national-security investigations, after finding that unfounded suspicions on the part of the Mounties allowed a Canadian citizen to be wrongly tortured in Syria as an al-Qaeda suspect.

The Maher Arar commission led to $10-million in federal compensation, but no censures of individual detectives.

Paul Cavalluzzo, the lawyer who shepherded along the Arar inquiry, said Thursday that Mr. Elliott's announcement is “a good first step, but it's a baby step.”

“This has absolutely nothing to do with what Justice [Dennis] O'Connor said in the Arar report,” he said in an interview, adding that an oversight model proposed four years ago has yet to become a reality.

The policy shift announced Thursday followed months of consultations between the RCMP brass and the rank and file.

Many officers appeared to be onside.

“There's no advantage for a police officer to have the public believe that police are covering up for one of their own,” said Staff Sergeant Abe Townsend, of the RCMP staff relations program, which acts like a union for Mounties.

“We don't want to see the public lose faith.”