The Montreal Gazette
If you have a complaint about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, you can go to an independent review board that will investigate, report and perhaps recommend changes in the way the force operates. It’s a reassuring notion.
So it is a powerful shock to have our noses rubbed in the fact the Mounties have their thumb on the scale. It’s just another one more stable for new RCMP Commissioner William Elliott to clean out. And it revives the case for a new and more potent oversight agency.
Few Canadians, we’re guessing, were aware that when the RCMP Commission for Public Complaints rules that a Mountie used excessive force, or otherwise acted improperly, top brass at RCMP headquarters very often over-ruled the finding. Complaints commission chairman Paul Kennedy emphasized the sad truth in his annual report this month (www.cpc-cpp.gc.ca). In the 12 months to last March, the report said, the commission issued in all 184 findings. Half of these upheld the force’s actions or policies, half did not.
But over half of adverse findings were re-written by the RCMP commissioner’s office, a practice that “strikes at the core of civilian accountability of the RCMP,” the annual report said, saying this “significantly undermines” civilian review and is “inherently biased” against complainants.
Few police forces welcome civilian review. Civilians aren’t in the club, don’t know the rules, don’t risk their lives, just don’t get it.
Tough. Civilians are the boss, and a serious review body, carefully assembled to hold police to a high standard, can be an important asset to public security. Vigorous, fair-minded oversight can increase public confidence in the force and can spur the brass to make sure that training – in both tact and tactics, in human rights law, in the doctrine of minimum necessary force – is vigorous and continual.
The RCMP complaints commission has proposed a new Federal Law Enforcement Review Board, with more staff, more money and more independence, “to address the growing gulf between RCMP powers and the commission’s authority to review police conduct.”
Kennedy also has said another police force should investigate Mounties’ actions in some cases. This is the practice elsewhere, as for example when a Montreal police officer is involved in a shooting.
And in British Columbia, after two controversial police shootings, the commission has now launched a pilot project in which commission officials will shadow RCMP investigators in cases when an RCMP officer shoots a civilian.
Public Security Minister Stockwell Day needs to pay attention to this issue. If he doesn’t approve of Kennedy’s proposal, he should offer his own. A robust complaints mechanism is an absolutely essential element in the restoration of the RCMP’s reputation.
They already have civilian oversight in the complaints process. Its called the CPC. Check out their website, their programs and comment on those. If you are referring to the everyday complaints such as “attitude” and not harm or death involving police, then you will have to overhaul the entire police complaints systems in Canada. Pick up your checkbook because your taxes will rise.
I am sure the various police forces would gladly rid themselves of the thousands of man hours frivolous and vexatious complaint investigations, along with the serious ones. Police Chiefs have already acknowledged they would like to see this, and the RCMP has already stated it will comply with whatever the Federal government institutes. Like it would have a choice anyway.
Interesting link CL, but they courts have already decided the RCMP can unionize. The Mounted Police Associations do not represent the rank and file of the RCMP, but rather a small and vocal group. Their number are very small in comparison to the number of officers in the Force.
Some of the registrants on your link have successfully sued the RCMP and Federal government for hefty sums, some of which are still working for the RCMP which begs the question if it is so bad why are they still here? And if it was so bad to you, why did you spend 26 years there?
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Well spoken C.L, finally some truth coming out here instead of blowing smoke.
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http://www.dpylaw.com/rcmp.swf
Click on the above web site.
Click on The Application (upper left)
Scroll down and click on names
What happened to the core values and justice by the RCMP for those members?
The core values as it relates to the RCMP are written in heaven but the members are living on earth.
Until the public realizes that the glorious red serge and the musical ride have nothing to do with sound management practices and proper policing procedures we all will be living in a fools paradise.
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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I believe Civilian oversight in the complaints process would compel the RCMP to act responsible. The RCMP ethical standards are set out below.
“RCMP ethical standards are based on six core values:
integrity, honesty, professionalism, compassion, respect and accountability .
These core values make up the basis of every decision we make and help us determine how we should conduct ourselves everyday. Closely following these values allows employees to make informed and ethical judgements in business dealings and the workplace. It is critical that we make sound decisions as we are accountable for them in the end.”
“Ethics and Integrity in the RCMP”
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ei/index-eng.htm
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Fat chance anyone will suceed at doing anything here.
There style and method of operations goes back much to far, they are to wide spread in to many departments accross Canada, have had their way for to long and it’s to deep routed to ever think they will do things, another way.
Why would the RCMP Commission for Public Complaints rule that a Mountie used excessive force, or otherwise acted improperly and wimp out and allow top brass at RCMP headquarters to over-ruled the finding?
Because no one has authority over the force and no one has the guts to attempt to do something and that is why some of them are out of control.
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I guess the Montreal gazette doesn’t read the Vancouver Sun.
In the cases where the Commissioner vetoed the CPC chair or tempered the recommendations, the Chair was all wet. Not even he is right all the time.
The BCCLA is quietly working through the pivot legal society for its complaints. Boycott? ya right, more politics. Most people want the RCMP to be accountable Provincially. BCCLA doesn’t like either system. Of course not. They are lawyers.
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I believe the BCCLA is on the right path.
Journal of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Page 4
“The BCCLA has decided to boycott
the police complaint procedures
for both municipal police and the
RCMP”.
http://www.bccla.org/newsletter/BCCLA_news_fall2008.pdf
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