RCMP Watch

Colin Kenny, Member of Parliament (Windsor Star) - Canadians love to talk about their multicultural mosaic and how Canada’s diversity - which should be a centrifugal force pulling us apart - actually helps keep us together.

That may be wishful thinking, or not. What is certainly true is that every nation needs icons that supercede diversity of thought and culture and pull everyone together. In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has long served as one of these scarce and treasured icons.
But the RCMP’s image has begun to crumble over the past few years. There was the botched Air India investigation, the Arar affair, the resignation of Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, the recommendation from the Commons Public Accounts Committee that Deputy Commissioner Barbara George be held in contempt, the airport death of a man following a Taser assault … the list is long; the red serge is smudged.

What needs to be done? A few hours of reading will provide some of the answers.

Start with David Brown’s task force report Rebuilding the Trust published last December.

The task force determined that RCMP leadership caused some of the force’s problems by adhering to outdated management practices, and called for better use of its human resources.

But the report slammed the federal government for neutering RCMP management by placing structural and financial decisions in the hands of Treasury Board, rather than giving the RCMP the status of Separate Employer. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service enjoys such independence. Not the RCMP.

As a result, decisions as to what structure the RCMP must have to do its job have been taken away from the force and it no longer has the capacity to make sophisticated managerial decisions. It isn’t even allowed to determine where it can best spend its money — those decisions lie in the hands of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Worse, when the RCMP fails to spend funds within the rigid silos assigned by government bureaucrats, those funds have reverted to government coffers. This when the force is desperately short of the money it needs to do its job.

This might be OK in a country that is adequately policed. But that isn’t Canada. One only needs to flip to a short research summary prepared by the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies and University College of the Fraser Valley.

That 30-year analysis of police service delivery and costing in B.C. made the following observations:

- Canada’s ratio of police-to-population is 19 per cent lower than Australia’s, 22 per cent lower than the United States, and 26 per cent lower than England and Wales. (OECD statistics show that Canada ranks 19th out of 23 countries in police per capita.)

- The population of Canada more than doubled (2.3 times) between 1962 and 2003 while the number of police increased by only 1.7 times, even as the number of crimes being reported to police increased seven-fold.

- Each B.C. police officer was expected to handle almost three times as many crimes in 2005 as in 1962.

Now flip to testimony the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has heard from senior RCMP personnel over the past few years. That will take a little longer, but allow me to mention a few highlights.

- Former Commissioner Zaccardelli testified that the RCMP only had the resources to keep tabs on one-third of the organized crime organizations in Canada that it knew existed.

- Assistant Commissioner Raf Souccar told us that to effectively police Canada’s ports - which are riddled with corruption and vulnerable to terrorist attack - the RCMP would need another 900 officers.

The Brown task force report clearly depicted an RCMP that is greatly understaffed and underfunded but it neglected to advise the government to do the obvious: increase staff and funding.

Our Senate committee isn’t nearly as tongue-tied. We’ve done the math, and we believe that that Canada needs an additional 5,000-7,000 Mounties.

In Tuesday’s budget speech the government reiterated its promise that it would provide funding for 2,500 new police officers across Canada through a $400 million Police Officers Recruitment Fund over five years.

The rumour is none of this money will go to the RCMP, that it will all go to municipal police forces. That would allow Steven Harper to cross the country, doling it out during an election campaign.

If the rumour is true, it will be devastating to the future of Canada’s national police force.

The government should put the rehabilitation of the RCMP onto its fast track.

Once it provides the RCMP with the funding it needs to police this country, it should move the force out from under the control of federal bureaucrats.

This government has made it clear that it will run on a law-and-order platform in the next election.

Until Canadians see signs that the government understands the urgency of restoring the capacity and image of the RCMP, that’s a hollow platform.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: some law, some order.

Colin Kenny is Chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.