RCMP Watch

Silver Donald Cameron, The Chronicle Herald

If ever a public official should resign, that official is RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli.

Why? Because the RCMP has been entrusted with extraordinary powers, Canadians are entitled to demand that the national police force be incorruptible, utterly dedicated to the highest principles of the nation. Under Zaccardelli’s leadership, the RCMP has failed that test repeatedly and grossly.

In the Maher Arar case particularly, the RCMP has abused the civil rights of citizens and lied about it, connived at torture and lied about it, and used the threat of illegitimate prosecution to intimidate journalists. Its behaviour deeply affronts the values of a democratic society — and that behaviour is confirmed in the findings of competent courts and judges.

Since Zaccardelli’s appointment as RCMP Commissioner in 2000, various commissions and inquiries have found the Mounties guilty of numerous other crimes and errors. The APEC inquiry determined that the force botched security planning for the 1997 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Vancouver, and violated the civil rights of demonstrators. The Commission for Public Complaints found it had used “excessive and unjustified force” to disperse protesters at the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec.

The Mounties actually participated in the sponsorship spree, spending $8,000 on souvenir corkscrews, of all things, and then paying another $10,000 to buy the same corkscrews again.

“Minor accounting lapses,” shrugged Zaccardelli. But didn’t the Mounties also spend $107,000 of sponsorship funds to buy horses and trailers? Ah. This time Zaccardelli admitted that the force had made “serious mistakes.”

In December 2002, nine Mounties in Prince George, B.C., were under investigation for “possible links to underage prostitutes.”

In September 2004, one of them, Const. Justin Harris, was summoned to a disciplinary hearing — but last month a three-member tribunal determined that the force had contravened its own bylaws by taking more than a year to initiate disciplinary proceedings. So the matter was dropped.

The same thing happened with “misconduct”" and “irregularities” in the management of the RCMP’s pension fund. By the time a leisurely criminal investigation had ended, the deadline for internal disciplinary proceedings had passed.

Zaccardelli’s reaction? “It is now time,” he said boldly, “for us to move beyond this.”

Good for you, Commissioner. My friend Pickle Oickle feels the same way about his speeding ticket. He doesn’t think anything should be done about it. He admits he made a mistake, but he thinks we should all just move beyond it.

Worst by far is the Arar case. Here the RCMP started by getting its facts wrong, identifying Arar as an al-Qaeda operative. Then it shared this misinformation with the U.S. authorities, who snatched Arar in a U.S. airport and whisked him off to Syria for a year of confinement and torture.

Zaccardelli now maintains that the RCMP quickly alerted U.S. authorities after Arar’s arrest that they had detained a man on faulty information — but he hasn’t explained why the force never shared that information with anyone else, and didn’t even concede Arar’s innocence until Justice O’Connor brought down his scathing report.

Maybe the answer lies with Abdullah Amalki, another Canadian tortured in Syria. The RCMP, said the O’Connor report, sent the Syrians a list of questions to use in interrogating Amalki — which clearly makes the RCMP complicit in the torture of our own citizens.

After Arar’s return, someone in the government or the RCMP continued to leak slanderous claims that Arar really was a dangerous terrorist. In 2003, Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O’Neill published a story reporting one such claim. The RCMP promptly sent 20 officers to raid her home and her office, seizing her notes and computer and demanding that she provide the names of her sources or face a 14-year jail term.

Last week, Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny struck down the clauses in the Security of Information Act that gave the RCMP its authority for the O’Neill raid and flayed the force vigorously for its “abusive” behaviour.

The Mounties, said the judge, had treated O’Neill “as one of its investigative arms to uncover the source of the leaks. Given the importance of freedom of expression and the press in our democracy, this is conduct that has caused great prejudice to those freedoms; conduct, in my view, that does offend the public’s sense of decency and fairness and undermines the integrity of the judicial process.”"

Commissioner Zaccardelli says that he really regrets these little incidents, and he’s sure that the RCMP can investigate its failings fearlessly and take appropriate action. That’s what he always promises, and it never happens. Some of the officers responsible for Maher Arar’s appalling ordeal have been promoted. Not one has been disciplined.

While Zaccardelli remains in charge, they never will be.

That’s a fundamental betrayal of trust. The greatest service the Commissioner can render to the country is to resign — now.

Visit Silver Donald Cameron’s website at www.silverdonaldcameron.ca