RCMP Watch

Kim Bolan, National Post

Canada’s former top spy bluntly told the Air India inquiry Friday that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service did nothing wrong when agents erased hundreds of recorded wiretaps of key bombing suspects in 1985.

“Who cares quite frankly if we destroyed the tapes? I know the B.C. Crown cares. I know the RCMP cares and I know you care,” retired director Jack Hooper told Jacques Shore, a lawyer for the Air India victims’ families.

But Hooper was adamant that CSIS agents were following policy when the tapes of plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar were routinely erased as the RCMP was desperately seeking evidence in the June 23, 1985 bombing.

Hooper, who retired last May, called the Air India bombing “the most tragic cold-blooded murder of 331 human beings.”

But he also defended CSIS.

“There has been a lot said about how people may have approached that investigation,” he said. “But I can tell you it was cold-blooded murder, and we looked at it with those eyes.”

He was shown a February, 1996, memo by RCMP Insp. Gary Bass which said: “There is a strong likelihood that had CSIS retained the tapes between March and August 1985, that a successful prosecution against at least some of the principals in both bombings could have been undertaken.”

Hooper said he disagreed strongly with Bass’s memo and that it had been written without all the relevant information.

Like other former CSIS agents who have testified before Air India Commissioner John Major, Hooper acknowledged there was a lack of resources for the early days after the agency came into operation in July 1984.

He described being an RCMP officer in the Burnaby, B.C., detachment one day and then being told to come back the next, hand over his badge, gun, bullets and handcuffs to be sworn in as a CSIS agent.

He even had to type out his own business cards because none were provided, he said.

Major said the RCMP may have had an easier time solving the 1985 terrorist plot if CSIS had not been created when it was.

He suggested to former CSIS official Chris Scowen that the RCMP would have been in possession of all the evidence available to prosecute those responsible for the deadly terrorist attack.

“I understand the problems, but it seems to me that the transition came at a bad time. You have this act of terrorism which destroys 331 people’s lives and CSIS and the RCMP appear to be at odds over what can be provided to whom on what basis,” Major said.

Like Hooper, Scowen defended CSIS conduct and policy.

And he said CSIS had to be very selective about what was handed over to the RCMP to protect confidential sources.

“We have always said to the RCMP, be specific in what you want and we will give you what we have in terms of investigative leads,” Scowen said.

But he said the RCMP was always demanding everything CSIS had so it could go on “a fishing expedition,” which was not allowed.

“The demand for information was voracious and it was incessant,” Scowen said of the RCMP.

“It was very stressful and the workload was extremely high.”

The inquiry has heard of in-fighting, turf wars and a reluctance to share information.

RCMP and CSIS spent years firing off memos to each other complaining about the conduct of the rival agency.

And while the paperwork was flying, critical wiretaps made of key suspects chatting before the bombing were erased by low-level CSIS employees.

Prior to the creation of CSIS in July, 1984, the RCMP had been in charge of national security, as well as criminal investigations.

So any transfer of intelligence from one branch to the other could have been approved by the RCMP commissioner, Major heard.

An example of the testy relationship was a July 23, 1985, memo to RCMP Chief Supt. J.A.N. Belanger from Archie Barr, a senior CSIS official at the time.

Barr was furious that the RCMP looked at an Air India related telex that had been accidentally sent to it.

He called it “unauthorized access” to CSIS material and then attacked the way in which Belanger was communicating with him.

“Further I must admit that the nature and tone of your message does little to encourage a continued spirit of co-operation,” Barr said in the memo.

“I have to make if perfectly clear to you that unwarranted attacks, direct or implied, on the ability and integrity of this service strain that spirit of cooperation to unnatural limits.”