Paul McKenna, Globe and Mail
Along with the overdue recognition that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is in serious need of reconstruction and “fresh breezes blowing through,” as Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day put it this week, comes the harsher reality that a degree of deconstruction will be required for any changes to be effective.
Government-appointed investigator David Brown’s recent revelations have shown that significant effort will be required to address the organizational shortcomings of this important Canadian institution.
In the 1990s, another major service, the Ontario Provincial Police, undertook a fundamental re-examination under Commissioner Thomas O’Grady. The force was critically examined through an approach known as business process re-engineering, and the entire general headquarters hierarchy was rebuilt. However, this all happened during the period that included the fatal shooting of Dudley George at Ipperwash Provincial Park, and the extensive report and recommendations recently tabled by Judge Sidney Linden makes clear that the reconstruction of the OPP was not without flaws.
To put it directly: When an enterprise is not grounded in a most profound, objective and enlightened understanding of the entire scope of the police service’s activities and actors, organizational review projects will fail. For the RCMP to advance in its evolution, more is needed than a conventional corporate re-tooling. Consultants’ reports, internal reviews and task forces fall well short of the massive, systemic and fundamental transformation it needs.
But unlike an automotive production plant that may be shut down to retool in order to build a new hybrid vehicle, the RCMP has the monumental challenge of being the operating arm of the law in hundreds of communities across the country. As the federal police service, it leads major investigations, advances a national criminal intelligence network, and facilitates links with other police organizations across the globe. It cannot shut down for a couple of months while management consultants conduct a review process.
Clearly, the force’s leaders will be critical in this process. Mr. Day must know that the choice of RCMP commissioner will resonate deeply throughout the organization and the country.
It is unlikely that an internal appointment will result in the kind of root and branch change that the RCMP currently requires. It is possible that an enlightened senior officer, unblemished by the corporate culture that Mr. Brown has diagnosed as being “horribly broken,” could somehow transcend the perspective that home-grown remedies will heal the RCMP. But it’s remarkable that acting commissioner Bev Busson has consistently pressed the view that only an internal appointment would be effective — this is a symptom of the force’s myopia. Policing in Canada is highly integrated and is becoming more so each year.
During the late 1980s, when I was an OPP training manager, we enjoyed an interesting period of exchange with the RCMP. A senior Mountie was assigned as our deputy director and one of our inspectors was sent to the Canadian Police College in Ottawa to work with the RCMP as a deputy director. Beyond the normal differences in individual personalities, no one really noticed that anything had changed. While the RCMP officer wore his brown working uniform to the office and his red serge for special events and graduations, the OPP inspector enjoyed a virtually seamless transition into the RCMP fold. And we had several visits to the RCMP training depot in Regina where it became obvious that the similarities between the organizations far outnumbered the differences.
Increasingly, the top jobs in police services across Canada are occupied by successful individuals who have served in the RCMP, the OPP and other police services throughout their lengthy careers. One successful Canadian police executive spent time as an RCMP officer, as well as, having been chief of police in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Peel Region. Another veteran law enforcement officer has been chief in Toronto, London, York and is currently the commissioner of the OPP. These are palpable signs that cross-pollination is certainly possible within Canadian policing, if it’s found to be desirable.
Of course, rhetoric being what it is, a Mountie will argue that the RCMP possesses a tradition and organizational mandate that is unique. And in the public imagination, the force has a distinctive place. But when one examines the fundamental realities that determine what a police officer does every day at work, the similarities render the differences essentially meaningless.
Of course, transforming the RCMP’s organizational culture and substance will still be a monumental undertaking. In her brilliant book, Policing as Though People Matter, Dorothy Guyot noted that changing a police department is like “bending granite,” a truth to which anyone who has worked with police organizations can attest.
Investigator David Brown may be correct when he stops short of recommending a full-blown inquiry into the beleaguered organization. However, given the idiosyncratic nature of such an institution, the particularly powerful resistance to change that characterizes even the most enlightened senior RCMP officers and the massive complexity of changing an organization that cannot stop to heal itself, there is an opportunity for Mr. Day to enlist a carefully orchestrated cadre of academics, practitioners and competent consultants to “ride along” with the force and conduct a rolling review.
OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino told reporters yesterday he thought that former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli has been vilified for simple human failings. This is a troubling assertion for someone whose organization will be tasked with reviewing the propriety of executive action within the RCMP. Top police executives in Canada occupy a realm characterized by intense personal loyalties that often fuel a sense of moral indignation. This surfaces in such instances when another top cop is called to account. It may be wise to remember that loyalty must sometimes be tempered with a higher good and that moral indignation may be well-intentioned, but does not prove we are right.
We need more than a vigorous system of oversight to repair the RCMP. We need foresight, fortitude and good fortune in the face of such a significant corporate challenge.
Paul F. McKenna is president of Public Safety Innovation, Inc. and a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University
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