Matthew Pearson, Ottawa (Ottawa Citizen) - The Public Service Alliance of Canada is accusing the RCMP of grounding a plane that was carrying a banner critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper “for political reasons.”
The union says it hired a plane to fly over Ottawa and Gatineau on Saturday with a trailing banner that read, in French, “StephenHarperNousDéteste.ca” (Stephen Harper hates us).
The RCMP denies it is responsible for making such a call and suggests Nav Canada — which oversees Canada’s skies — could be behind it.
“Any calls in regards to the PSAC plane, I’m going to direct you to contact the regulatory body responsible for establishing and enforcing the rules. They would be able to answer any questions as to why they decided to have that plane land,” said Cpl. Lucy Shorey.
“I don’t mean to send you on a wild-goose chase but I believe that would be Nav Canada, that would be a good place to start.”
But Nav Canada said in an email Monday that it was not their call to bring the plane down.
“We have looked into this and can confirm that there was no instruction from NAV CANADA air traffic control to land that plane,” said Nav Canada’s media relations manager Ron Singer.
“Please check directly with the RCMP. Nav Canada has no further comment.”
PSAC booked a plane to fly over the capital region for three hours on Saturday — in conjunction with the popular Hot Air Balloon Festival in Gatineau, but things didn’t go according to plan.
“When the plane took off from Rockcliffe (airport), it was flying for about an hour-and-a-half and the pilot received a message that he must land his plane immediately and that the RCMP wanted to question him,” PSAC’s Larry Rousseau said.
According to Rousseau, the RCMP told the pilot the banner could constitute hate speech and a threat to Harper’s security, but the union — which paid $1,000 per hour for the three-hour flight — disagrees.
“We don’t see criticism of the prime minister as being hate speech, we see it as being freedom of speech,” Rousseau said.
“I’ve never, ever heard of anything like this for any previous prime minister. It has become so absurd to see that anything that is critical of the prime minister is immediately met with fear and trepidation.
“What kind of country of are we coming to if we cannot openly criticize the prime minister without the security forces taking someone aside for interrogations?”
The RCMP apparently also had concerns that the plane entered restricted airspace over Parliament Hill and 24 Sussex Dr.
But the pilot was fully aware of airspace restrictions in place in Ottawa, Rousseau said, adding Nav Canada, the country’s air traffic control service, confirmed the PSAC-hired plane remained outside the restricted zone for the entire flight.
Rousseau said PSAC may try to bring the plane back to Ottawa in the future.
The StephenHarperNousDéteste.ca website, launched by PSAC’s Quebec region, is part of the union’s national campaign, which is designed to draw attention to how all Canadians are affected by cuts to the federal public service. Some public servants have also been wearing T-shirts and buttons that say, “Stephen Harper hates me.”
“It may be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a remark that says, ‘What has he got against us personally?’” Rousseau said.
The union has hired a plane to take similar flights over Montreal and other Quebec communities over the past few weeks.
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I am in no position to say the RCMP is lying to the press and public.
People can only believe what they are told. If the story changes then they want to know which version is true.
The honour guard was made up of volunteers.
No- they were on duty.
The plane was in restricted air space.
No- but is was a perceived threat to the Prime Minister.
The RCMP keeps doing things the same and expecting different results. When successful results are not forth coming they do the same thing with more vigour. That’s called neurotic behaviour.
Perhaps instead of accusing everyone of lying, one should examine the overall system by which the communications are handled. Anyone familiar with govt bureaucracies will tell you that there are far too many persons for any particular segment. Add into this fact with the RCMP the unholy zeal with which they try to get something out when asked.
A more realistic assessment would be that in line with their outdated and over bloated bureaucracy trying to be seen to be getting a comment out, the message is continuously garbled. Just harken back to elementary school and how a simple phrase delivered to one student resembles nothing similar at the end of 10 students transmission of the very same initial words.
When was the last time you heard a phrase similar to : We are looking into the question and will answer it shortly, or how about I am not in full possession of the facts therefore an comments would be premature? No lately from the RCMP.
The exodus of staff from Ottawa is hopefully a sign that such confusion should abate. The less persons in the line of communication the better. People speaking before they have all the facts is a problem not confined to the RCMP. Calling everybody liars is foolhardy and unproductive.
In respect of the YVR debacle, remember that it was individual decisions that created the perjury with individual officers. Overall the inquiry had no issue with cover up:
“The rush to publish — a well-intentioned desire to inform the public
about what had happened at the Airport pre-empted the equally
important goal of accuracy. In hindsight, it would have been preferable
to avoid any detailed discussion of the circumstances at that early stage
in the investigation.”
Glad to see that someone in here see the writting on the wall. Thanks M.H.
Pretty bad when this force is operating in such a way that they remain clueless and think Canadians remain unaware.
The question remains a difficult one; can they change? I for one don’t think so.
Simple embarrassing. How and why should the public support us in the RCMP, when we lack any amount of credibility. We are so used to lying and being deceptive to the Canadian public, we think it is the norm. Just look at the last two most recent fiascos, both of which were in Ottawa. We outright lied, and when we were caught in that lie, we lied again to attempt to cover our last lie. And not until we were pressed for the truth, did we finally offer some truth. The guys in Ottawa need to get together before they come out with their stories, just like they did at the Vancouver Airport. Oh ya, they didn’t get away with their lies either. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing in our organization.
Accountability starts at the top. We have a long ways to go before we should ask the Canadian public for their trust. We need to earn back Canadians trust.
Quote “According to Rousseau, the RCMP told the pilot the banner could constitute hate speech and a threat to Harper’s security”, What part of “Stephen Harper hates me.” constitutes a hate crime and as far as threat to his security, just look back at the last election and all the aids by all the parties telling everyone how bad the other were. Well done boys, PSAC should be ecstatic, they just got national attention to their cause for a total of $3000.00.
Sorry guys you got caught holding the puppy’s ears on this one.