Bill Curry, Ottawa (Globe and Mail) – Police and spies should be put back on the same team, former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli told the Air India inquiry yesterday, as he called for a major shakeup of Canada’s approach to national security.
Returning to the public eye nearly one year after leaving the force, Mr. Zaccardelli spoke candidly about the problems he saw throughout his 36 years in the RCMP.
Turf wars and legal concerns have created a relationship between the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that is “almost unworkable,” he said, and many of the problems that plagued the response to the 1985 terrorist bombing still exist.
“Unless you fundamentally change how they operate, or the structure under which they operate, the tendency is to continue to behave in the same way,” said Mr. Zaccardelli, who was commissioner from 2000 to 2006.
The answer, he said, is for the federal national security response to be fused together under a single governing body.
“If you’re on the same team, you tend to share and collaborate,” Mr. Zaccardelli said.
“If you see each other as competitors for those scarce resource dollars … then to enhance yourself, you’ve got to put somebody down.”
National security intelligence gathering was at one time handled by a division of the RCMP, but Parliament created a civilian spy agency with 1984’s CSIS Act after a public inquiry found that RCMP spies were breaking the law and violating civil liberties.
Mr. Zaccardelli said the expectations that both sides would freely share information never materialized.
The spy agency interprets the CSIS Act very narrowly, said Mr. Zaccardelli, meaning the police often have a difficult time getting information that they need to pursue criminal investigations.
He also acknowledged that the RCMP has made “a number of mistakes” in how it has managed the relationship.
“There is exchange of information, and good co-operation takes place, but the legislation and the policies around the legislation and the creation of CSIS actually forced the men and women of CSIS and the RCMP to work under a very difficult and almost unworkable regime. That’s the essence of the problem here. So the exchange takes place. But every time it was a laborious process. It was a very difficult and frustrating process for both organizations,” Mr. Zaccardelli said.
Under the current structure, CSIS is responsible for gathering national security intelligence and the RCMP is responsible for gathering evidence to secure convictions and to prevent crime. There is a significant amount of overlap and grey area, Mr. Zaccardelli explained, which is why a new team of executives is needed at the top of the two organizations to decide which files should go where.
“I know you may have to use a bit of an autocratic style to make this happen,” Mr. Zaccardelli said. “But sometimes to get things done, you do have to be a bit autocratic and force the issues and force the change of culture.”
After a Supreme Court decision in 1991 that called for authorities to make broad disclosure of evidence against the accused in court, Mr. Zaccardelli said CSIS has been especially leery of sharing information out of fear that it will end up in the public domain.
The court ruling has also made foreign intelligence agencies more hesitant to share information, he said. He called for the issue to be addressed so that CSIS can be more forthcoming through new protections should its intelligence be required in court.
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