RCMP Watch

Frank Peebles (Prince George Citizen) -The RCMP has offered an apology to civilian employees who were harassed on the job by Prince George Supt. Dahl Chambers.

Letters have been received this week by the three civilian victims - Ken Corrigan, Linda Thompson and Sheri McLean-Smith - offering acknowledgment from the force that the wrongs happened over a period of two years.

“On behalf of the RCMP, I apologize for the actions of Supt. Chambers. I hope the results of our investigation assist you in bringing closure to your complaint,” wrote deputy commissioner Gary Bass, commander of the RCMP in B.C. and Yukon.

“Well thank you Gary Bass,” said McLean-Smith, agreeing with the others that the apology was accepted.
“The RCMP acted in an honorable manner, (North District Chief Supt.) Barry Clark in particular, and helped me bring closure to this issue,” Corrigan said. “But while the RCMP acted honorably, the City of Prince George has not.”

Corrigan blasted city council members and senior administration for allowing the harassment to carry on after it was brought to their attention, and for attempting to cover it up once their own special investigator, Kitty Heller, agreed with the RCMP that the municipality had a problem on its hands and was not acting decisively enough to fix it.

“The city did not exhibit any support for their employees at all,” said Corrigan, now retired after a reorganization of city staff at the detachment relieved him of his duties as top civilian at the Prince George RCMP and replaced him with two other people, one of whom was Chambers’ common-law wife Ann Bailey.
McLean-Smith and Thompson have also ceased to work at the detachment.

“The city states ‘we have a harassment-free workplace’ but if you step up and say you saw harassment, well you aren’t going to work for the city anymore,” Corrigan said. “Then someone else steps up and says ‘no, really, I saw it too,’ and they get tossed out as well. ‘Anyone else see anything? No? Just as I thought, we have a harassment-free workplace’ is the message every employee at the city just received.”

“I am terribly angry at the City of Prince George, they have behaved in a disgraceful manner and treated their employees very poorly,” Thompson added. “It was a year full of turmoil, disappointment and stress simply because I did the right thing, I stood up to a bully, and (city hall) knew about our issues well in advance.”
McLean-Smith said it is especially hard to be out of a job because she trusted the city’s written whistle-blower policy and now everyone except those at the centre of the complaints are out of the workplace. She wrote a letter to mayor and council this week demanding they answer for it.

“Linda Thompson and I are requesting a meeting with you and council about the events that have brought us here to this point,” she wrote. “Since life-altering decisions have been made and lives affected, I think it is owed to everyone to know the facts and what really happened.”

The letter from Gary Bass told the three that disciplinary action was being taken with Chambers, but it did not specify what actions those would be other than they would be “corrective” in nature so such incidents did not happen again.