Ottawa (Canadian Press) – Declaring it time for “historic change,” Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has appointed a five-member panel to oversee reform of the embattled RCMP.
The group, led by former Alcan executive David McAusland, will ensure the Mounties follow and implement key recommendations of a recent task force report that called for more autonomy for the RCMP. The panel also includes a former RCMP commissioner, a justice professor, and a specialist in corporate governance.
Day says the arm’s-length panel will make sure the necessary changes are implemented with “independence and transparency.”
It will also ensure a co-ordinated approach to reforms.
“Now we’re able to begin, really start to get to the business of rolling up the sleeves and showing that everybody’s working together.”
The task force report recommended a stand-alone RCMP with supervised control over hiring and spending decisions.
The report proposed a sweeping package of changes to the structure and oversight of the beleaguered national police force.
The report said the Mounties were mired in bureaucracy and must have more authority to manage their own staff and finances.
McAusland, a lawyer, executive and corporate director, said he wants to see a better-run police force.
“My experience is that regardless of the type of organization you’re dealing with . . . excellence in management and excellence in leadership is driven by organizational excellence,” he said.
The other panel members:
-Jean-Claude Bouchard, a career civil servant who most recently was president of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
-Beverley Busson, a veteran Mountie who briefly served as commissioner of the force from December 2006 to July 2007.
-Jocelyne Cote-O’Hara, president of The Cora Group, a Toronto-based management consulting firm.
-Kevin McAlpine, former chief of police in Ontario’s Durham region, now a professor at the school of justice at Durham College.
The group is to submit its first report to Day by September.
The Mounties welcomed the creation of the panel.
William Elliott, the civilian appointed as RCMP commissioner last summer, said the force is committed to change.
“I have made it abundantly clear that the status quo is not an option,” he said.
I will refrain from stating my opinion on some of this politically correct nonsense. The socially constructed truth will always be taken more seriously than reality itself.
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The physical abilities of police work are still required however, a police officer’s goal in officer /violator contact is to obtain “Voluntary Compliance Through Verbal Intervention”.
This should be the goal of male and female police officers.
Female police officers not being able to handle the physical aspect of policing is a myth.
If you don’t believe me; try stealing or harming her baby.
We must remember whenever we generalize we lose accuracy.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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Linear thinking: “To continue to look at something from one point of view. To take information or observations from one situation, place this data in another situation (usually later), and make a conclusion in the later situation.”
Take your line and refer to the dictionary. Being labeled a linear thinker is not an insult anymore than one who supports conclusions based on relative supposition.
There is an abundance of jobs because of demographics.
I am pleased you have communicated your feelings to Stock as I am sure he listens to his feedback.
“The main difference between me and you GetReal is that I don’t get involved in things I know nothing about. I am dealing with Day’s office and I am dealing with the RCMP on nearly a daily basis.” As Teddy Roosevelt once said: Bully for you! As you know nothing about me you can hardly conclude that I know nothing of which I speak.
The panel which is the subject of this part of the blog has not even had a chance to convene, let alone study the issues. I will not condemn them just because. I will wait and see if they can produce some intelligible solutions.
If you are so in tune with the situation you would know that the rank and file of the RCMP have the highest regard for the former Commissioner Beverly Busson. She has always been a passionate advocate for the membership.
As far a women in the police forces, they have done a credible job for decades. There are small weak ineffective individuals of either gender that should not have been hired, but is that so different in any other occupation? The problem of hiring and firing is much more complicated now than 30 years ago. There are human rights tribunals, more litigation, policy, law, case law that have had a complicating effect on the issue.
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GetReal,
“It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things. ” Teddy Roosevelt
I wonder what Hitler said about his critics just before he got rid of them? No one likes accountability today, I guess.
But one way or another we are held accountable even if we don’t want to look at the issue it doesn’t negate the responsibility.
Can we see the law of gravity, no but it’s there folks and so is action without just cause, lying and etc.
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Benton, you misunderstood what GetReal was saying about there being “an abundance of jobs, including law enforcement” so let me break it down for you.
What Get was saying is that the job market is very strong right now and there are many companies hiring, including every police force in Canada and *every* force is having trouble filling its ranks. If the RCMP was so horrible, many RCMP officers would be quiting the RCMP and getting other jobs, including these other police forces.
But we don’t actually see that. Thus, we can conclude that the RCMP isn’t such a horrible place to work.
As for your comments about the value of female members, it is true they are not, on average, as physically capable as the average male member. But, I’ve seen 5′3″ women talk a 6′4″ monster into a pair of handcuffs and the back of a police car where any male member would have been in for a donny brook. A very small amount of police work is fighting drunks, you know. But I explained this all to you when you used to post as Tomax and got kicked off some boards.
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I was shocked to discover that Bev Busson is part of the five member panel set up to overhaul the RCMP.
How can someone who was part of the problem and is as guilty of hiding her head in the sand to the wrongdoing in the force be part of the change.
Does she think because she gave the members who came forward with the information about the Pension Scandal a medal this qualifies her to be part of the change.
She was in charge of E Division for years and she wasn’t aware of the the corruption and cover ups? Why didn’t she do something while she was in the position to do so.?
Has her retirement suddenly opened her eyes? Has she had an epiphany????
Her appointment to this panel makes a mockery of the work that went into addressing all the problems that were uncovered. She was well aware of the problems when she was in the force and it is doubtful her contribution will bring about much change. Good Luck!
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RW:I cannot see identifying a person as a liberal thinker being an insult but repeatedly naming a person as a lineal thinker isn’t. A line got crossed there.
It would now appear that people who think along the lines of liberalism are always sufficient at forming the valid or proper counter point to a debate/argument? If that were in fact true, in effect it would make liberlism supior to conservatism.
That would be taking a stand for liberals on RW and not being fair to conservatives, and I don’t mean the parties.
“If the RCMP is as bad as everyone is making it out to be, there would have been and still would be a mass exodus from that organization. There is an abundance of jobs, including in law enforcement that are available.”
Have you asked yourself why there is an abundance of jobs?
If an organization is growing but has shortfalls of manpower due to lack of interest and recruitment, then there is an exodus from that industry. Formerly they didn’t have problems finding MEN from an even smaller manpower base.
Why can’t the RCMP find new recruits? Have they become an organization that supports only special interests?
“the gay wedding last summer and the ad RCMP recruiters placed in a gay magazine next to a gay porno model ad sporting a naked men holding holding his penis in his hand.”
If you start catering to the interests of one small group while ingnoring the interests of the majority it’s no surprise what you get. The Roman Catholic Church discovered what happens years ago when you do that, and subsequently so did the courts.
All these comments we have here are over the Stockwell Day’s panel post. I have communicated with his office and will continue to do so to voice my displeasure with his failure to keep his own community safe, not to mention our country and his mishandling of the RCMP panel.
I get a strong feeling some only want to have the last word here, they don’t care about the issues or the panel, they don’t address the issues surrounding the debate nor do they do things to correct the problems raised by the awareness in the debate.
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The reason there isn’t a mass exodus is the money. Where else is someone with a grade 12 education (besides the oil sands) going to get a base salary of $72,000? In my opinion there are some members that are worth every penny of this. However, there are too many that I wouldn’t pay $5 an hour for them to guard my garage.
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If the RCMP is as bad as everyone is making it out to be, there would have been and still would be a mass exodus from that organization. There is an abundance of jobs, including in law enforcement that are available. A lot of chicken little does nothing to further debate to address some issues.
“It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things. ” Teddy Roosevelt
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Where there is smoke there is lots of fire. The examples of the RCMP organizational rot that exists in the media only scratches the surface of what is out there. Socially constructed hype by the media doesn’t warrant the kind of reports and task forces that have been put into place. These problems do exist and have been building for many years. A cumulation of many different problems coming to a head. To think the RCMP problems are some media conspiracy is completely absurd. Anyone who knows anything and had their finger on the pulse knew that it was only a matter of time before the lid got blown off the pot. A retired Staff Sgt. said it best when he told me in 2005 that “The RCMP is riding the coat tails of the red serge. Just wait a few more years and people are going to know what the force is really about”. Well, that day has arrived…
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Calvin has hit the nail on the head about the need for empathy and integrity in dealing with workplace harassment.
Yes, it is true the public will never respect an orgainzation that crushes it’s members when you would be abnormal to tolerate the kind of treatment that is all to commonly dispensed.
What Calvin says is so true, and his understanding of the issue speaks volumes about what he had to endure. It is not what he says, but how he says it. That is how you tell the legitimate victims from the complainers. There is a language he speaks that only other victims can truly understand.
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