RCMP Watch

CTV.ca News Staff

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has sent a mass e-mail to the rank-and-file of the RCMP, asking them to give their new civilian commissioner a chance.

“Some of you are feeling good right now, many others are not,” he said Monday in the message obtained by CTV News about the choice of William Elliott on Friday.

“We need you to be as good as you have ever been. As focused as you know you can be. As dedicated to your task with as positive an outlook as you have ever had.  Mr. Elliott wants the best for you, and the best for the safety of all Canadians.”

The choice of an outsider to head the beleaguered national force has been a controversial one.

In Red Deer, Alta., parents of a Mountie slain in Mayerthorpe two years ago praised the force for arresting two men in connection with the deaths but then offered an opinion on the choice of Elliott.

Keith and Colleen Myrol, father of Const. Brock Myrol, said that was a “tradition-breaking decision.

“As parents of a Mountie we know that Brock would be truly dismayed and shocked that it is okay to take a bullet for Canada, die for your country as a Mountie, but a Mountie isn’t good enough to be a commissioner,” Colleen Myrol said.

“It’s so very important for a Mountie that really is a Mountie to be the head commissioner, (someone) who knows how it feels for those Mounties out in the cars and being undercover.”

Brock and his RCMP colleagues Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon and Leo Johnston died after being ambushed by James Roszko on March 3, 2005.

“Bill Elliott is the first one to admit he has not been a cop,” Day told the officers.

“… He doesn’t know the feeling of being undercover and having a hardened criminal stare him in the face and say: ‘If you’re a cop I’ll kill you!’  Nor does he know the gut wrenching feeling of hearing the chilling call coming over the police band car radio: ‘Officer down!’”

Elliott saw life-and-death operations unfold as deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, Day said.

He touted Elliott’s stint as a national security adviser for two prime ministers, he said.

Senior RCMP officers have already pledged their support to make the force better, he said.

Day promised a task force would be working on improving and modernizing the force’s management structure.

A special investigator has described the force’s current management structure as “horribly broken.”

The force has been battered by controversy in recent months. Former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned in December under a cloud.

“There are certainly going to be challenges,” Elliott told a Friday news conference.

CTV’s Robert Fife reported the Prime Minister’s Office felt an outsider was needed at this juncture in the RCMP’s history.