RCMP Watch

Canadian Press

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and RCMP commissioner William Elliott are to appear before a Commons committee on the scandal surrounding the Mounties’ pension and insurance funds.

Officials in the RCMP and at Day’s office confirmed the pair have been asked to appear next month before the public accounts committee, which uncovered much of the money scandal during hearings this spring.

They’ll likely appear just after Labour Day, before the House returns from summer recess Sept. 17.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to prorogue the sitting when MPs return before delivering a throne speech setting out his minority government’s new agenda.

Elliott, a career bureaucrat who was sworn in as commissioner earlier this month, has been charged with the task of cleaning up an administration beset by a scandal that reached into the very office he now holds.

He had no sooner reported to work when Day announced that a task force will study RCMP management and other problems identified in a government-commissioned report filed in July.

The force has been plagued by scandal recently, including the case of Maher Arar, who was wrongly branded a terrorist and sent to Syria, where he was tortured. Former commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned in part over the RCMP’s role in the case.

More recently, the government-commissioned report by David Brown described the force’s corporate culture as “horribly broken.”

The Mounties were also accused of political interference after announcing in the middle of the last election campaign they were investigating whether the Liberal finance minister’s office had leaked changes to Canada’s income-trust laws.