RCMP Watch

The Harper Index, Golden Lake Institute

In opposition, Steven Harper and the Conservatives relentlessly attacked RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli as a Liberal appointee doing the bidding of the then government. In government, the Conservatives have muted their criticism and side-stepped demands for a public inquiry into problems with the force. Pension fraud, internal repression, bungled operations in BC and Alberta, the Arar Affair, and the timing of the income trust “leak” investigation have shaken Canadians’ confidence in the most sacred of Canadian symbols: the Mounties.

The Harper government has opted for a task force, which it can control, instead of a wide-ranging public inquiry. Yet, despite promises of accountability in public appointments, the government has dragged its feet on implementing rules that would take the politics out of appointing a new RCMP commissioner.

On Monday, public safety minister Stockwell Day said the Conservative minority government, “is taking action to improve management and accountability within Canada’s national police force,” by appointing a task force to study problems.

Critics say that by appointing a task force instead of calling for a full public inquiry into the scandals, the Conservatives’ own accountability comes into question. “Exactly what is it that Stephen Harper’s government doesn’t want you to know about the RCMP?” asks Toronto Star columnist James Travers. “Is it how the force helped put [the] Conservatives in power, let young, green Mounties die in a preventable shootout, dipped into the [RCMP] pension and Quebec sponsorship cookie jars, or figuratively kicked down a reporter’s door?”

Travers writes, “Day is following the politically safe path of a private task force rather than a public inquiry. Worse still, rather than let the winds of change rattle the status quo, Conservatives are now said to favour finding a new commissioner within RCMP ranks. Those are half-measured, self-serving responses to the full-sized crisis in confidence that’s strangely more evident within the force than across the country.”

The organization Democracy Watch is one of many calling for a full public inquiry and saying that the root of the problem is in the appointment process, which remains under government control despite Conservative campaign promises. Although the government passed legislation to reform how appointments are made and pushed through Bill C-2 (Federal Accountability Act), they have stalled on implementing key sections that require parliamentary approval of appointees.

“There are more than 2,000 agencies, boards, commissions, tribunals and courts,” with appointed positions, says the organization’s coordinator Duff Connacher. “If you stick around long enough as Prime Minister, you get to appoint all of them.” Since Harper has realized, “unless some miracle occurs we’re not winning a majority,” he can be expected to stall indefinitely key sections of the Act from coming into force.

The Harper Conservatives, despite criticizing the Liberals over their handling of the RCMP, have deep roots in the policing community and can be expected to go easy on them.

“After the election,” recalls NDP justice critic Joe Comartin, “things began to blow up over the way Zachardelli had mishandled the Arar testimony. They were very protective of him. You have to juxtapose this with the way they were attacking him before election.”

“It seems the RCMP are a tool to be used,” Comartin told HarperIndex.ca in a recent interview. “It enhances the agenda of the Conservatives - their law and order agenda - to be seen as absolute stalwarts in terms of protecting the reputation of the RCMP.” Because of this agenda, “the Conservatives will bend over backwards to be seen to be protecting the RCMP. Their constituency is much more inclined to forgive and forget malfeasance by the police.”

Background
There is a history of Reform, Alliance and Conservatives drawing police and justice professionals as candidates, including:
Jack Ramsay: Former RCMP officer, later Reform justice critic. Still later he was charged and convicted of sexual assault of a young aboriginal woman, when he had been in a detachment in Pelican Narrows, Northern Saskatchewan, many years earlier. Ramsay refused to resign from the caucus and was eventually kicked out. He ran as an Independent and lost.
Howard Hillstrom: Manitoba MP, now retired, had been an RCMP officer.
Art Hanger: Long time sitting MP for Calgary Northeast with a tough-on-crime reputation. He had been a member of the Calgary Police Force for 22 years before going into politics. He later served as Chair of the Commons Justice committee.

Also, current and retired police have played prominent roles in the whole struggle around the gun registry, such as:
Bruce Hutton: A former RCMP officer, who led and may still lead an organization called Law-abiding Firearms Association (LUFA), which would organize all-candidates meetings during federal election campaigns in an obvious attempt to help Reform-Alliance candidates. He drew notice by publicly declaring he would not register his arms. “I am going to jail first,” Hutton told Liberty Free Press in July 2000. “I am not a criminal and I refuse to have the government treat me like one.”
Dennis Young: A former RCMP officer, recently retired as assistant to Conservative MP Gary Breitkreuz, a Saskatchewan MP, the Reform-Alliance-Conservative expert on the gun registry, and one of its harshest critics.

There is a lot of crossover between individual police officers and the Conservatives. They are close in sentiment and often in personal terms. Earlier this year, the Harper Conservatives moved to put a police officer on every provincial judicial selection committee, tilting the selection of judges toward those who favour the kind of tough “law-and-order” measures many Conservatives and some police officers advocate.