RCMP Watch

Stephen Maher (Chronicle Herald) - It it wasn’t for the German justice system, Karlheinz Schreiber would likely never have whispered a word about his dealings with former prime minister Brian Mulroney to anyone.

He’s singing now only because he wants to stay in Canada and avoid the jail cell the German authorities have prepared for him.

Certainly Mr. Schreiber appeared to have nothing to fear from the RCMP, an organization that appears to never get its man, if the man has a nice suit and good lawyers.

In two decades of working as a journalist, I have often been impressed with the Mounties I’ve met, particularly in northern communities, where their work is nothing short of heroic.

But the rich and powerful seem to have little to fear from the boys in red serge.

They don’t seem to have been a bother to Mr. Schreiber, for example.

There are many other cases in the recent history that raise questions about the effectiveness of the RCMP and its independence from its political masters.

Here’s a greatly abridged list: The force seems to have bungled the investigation into the Air India bombing, the Maher Arar case, the investigation into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with Mr. Schreiber and an investigation into Jean Chretien’s business dealings in Shawinigan.

Consider the effects of these errors.

The Mounties appear to have done a bad job investigating the biggest terrorist attack in Canadian history. In fact, if they had put a bomb-sniffing dog on the plane, they might have stopped the attack, which killed 329 people.

The RCMP gave the Americans bad information on Mr. Arar, which led to him being tortured in Syria.

They screwed up a letter to the Swiss authorities that led to the Government of Canada having to give Mr. Mulroney $2 million, even though he was later shown to have taken $300,000 in cash from Mr. Schreiber. Instead of an investigation that ended in either charges or decisively clearing Mr. Mulroney’s name, this dismal saga continues to drag on, to the horror of the actors, some of whom are likely blameless.

In the Shawinigate affair, the RCMP failed to do much to investigate allegations of improper actions on the part of Mr. Chretien, who had lobbied the Business Development Bank of Canada to give a loan to a business associate. When bank executive François Beaudoin refused, he was fired and the bank set out to destroy his life, spending $4 million going after him. The Mounties helped, raiding his home and golf club. A Quebec judge found that the force was guilty of an “an unspeakable injustice.”

The implication — that Canada’s national police force set out to destroy the life of a man who properly defied the will of the prime minister — is stunning.

The man at the head of the force for most of these fiascos, Giuliano Zaccardelli, is gone now, fired by Prime Minister Stephen Harper after he gave conflicting testimony at the Arar inquiry.

How loyal was Mr. Zaccardelli to Mr. Chretien? Did he have anything to do with the decision to announce, in the middle of the last election campaign, that the RCMP were investigating Finance Minister Ralph Goodale’s office for the possibility of a leak of tax information to Bay Street? The Liberals believe that cost them the election, although the sponsorship scandal may have had something to do with it as well. Mr. Chretien appears to have hoped Paul Martin would lose that election.

Speaking of the sponsorship scandal, three crooked ad firms got $1.3 million in federalmoney to help the Mounties celebrate their 125th anniversary. Because of this conflict, the Mounties asked Quebec provincial police to handle the investigations into much of the sponsorship scandal.

The Quebec cops have managed to get convictions of several of the crooks involved, including Charles Guite and Jean Brault. Meanwhile, the RCMP have yet to lay charges in their investigations. The force says that’s because of the massive complexity of the files, but given their recent track record, it is fair to be skeptical of anything they say.

This spring, a federal investigator looking into an internal Mountie scam involving the force’s pension fund found big cultural and structural problems in the force. The Tories have appointed a panel of experts to release a report this month with recommendation for restructuring. They may recommend that the Mounties should be governed, like Canada’s spy agency, by an arm’s-length body.

To supervise the cleanup of the Mounties, the Tories replaced Mr. Zaccardelli with William Elliot, a longtime public servant who once worked as chief of staff to Don Mazankowski, Mr. Mulroney’s deputy prime minister.

I wonder if this former Tory staffer is urging his members to pursue the Airbus file with everything they have.

A lot of people wiser than me believe that Mr. Harper has made a big mistake launching a public inquiry into Mr. Mulroney’s business with Mr. Schreiber, because it will enrich a bunch of lawyers and further alienate Canadians from federal politics. The Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal brought politics into disrepute, strengthened the separatists and destroyed the Martin government.

Members of the political class in Ottawa see inquiries much the way china shop proprietors see bulls: as a threat.

Mr. Chretien is one advocate of this view.

“Inquiries are not the best way to solve problems,” he said. “We have police for these things.”

I wonder if Mr. Beaudoin would agree.