RCMP Watch

Gar Pardy (Ottawa Citizen) - It was 1949 when I met my first Mountie. Cpl. Earl Rose had arrived in Gander as part of the new colonial power to ensure that the forces of mayhem were kept in check as the airport town emerged into the air crossroads of the world.

A few years later, in then Frobisher Bay, I occasionally flew with Sgt. Lorne Fletcher of the RCMP air services arm as he provided essential and life-saving search, rescue and supply flights in the eastern Arctic and took outstanding pictures of that wonderful land. And in 1967 I arrived in Ottawa and for the next 36 years often worked closely with members of the force both at their headquarters and in several embassies as they provided police liaison services to foreign governments. I took them to meetings and I carried them out of bars.

Over most of that 50-plus years there was easy camaraderie and professional respect with a wide variety of officers. A characteristic of these members was the extensive expertise and experience that most accumulated from the first days in Regina to when ceremonial spurs were hung on the walls of the retirement rec-room.

The list is a long one and like the universe still expands: a lone officer in an isolated Baffin Island community, policing on reserves and in innumerable small towns, expertise in drugs, money laundering, intimidation in new ethnic communities, terrorism, the ever-expanding Criminal Code, the occasional transgressions emanating from the federal and provincial political systems and demands from political leaders to overcome the forces of disunity and external threats.

It’s is a long way from the para-military force that Sir John A. sent to the northwest to quell secession, and as the most recent report stated, “arguably the most complex law enforcement agency in the world today.”

Not surprisingly there were large and small stumbles along the way. The last 60 years are littered with the reports of commissioners of inquiry who did little to assist the force to adapt to the complex world of Canadian policing. Kellock-Taschereau, Mackenzie, McDonald, Morin-Hughes and O’Connor are largely footnotes of history in terms of their effect on the ever wending RCMP stream. And yet to come is the wisdom of Major and Iacobucci.

The most recent report comes from David Brown, a Toronto lawyer and former chair of the Ontario Securities Commission along with four others, including a former commissioner of the force, who formed a task force on governance and cultural change in the RCMP.

The task force was grievously hobbled right from the beginning. As it stated in its report “it would not be unreasonable to argue that some or all of the solution to issues confronting the force rests in breaking it up. Such a consideration would require a much broader public policy debate as to the policing model which best suits Canada and best serves Canadians. Such a debate is not within the mandate of this task force.”

That mistake has been at the centre of every commission and task force that has been issued terms of reference to examine the force. They have all looked at the horse manure but not the horse. And today all we see are more shovels.

The task force did recommend the creation of a new independent commission for public complaints and oversight. The RCMP is probably the only major police organization in the world that does not have such an effective body, and at least that will go some way in providing members of the public with a means of having complaints addressed.

However, there is a long way between the recommendation and implementing legislation and it will be tempting for a government to limit the effectiveness of the new oversight commission as it did with the existing one.

Another recommendation of the task force is largely Ottawa and MBA mumbo jumbo. It is to establish the RCMP “as a separate entity from government”; but at the same time it would remain “ultimately accountable to the minister — and through the minister to Parliament.” We will need Dumbledore to make that one improve the world of policing.

An essential problem with all modern-day policing is either not enough political direction or the wrong kind. Most of the past ministers responsible for the RCMP have been singularly incompetent, the weakest members around the cabinet table. Most were incapable of establishing a balance and most often there was no direction.

At the same time, prime ministers, when large issues of public policy required effective policing, were prepared to intervene, often by way of a nod and a wink. They would push the RCMP into areas in which it had little competence or experience or, most regrettably, to potentially engage in dirty tricks or the breaking of the law. John Diefenbaker tried to do it, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien did it. When it went badly, prime ministers largely offloaded their responsibility to members of the force or to other officials and called commissions of inquiry with limited mandates.

The recommendation for a new civilian board of management might ensure that members will get paid for overtime or might have a regular working day. However, it will do little to steer the force into the requirements of modern-day policing. The board, as is the case with most appointed by transitory politicians, will be a mile wide and less than an inch deep. It will, however, be available to help share the blame with the commissioner when things go wrong again.

As Canadians go into the 141st year of the confederation and the RCMP into its 135th year, it should be time that we gave ourselves an exclusive national police force, and all of the provinces accepted their responsibilities for their own policing. Recent history has demonstrated that is what we need and, in terms of the world around us, what the future requires. Unfortunately, the performance of all governments, past and present, offers little hope that will happen.

Gar Pardy retired from the foreign service in 2003.