Editorial, Toronto Star
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day was careful yesterday not to prejudice the task force that the Conservatives plan to appoint to overhaul the way the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is run. But he signalled clearly enough that the days of an all-powerful RCMP commissioner riding roughshod over subordinates are galloping to a close.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government stands solidly behind special investigator David Brown’s proposals to mend a “horribly broken” RCMP whose reputation has been tarnished and whose morale has taken a knock. Brown urged a task force be set up to bring more oversight, accountability and transparency to the $3 billion, 26,000-member national police service. Day agreed to do just that.
Brown also concluded nothing would be served by yet another public inquiry, a position the Star endorsed, which Day has also adopted.
In his report last Friday, Brown characterized former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli as an autocrat who mishandled complaints about wrongdoing involving the force’s pension fund, and on whose watch whistleblowers were treated unfairly. Nor was Zaccardelli ever “appropriately challenged” by a “body performing the functions of a board of directors,” Brown concluded in his review of how the RCMP dealt with allegations of mismanagement in the pension fund, nepotism, dubious expense claims and contracts for little work.
This is not the first time Canadians have been told the RCMP needs closer scrutiny. Last Dec. 12, after probing the Maher Arar affair, Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor sensibly urged the creation of a powerful Independent Complaints and National Security Review Agency with a mandate to oversee all RCMP work. O’Connor rightly saw a need for “substantial enhancement of the mandate and powers” of the existing Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP.
Harper will soon name a new RCMP commissioner. Whoever gets the job must be more approachable, more accepting of whistleblowers and show greater tolerance for public scrutiny.
Also, in naming the task force of RCMP officers and other police, civil servants and private-sector experts, all headed by a chair who is independent of the RCMP, the Conservatives must take care to appoint people with the credibility to mend a broken national icon.
Whatever governance model the task force may recommend, future RCMP commissioners must answer to a panel with the authority of a vigilant and independent “board of directors” for their stewardship of the force. Nothing less will restore public trust in the force.
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