RCMP Ongoing Clips
Post
05/10/06, Gary Mason, Nation's trust in RCMP grows weaker by the day, (Source).
05/10/06, Rod Mickleburgh, Mistakes plaguing RCMP, (Source).
05/10/06, Petti Fong, RCMP mistake halts B.C. sex case, (Source).
06/10/06, Editorial, Liberal evasions on Arar, (Source).
07/10/06, Terri Theodore, Mounties release internal memo, (Source).
05/10/06, Gary Mason, Nation's trust in RCMP grows weaker by the day, (Back).
VANCOUVER -- It's difficult to imagine the Mounties looking any more stupid and inept than they do this morning. And that's saying a lot when you consider the embarrassment the RCMP recently brought upon itself in the handling of Maher Arar.
The case against a Prince George RCMP officer accused of having sex with underage prostitutes was thrown out by an internal disciplinary tribunal yesterday because the force failed to bring allegations against the constable in a timely fashion.
Yes, it appears the RCMP dragged its feet in investigating the conduct of one of its own.
Constable Justin Harris was one of nine officers in Prince George named in investigative reports alleging links to underage prostitutes. A subsequent investigation led to the conviction of a provincial court judge.
Constable Harris, however, would be the only officer to face a disciplinary hearing. Apparently, the force had no case against the other officers. Apparently, we have to take its word for it.
Constable Harris was notified of the case against him in September, 2004.
Under the RCMP Act, a commanding officer must launch a disciplinary hearing within one year of becoming aware of an officer's alleged misconduct. Senior members of the force in Prince George were aware of the allegations against Constable Harris in 2002.
Constable Harris's lawyer argued his rights were contravened and yesterday the three tribunal members -- RCMP officers from out of province -- agreed.
The disciplinary hearing was abandoned on a technicality.
Constable Harris has not been criminally charged and has maintained his innocence since the allegations against him first surfaced.
In testimony before yesterday's ruling, Constable Harris had been accused of hitting a teenaged prostitute when she refused to perform oral sex on him because he didn't want to wear a condom. Another teenaged prostitute told an investigating officer Constable Harris was "drunk and aggressive" on the two occasions she had sex with him.
Obviously, incredibly serious allegations, especially when you're talking about someone in a position of trust such as a police officer.
By now, of course, we should be accustomed to the Mounties taking extraordinary lengths of time investigating their own. When the RCMP's chief spokesperson John Ward was asked why the probe into the in-custody shooting death of Ian Bush was taking so long, he replied: "They take long because they take long."
Except in this case, the commanding officers in Prince George had to be aware of the force's rules. They had to be aware of the one-year time limit -- as stupid as it is. Why wouldn't the commanding officers in Prince George have promptly notified Constable Harris that his conduct was being investigated if that's what they are supposed to do?
It makes no sense.
Except, perhaps, when you consider this is the same RCMP detachment that took six months to investigate and eventually determine an officer in Houston, B.C., acted in self-defence when he shot an unarmed Mr. Bush in the back of the head in October, 2005.
The RCMP's handling of the Justin Harris case once again brings our national police force into disrepute. Something has to be done to remedy this horrendous blunder and an independent inquiry into the matter is likely the answer.
The RCMP simply can't allow these allegations to hang over the head of one of its officers. Personally, I can't imagine Constable Harris would want that himself. Otherwise, he'll be tarred with these nasty accusations the rest of his career.
The public needs to be assured there's no evidence the case against Constable Harris was intentionally delayed, thereby assuring any disciplinary hearing would be sullied.
Someone needs to look into all this and it can't be the RCMP. Given that this has happened in B.C., either the Attorney-General or Solicitor-General needs to take action. Sitting on their hands, as politicians are want to do when it comes to the Mounties, won't do here.
The public's confidence in its national police force is surely growing more fragile by the day.
05/10/06, Rod Mickleburgh, Mistakes plaguing RCMP, (Back).
Errors made in several high-profile cases raise questions about force's competence.
VANCOUVER -- The abrupt end to an RCMP disciplinary hearing into sexual allegations against a Prince George officer is not the first disconcerting event to hit the force in recent years.
The RCMP has made mistakes in a number of high-profile cases, prompting questions about the overall competence of the force in B.C.
Two years ago, for instance, errors by RCMP interrogators led to separate prosecution failures within days of each other, one in the murder case of Chinese student Amanda Zhao in Burnaby, the other in the killing of a native chief's son near Kamloops.
A few years earlier, the RCMP's own internal probe of its investigation into the sex strangling of young Mindy Tran in Kelowna concluded that police mistakes and personnel problems doomed the case against suspect Shannon Murrin from the beginning.
There are also ongoing issues such as RCMP investigations into the deaths of individuals at the hands of police or in police custody, most notably the fatal shooting last year of young Houston mill worker Ian Bush by a rookie constable.
The Mounties' E Division in B.C. is its largest in Canada, with 126 RCMP detachments across the province staffed by more than 5,000 police officers. Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd said the RCMP in this province should be cut some slack, despite the botching of some cases.
"There are some problems, but when you consider the large number of police officers in the province, I'm wary of saying the force . . . is full of rotten apples," Prof. Boyd said.
"Yes, in five or 10 pretty big cases, there have been mistakes, but considering the hundreds and hundreds of cases they are dealing with all the time, how much of a problem is that? The important thing is that they learn from their mistakes."
Just last year, the RCMP's national-security team ordered a dramatic public takedown of three natives in broad daylight on a busy Vancouver bridge. Police seized 14 rifles and a quantity of ammunition from their van. But it turned out the men had just legally purchased the weapons on behalf of an outdoor training program for native youth of the small Tsawataineuk band on Vancouver Island.
Although none of the arrested men was ever charged, police have held on to the rifles for the past 15 months.
Just this week, the band received a letter from the RCMP, pledging to pay the full amount for the seized weapons and ammunition.
Chief Eric Joseph is still miffed.
"There's been no apology from the RCMP," he said yesterday. "We would also like to have some of our legal costs reimbursed, so there's been no closure yet," he said.
"I still don't know what sparked such a high-risk takedown, and for a long time, everyone had a bad impression of us, that we were involved in terrorism or something. Their tactics got out of hand. The youth up here don't like the RCMP."
Other examples of RCMP blunders include:
Mistakenly identifying Dimitrios Pilarinos, who built the famous deck for then premier Glen Clark, as the chief operator of an illegal poker operation at the Lumbermen's Social Club, when he barely knew how to play cards.
Alleging, erroneously, that Joseph Ignace, the mentally retarded son of a key figure in the well-known Gustafsen Lake native standoff against police, fired a shot at RCMP officers. Later, the RCMP released details of Mr. Ignace's youth court record in an effort to link criminals to the standoff.
Bashing down a door and charging into a suspected grow-op within seconds of announcing their presence, prompting the presiding judge to throw out all charges against the operators, because they were not given proper time to answer the door.
A former RCMP constable in Merritt was awarded nearly a million dollars in damages this year, after she sued the force for long standing, on-the-job harassment. The decision is being appealed.
Last month, a federal court judge found RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli guilty of acting unreasonably in firing a B.C. constable.
The RCMP's public-complaints commission is currently investigating two deaths of suspects at the hands of police in the province. One is Mr. Bush; the other is Kevin St. Arnaud, who was fatally shot as he advanced, unarmed, on a young RCMP constable in Vanderhoof.
Prof. Boyd said the RCMP, like most other organizations, is taking on increasing numbers of young employees as baby boomers age and retire. "I don't doubt the police have some demographic challenges, and in that they are no different from any other sector of society," he said. "And overall, I think their training of recruits is pretty good."
05/10/06, Petti Fong, RCMP mistake halts B.C. sex case, (Back).
Mountie accused of buying sex from teens.
VANCOUVER -- The RCMP lost a high-profile case against one of its own officers yesterday, when a panel shut down a disciplinary hearing because the force failed to follow proper guidelines.
The decision means that Constable Justin Harris will likely not have to defend himself against RCMP allegations that he behaved in a "disgraceful manner" by buying sex with three underage prostitutes.
The officer was one of several subjects of a police investigation that culminated with a Prince George, B.C., judge being sentenced to seven years for having sex with underage sex-trade workers.
The disciplinary panel ruled yesterday that the force waited too long to launch the hearing against Constable Harris. The decision struck a blow for the RCMP, which has come under fire both nationally and provincially in recent weeks. Constable Harris's case captured much attention in British Columbia, where this week's public hearing was widely covered by the media.
Other high-profile hits to the RCMP in the province over the past several years include prosecution failures in the murder case of Chinese student Amanda Zhao in Burnaby and the killing of a native chief's son near Kamloops -- failures linked to errors by RCMP interrogators -- and the contentious case of Ian Bush, who was fatally shot last year in Houston, B.C., by a rookie constable.
Nationally, RCMP missteps have been documented in the case of Maher Arar.
Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, the force's top official, apologized publicly to Mr. Arar last week for mistakes the RCMP made which led to the Canadian citizen being wrongly sent to Syria where he was tortured.
After the tribunal's ruling yesterday, Constable Harris wept as he hugged his wife.
His father, Scott, a retired RCMP officer, said his son still wants the chance to clear his name.
The ruling yesterday was both good and bad for the family, Scott Harris said. "The board ruled that they [RCMP] never followed the rule of the game, that's good. It's bad in that he's not 100 per cent clear. The evidence that he's co-operated 110 per cent with investigators has not come out."
Constable Harris's lawyer argued at the start of the hearing that the RCMP tribunal should be quashed and declared void because the force failed to file notice within its one-year limit that the officer was under investigation. The RCMP argued that senior officers acted as soon as possible.
The three-member panel, comprised of senior RCMP officers from other provinces, agreed with Constable Harris.
It heard from the force's two top officers in the province that Constable Harris -- who did undercover work in the detachment -- was the subject of rumours, but they did not believe in the validity of the speculations until June of 2004.
The turning point for senior officers in the RCMP's Pacific Region headquarters was the surprise guilty plea from a provincial court judge that validated the allegations made by sex-trade workers.
David Ramsay admitted he had sex with underage sex-trade workers and was sentenced to seven years in jail on June 1, 2004.
But Superintendent Robert Codère, who led the tribunal, said Assistant Commissioner Gary Bass, the second-highest ranking member in the province, knew by the fall of 2002 that Constable Harris was linked to allegations of sex with underage sex-trade workers.
"In our view, the reasonable person would find that information available to him was sufficient to know there was an existence of a contravention of the code by Constable Harris beyond mere rumour or suspicions," Supt. Codère said in the oral decision.
The RCMP in Prince George began investigating in 1999 after hearing rumours that high-ranking community members routinely used and abused sex-trade workers.
The investigation also targeted a number of lawyers and several officers in the detachment.
Mr. Ramsay admitted he paid for sex from girls as young as 12 to 16 years old and many of them appeared before him in his court. In one case, he slammed a girl's head into the dashboard of his car and forced her to hitchhike in the nude from a rural area back into town.
Constable Harris, the only police officer to face a disciplinary hearing stemming from the case, has never been charged criminally. The Attorney-General decided in 2005 not to proceed with charges.
He remains suspended with pay while the RCMP considers whether it will appeal the decision or not.
Scott Harris said he never doubted his son, but does understand that the RCMP had to follow all the twists and turns of a complicated investigation.
Those complications were some of the reasons why the RCMP did not inform Constable Harris earlier that he was under conduct investigation, said the force's lawyer, Brian Radford.
Mr. Radford suggested the internal conduct investigation suffered because the RCMP was focused elsewhere.
06/10/06, Editorial, Liberal evasions on Arar, (Back).
From the earliest point of Canadian Maher Arar's incarceration in Syria, the Liberal government of the day knew that crucial answers about his deportation lay with the RCMP. The government failed to get those answers. Its leading members have never publicly accounted for those failures.
This week, in published interviews, ministers from that government, including three who were responsible for the RCMP either during Mr. Arar's detention or after his return, have said the RCMP kept them in the dark and they were powerless to do anything about it. This is an evasion of the ministers' responsibility to secure the truth.
What did the Liberal government know and when? On Oct. 16, 2002, eight days after the United States deported Mr. Arar to Syria, reporters asked for an explanation from Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada. "I think you may want to check with your local people on that," he replied. Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, later made the same point to Bill Graham, this country's foreign minister.
So Canada was told to check. And what did it learn? Lawrence MacAulay, the solicitor-general when Mr. Arar was deported, Wayne Easter, his successor, and Anne McLellan, who took over a revamped Ministry of Public Safety, all said this week that the RCMP never told them it gave false information to U.S. authorities labelling Mr. Arar as an Islamic extremist linked to al-Qaeda. They first learned of the incendiary reports last month, when Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor delivered the report of his 2½-year public inquiry on Canada's role in the deportation. (An aide to prime minister Paul Martin said Mr. Martin was so frustrated by the RCMP that he called the inquiry to get to the bottom of things.)
Those comments support the point made here last week that RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli had a duty to make the truth plain to his political masters and to pursue Mr. Arar's release. He has lost his credibility, and is a stain on any government that lets him stay in his job.
But on another level, the Liberal ministers, particularly Mr. MacAulay and Mr. Easter, are evading their own responsibility. Even after Mr. Arar returned to Canada in October, 2003, Mr. Easter was still insisting the RCMP played no role in the U.S. decision to arrest him. This was so wrong that it can only have been naiveté, willful blindness or a lie. In any case, it was the Liberals who treated the Solicitor-General's Ministry as a junior department, even in the sensitive days after 9/11. If the Liberals did not get answers from Mr. Zaccardelli, it is because they did not ask the questions forcefully enough.
07/10/06, Terri Theodore, Mounties release internal memo, (Back).
Image-boosting e-mail leaked in an effort to improve force's tarnished reputation.
VANCOUVER -- The RCMP has taken the unusual step of making public an internal memo sent to thousands of officers in an effort to rub off some of the tarnish from recent incidents that have shaken public confidence in the force.
The e-mail, sent to Pacific Region officers yesterday by Superintendent Bill Dingwall, reminds them of the Mounties' proud tradition of integrity and their "amazing success, given the difficult challenges we all face on a daily basis."
It went out just days after an allegation of disgraceful misconduct was thrown out on a technicality against Constable Justin Harris of Prince George, B.C. He was accused of having sex with three underage female prostitutes.
But this case comes on the heels of one in Houston, B.C., where a young man arrested for having an open beer at an ice rink was shot in the back of the head by a Mountie.
Supt. Dingwall said in an interview that the public perception of how the RCMP investigates its own officers is a big concern for the Mounties.
"I can tell you we take this extremely seriously," he said.
"I can tell you that in fact when we have serious allegations lodged against our members they're thoroughly investigated. Aggressively investigated," he said, adding "we don't want bad apples in our organization."
It has been a rough period for the national police force, which is seen and marketed as a Canadian icon.
At the national level, it's reeling from the stinging judicial report into the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian accused falsely of having terrorist ties.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day stated his confidence in the force yesterday.
"The RCMP has a long and proud history and one that remains and people across the country have great confidence in the RCMP," he said in Vancouver.
However, Mr. Day said there is work left to do and changes may be needed to the laws governing RCMP officers.
The force has been criticized for excessive secrecy in cases where its own members are involved.
Recently, some of that criticism came from the family of Ian Bush, the young man who died in custody after he was arrested for having an open beer.
Supt. Dingwall wrote the memo to the 8,500 Pacific Region officers to clear up what he called "misinformation" around the Harris disciplinary proceedings. That case was dismissed at an internal police inquiry this week because the investigation into the matter took more than a year.
Supt. Dingwall said the force is still contemplating appealing the decision and the officer will remain off the job with pay until a decision is made.
B.C. Mounties get about 650 complaints a year against officers and about 8 per cent of those show some sort of misconduct.
Supt. Dingwall said it may be time to make changes to the 18-year-old RCMP Act to reflect the way police investigate police and others.
(Back)
05/10/06, Rod Mickleburgh, Mistakes plaguing RCMP, (Source).
05/10/06, Petti Fong, RCMP mistake halts B.C. sex case, (Source).
06/10/06, Editorial, Liberal evasions on Arar, (Source).
07/10/06, Terri Theodore, Mounties release internal memo, (Source).
05/10/06, Gary Mason, Nation's trust in RCMP grows weaker by the day, (Back).
VANCOUVER -- It's difficult to imagine the Mounties looking any more stupid and inept than they do this morning. And that's saying a lot when you consider the embarrassment the RCMP recently brought upon itself in the handling of Maher Arar.
The case against a Prince George RCMP officer accused of having sex with underage prostitutes was thrown out by an internal disciplinary tribunal yesterday because the force failed to bring allegations against the constable in a timely fashion.
Yes, it appears the RCMP dragged its feet in investigating the conduct of one of its own.
Constable Justin Harris was one of nine officers in Prince George named in investigative reports alleging links to underage prostitutes. A subsequent investigation led to the conviction of a provincial court judge.
Constable Harris, however, would be the only officer to face a disciplinary hearing. Apparently, the force had no case against the other officers. Apparently, we have to take its word for it.
Constable Harris was notified of the case against him in September, 2004.
Under the RCMP Act, a commanding officer must launch a disciplinary hearing within one year of becoming aware of an officer's alleged misconduct. Senior members of the force in Prince George were aware of the allegations against Constable Harris in 2002.
Constable Harris's lawyer argued his rights were contravened and yesterday the three tribunal members -- RCMP officers from out of province -- agreed.
The disciplinary hearing was abandoned on a technicality.
Constable Harris has not been criminally charged and has maintained his innocence since the allegations against him first surfaced.
In testimony before yesterday's ruling, Constable Harris had been accused of hitting a teenaged prostitute when she refused to perform oral sex on him because he didn't want to wear a condom. Another teenaged prostitute told an investigating officer Constable Harris was "drunk and aggressive" on the two occasions she had sex with him.
Obviously, incredibly serious allegations, especially when you're talking about someone in a position of trust such as a police officer.
By now, of course, we should be accustomed to the Mounties taking extraordinary lengths of time investigating their own. When the RCMP's chief spokesperson John Ward was asked why the probe into the in-custody shooting death of Ian Bush was taking so long, he replied: "They take long because they take long."
Except in this case, the commanding officers in Prince George had to be aware of the force's rules. They had to be aware of the one-year time limit -- as stupid as it is. Why wouldn't the commanding officers in Prince George have promptly notified Constable Harris that his conduct was being investigated if that's what they are supposed to do?
It makes no sense.
Except, perhaps, when you consider this is the same RCMP detachment that took six months to investigate and eventually determine an officer in Houston, B.C., acted in self-defence when he shot an unarmed Mr. Bush in the back of the head in October, 2005.
The RCMP's handling of the Justin Harris case once again brings our national police force into disrepute. Something has to be done to remedy this horrendous blunder and an independent inquiry into the matter is likely the answer.
The RCMP simply can't allow these allegations to hang over the head of one of its officers. Personally, I can't imagine Constable Harris would want that himself. Otherwise, he'll be tarred with these nasty accusations the rest of his career.
The public needs to be assured there's no evidence the case against Constable Harris was intentionally delayed, thereby assuring any disciplinary hearing would be sullied.
Someone needs to look into all this and it can't be the RCMP. Given that this has happened in B.C., either the Attorney-General or Solicitor-General needs to take action. Sitting on their hands, as politicians are want to do when it comes to the Mounties, won't do here.
The public's confidence in its national police force is surely growing more fragile by the day.
05/10/06, Rod Mickleburgh, Mistakes plaguing RCMP, (Back).
Errors made in several high-profile cases raise questions about force's competence.
VANCOUVER -- The abrupt end to an RCMP disciplinary hearing into sexual allegations against a Prince George officer is not the first disconcerting event to hit the force in recent years.
The RCMP has made mistakes in a number of high-profile cases, prompting questions about the overall competence of the force in B.C.
Two years ago, for instance, errors by RCMP interrogators led to separate prosecution failures within days of each other, one in the murder case of Chinese student Amanda Zhao in Burnaby, the other in the killing of a native chief's son near Kamloops.
A few years earlier, the RCMP's own internal probe of its investigation into the sex strangling of young Mindy Tran in Kelowna concluded that police mistakes and personnel problems doomed the case against suspect Shannon Murrin from the beginning.
There are also ongoing issues such as RCMP investigations into the deaths of individuals at the hands of police or in police custody, most notably the fatal shooting last year of young Houston mill worker Ian Bush by a rookie constable.
The Mounties' E Division in B.C. is its largest in Canada, with 126 RCMP detachments across the province staffed by more than 5,000 police officers. Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd said the RCMP in this province should be cut some slack, despite the botching of some cases.
"There are some problems, but when you consider the large number of police officers in the province, I'm wary of saying the force . . . is full of rotten apples," Prof. Boyd said.
"Yes, in five or 10 pretty big cases, there have been mistakes, but considering the hundreds and hundreds of cases they are dealing with all the time, how much of a problem is that? The important thing is that they learn from their mistakes."
Just last year, the RCMP's national-security team ordered a dramatic public takedown of three natives in broad daylight on a busy Vancouver bridge. Police seized 14 rifles and a quantity of ammunition from their van. But it turned out the men had just legally purchased the weapons on behalf of an outdoor training program for native youth of the small Tsawataineuk band on Vancouver Island.
Although none of the arrested men was ever charged, police have held on to the rifles for the past 15 months.
Just this week, the band received a letter from the RCMP, pledging to pay the full amount for the seized weapons and ammunition.
Chief Eric Joseph is still miffed.
"There's been no apology from the RCMP," he said yesterday. "We would also like to have some of our legal costs reimbursed, so there's been no closure yet," he said.
"I still don't know what sparked such a high-risk takedown, and for a long time, everyone had a bad impression of us, that we were involved in terrorism or something. Their tactics got out of hand. The youth up here don't like the RCMP."
Other examples of RCMP blunders include:
Mistakenly identifying Dimitrios Pilarinos, who built the famous deck for then premier Glen Clark, as the chief operator of an illegal poker operation at the Lumbermen's Social Club, when he barely knew how to play cards.
Alleging, erroneously, that Joseph Ignace, the mentally retarded son of a key figure in the well-known Gustafsen Lake native standoff against police, fired a shot at RCMP officers. Later, the RCMP released details of Mr. Ignace's youth court record in an effort to link criminals to the standoff.
Bashing down a door and charging into a suspected grow-op within seconds of announcing their presence, prompting the presiding judge to throw out all charges against the operators, because they were not given proper time to answer the door.
A former RCMP constable in Merritt was awarded nearly a million dollars in damages this year, after she sued the force for long standing, on-the-job harassment. The decision is being appealed.
Last month, a federal court judge found RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli guilty of acting unreasonably in firing a B.C. constable.
The RCMP's public-complaints commission is currently investigating two deaths of suspects at the hands of police in the province. One is Mr. Bush; the other is Kevin St. Arnaud, who was fatally shot as he advanced, unarmed, on a young RCMP constable in Vanderhoof.
Prof. Boyd said the RCMP, like most other organizations, is taking on increasing numbers of young employees as baby boomers age and retire. "I don't doubt the police have some demographic challenges, and in that they are no different from any other sector of society," he said. "And overall, I think their training of recruits is pretty good."
05/10/06, Petti Fong, RCMP mistake halts B.C. sex case, (Back).
Mountie accused of buying sex from teens.
VANCOUVER -- The RCMP lost a high-profile case against one of its own officers yesterday, when a panel shut down a disciplinary hearing because the force failed to follow proper guidelines.
The decision means that Constable Justin Harris will likely not have to defend himself against RCMP allegations that he behaved in a "disgraceful manner" by buying sex with three underage prostitutes.
The officer was one of several subjects of a police investigation that culminated with a Prince George, B.C., judge being sentenced to seven years for having sex with underage sex-trade workers.
The disciplinary panel ruled yesterday that the force waited too long to launch the hearing against Constable Harris. The decision struck a blow for the RCMP, which has come under fire both nationally and provincially in recent weeks. Constable Harris's case captured much attention in British Columbia, where this week's public hearing was widely covered by the media.
Other high-profile hits to the RCMP in the province over the past several years include prosecution failures in the murder case of Chinese student Amanda Zhao in Burnaby and the killing of a native chief's son near Kamloops -- failures linked to errors by RCMP interrogators -- and the contentious case of Ian Bush, who was fatally shot last year in Houston, B.C., by a rookie constable.
Nationally, RCMP missteps have been documented in the case of Maher Arar.
Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, the force's top official, apologized publicly to Mr. Arar last week for mistakes the RCMP made which led to the Canadian citizen being wrongly sent to Syria where he was tortured.
After the tribunal's ruling yesterday, Constable Harris wept as he hugged his wife.
His father, Scott, a retired RCMP officer, said his son still wants the chance to clear his name.
The ruling yesterday was both good and bad for the family, Scott Harris said. "The board ruled that they [RCMP] never followed the rule of the game, that's good. It's bad in that he's not 100 per cent clear. The evidence that he's co-operated 110 per cent with investigators has not come out."
Constable Harris's lawyer argued at the start of the hearing that the RCMP tribunal should be quashed and declared void because the force failed to file notice within its one-year limit that the officer was under investigation. The RCMP argued that senior officers acted as soon as possible.
The three-member panel, comprised of senior RCMP officers from other provinces, agreed with Constable Harris.
It heard from the force's two top officers in the province that Constable Harris -- who did undercover work in the detachment -- was the subject of rumours, but they did not believe in the validity of the speculations until June of 2004.
The turning point for senior officers in the RCMP's Pacific Region headquarters was the surprise guilty plea from a provincial court judge that validated the allegations made by sex-trade workers.
David Ramsay admitted he had sex with underage sex-trade workers and was sentenced to seven years in jail on June 1, 2004.
But Superintendent Robert Codère, who led the tribunal, said Assistant Commissioner Gary Bass, the second-highest ranking member in the province, knew by the fall of 2002 that Constable Harris was linked to allegations of sex with underage sex-trade workers.
"In our view, the reasonable person would find that information available to him was sufficient to know there was an existence of a contravention of the code by Constable Harris beyond mere rumour or suspicions," Supt. Codère said in the oral decision.
The RCMP in Prince George began investigating in 1999 after hearing rumours that high-ranking community members routinely used and abused sex-trade workers.
The investigation also targeted a number of lawyers and several officers in the detachment.
Mr. Ramsay admitted he paid for sex from girls as young as 12 to 16 years old and many of them appeared before him in his court. In one case, he slammed a girl's head into the dashboard of his car and forced her to hitchhike in the nude from a rural area back into town.
Constable Harris, the only police officer to face a disciplinary hearing stemming from the case, has never been charged criminally. The Attorney-General decided in 2005 not to proceed with charges.
He remains suspended with pay while the RCMP considers whether it will appeal the decision or not.
Scott Harris said he never doubted his son, but does understand that the RCMP had to follow all the twists and turns of a complicated investigation.
Those complications were some of the reasons why the RCMP did not inform Constable Harris earlier that he was under conduct investigation, said the force's lawyer, Brian Radford.
Mr. Radford suggested the internal conduct investigation suffered because the RCMP was focused elsewhere.
06/10/06, Editorial, Liberal evasions on Arar, (Back).
From the earliest point of Canadian Maher Arar's incarceration in Syria, the Liberal government of the day knew that crucial answers about his deportation lay with the RCMP. The government failed to get those answers. Its leading members have never publicly accounted for those failures.
This week, in published interviews, ministers from that government, including three who were responsible for the RCMP either during Mr. Arar's detention or after his return, have said the RCMP kept them in the dark and they were powerless to do anything about it. This is an evasion of the ministers' responsibility to secure the truth.
What did the Liberal government know and when? On Oct. 16, 2002, eight days after the United States deported Mr. Arar to Syria, reporters asked for an explanation from Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada. "I think you may want to check with your local people on that," he replied. Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, later made the same point to Bill Graham, this country's foreign minister.
So Canada was told to check. And what did it learn? Lawrence MacAulay, the solicitor-general when Mr. Arar was deported, Wayne Easter, his successor, and Anne McLellan, who took over a revamped Ministry of Public Safety, all said this week that the RCMP never told them it gave false information to U.S. authorities labelling Mr. Arar as an Islamic extremist linked to al-Qaeda. They first learned of the incendiary reports last month, when Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor delivered the report of his 2½-year public inquiry on Canada's role in the deportation. (An aide to prime minister Paul Martin said Mr. Martin was so frustrated by the RCMP that he called the inquiry to get to the bottom of things.)
Those comments support the point made here last week that RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli had a duty to make the truth plain to his political masters and to pursue Mr. Arar's release. He has lost his credibility, and is a stain on any government that lets him stay in his job.
But on another level, the Liberal ministers, particularly Mr. MacAulay and Mr. Easter, are evading their own responsibility. Even after Mr. Arar returned to Canada in October, 2003, Mr. Easter was still insisting the RCMP played no role in the U.S. decision to arrest him. This was so wrong that it can only have been naiveté, willful blindness or a lie. In any case, it was the Liberals who treated the Solicitor-General's Ministry as a junior department, even in the sensitive days after 9/11. If the Liberals did not get answers from Mr. Zaccardelli, it is because they did not ask the questions forcefully enough.
07/10/06, Terri Theodore, Mounties release internal memo, (Back).
Image-boosting e-mail leaked in an effort to improve force's tarnished reputation.
VANCOUVER -- The RCMP has taken the unusual step of making public an internal memo sent to thousands of officers in an effort to rub off some of the tarnish from recent incidents that have shaken public confidence in the force.
The e-mail, sent to Pacific Region officers yesterday by Superintendent Bill Dingwall, reminds them of the Mounties' proud tradition of integrity and their "amazing success, given the difficult challenges we all face on a daily basis."
It went out just days after an allegation of disgraceful misconduct was thrown out on a technicality against Constable Justin Harris of Prince George, B.C. He was accused of having sex with three underage female prostitutes.
But this case comes on the heels of one in Houston, B.C., where a young man arrested for having an open beer at an ice rink was shot in the back of the head by a Mountie.
Supt. Dingwall said in an interview that the public perception of how the RCMP investigates its own officers is a big concern for the Mounties.
"I can tell you we take this extremely seriously," he said.
"I can tell you that in fact when we have serious allegations lodged against our members they're thoroughly investigated. Aggressively investigated," he said, adding "we don't want bad apples in our organization."
It has been a rough period for the national police force, which is seen and marketed as a Canadian icon.
At the national level, it's reeling from the stinging judicial report into the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian accused falsely of having terrorist ties.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day stated his confidence in the force yesterday.
"The RCMP has a long and proud history and one that remains and people across the country have great confidence in the RCMP," he said in Vancouver.
However, Mr. Day said there is work left to do and changes may be needed to the laws governing RCMP officers.
The force has been criticized for excessive secrecy in cases where its own members are involved.
Recently, some of that criticism came from the family of Ian Bush, the young man who died in custody after he was arrested for having an open beer.
Supt. Dingwall wrote the memo to the 8,500 Pacific Region officers to clear up what he called "misinformation" around the Harris disciplinary proceedings. That case was dismissed at an internal police inquiry this week because the investigation into the matter took more than a year.
Supt. Dingwall said the force is still contemplating appealing the decision and the officer will remain off the job with pay until a decision is made.
B.C. Mounties get about 650 complaints a year against officers and about 8 per cent of those show some sort of misconduct.
Supt. Dingwall said it may be time to make changes to the 18-year-old RCMP Act to reflect the way police investigate police and others.
(Back)
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