19/06/07, Editorial, To bring openness to the Mounties
Post
Restoring proper decision-making and accountability to the RCMP is a big job for the task force announced yesterday by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. The pension scandal that brought on yesterday's announcement is but one among many. Something has gone drastically wrong with the RCMP, and it remains to be seen whether the task force of senior Mounties, public-service representatives, governance and policing experts can fix the problems.
This is not a matter of simply tinkering with governance procedures. The more basic problem is an arrogance in the upper reaches of RCMP management that eroded the force's commitment to the Mounties' core values of honesty and integrity. The arrogance was encapsulated in a remark last year by Staff-Sergeant John Ward, a spokesman for the force in British Columbia. "The public doesn't have a right to know anything," he said when asked about the turtle-like pace of an investigation into a bizarre RCMP killing of a man arrested for holding an open beer in a public place.
No one had a right to know anything. The senior executive committee did not have a right to a draft of an internal audit on the pension scandal, but merely listened as commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli (who has since resigned over the Maher Arar scandal) described what was in the audit. The cabinet did not have a right to be told that the Mounties' own mistakes led to the deportation (by the United States) of Mr. Arar, an innocent Muslim Canadian who wound up tortured in Syria. Bob Rae did not have a right to be told the real story two years ago about the lack of bomb-sniffing dogs at Montreal's Mirabel airport, as he conducted a probe into the 1985 Air India terrorist bombings.
Openness is essential to good decision-making. At a time when no one dared say a word to offend the commissioner, the RCMP helped tip the last federal election to the Conservative Party by unnecessarily making public its investigation into a security leak in the Liberal finance minister's office. It raided an Ottawa Citizen reporter's house in an attempt to intimidate her. It participated in a campaign to ruin a banker who ran afoul of the previous prime minister, Jean Chrétien.
Much will depend on the choice of a new commissioner, expected to be announced soon. While there may be independent, visionary people at the superintendent level who deserve consideration, the government should cast a wide net to make sure it finds someone capable of bringing humility and honesty back to the national police force, and of making it again worthy of the public's trust.
This is not a matter of simply tinkering with governance procedures. The more basic problem is an arrogance in the upper reaches of RCMP management that eroded the force's commitment to the Mounties' core values of honesty and integrity. The arrogance was encapsulated in a remark last year by Staff-Sergeant John Ward, a spokesman for the force in British Columbia. "The public doesn't have a right to know anything," he said when asked about the turtle-like pace of an investigation into a bizarre RCMP killing of a man arrested for holding an open beer in a public place.
No one had a right to know anything. The senior executive committee did not have a right to a draft of an internal audit on the pension scandal, but merely listened as commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli (who has since resigned over the Maher Arar scandal) described what was in the audit. The cabinet did not have a right to be told that the Mounties' own mistakes led to the deportation (by the United States) of Mr. Arar, an innocent Muslim Canadian who wound up tortured in Syria. Bob Rae did not have a right to be told the real story two years ago about the lack of bomb-sniffing dogs at Montreal's Mirabel airport, as he conducted a probe into the 1985 Air India terrorist bombings.
Openness is essential to good decision-making. At a time when no one dared say a word to offend the commissioner, the RCMP helped tip the last federal election to the Conservative Party by unnecessarily making public its investigation into a security leak in the Liberal finance minister's office. It raided an Ottawa Citizen reporter's house in an attempt to intimidate her. It participated in a campaign to ruin a banker who ran afoul of the previous prime minister, Jean Chrétien.
Much will depend on the choice of a new commissioner, expected to be announced soon. While there may be independent, visionary people at the superintendent level who deserve consideration, the government should cast a wide net to make sure it finds someone capable of bringing humility and honesty back to the national police force, and of making it again worthy of the public's trust.
Home