Twin reports last week issued by separate commissions of inquiry have taken the RCMP to task for the quality of its work, its perception in the public eye and the secretive, possessive nature of its hierarchy. The Braidwood inquiry, investigating the death of Robert Dziekanski, hit the nail on the head when it stated the “most important weapon in the arsenal of police is public support.” A second statement from the Air India commission’s final report, recommending the RCMP pull out of the business of contract policing, is worthy of some consideration.
Both Thomas Braidwood in the Dziekanski case and John Major in the Air India bombings pulled no punches when taking the RCMP to task for its behaviour and actions in both cases. The murder of 331 people in separate airline bombings in the mid-1980s and the death of a Polish immigrant at the hands of police are wildly different, separated not just by more than 20 years but by their very nature, but some parallels in the RCMP’s conduct have been noted, giving Major’s recommendation more weight. As it stands, the RCMP is a sprawling police organization tasked with dozens of responsibilities from protecting national security to municipal policing in small hamlets and villages across Canada, except in Ontario and Quebec. In the last 10 years it seems like it has been perpetually plagued with scandal, from pension fraud to Maher Arar’s embarrassing fiasco to the events listed above. Only recently has the Commissioner of the RCMP, William Elliot, finally caved to the growing public demand that officers stop investigating their own when they are suspected of committing crimes.
It is noted in both reports that the organization’s overriding interest is often protecting its own people and its own turf. Numerous nuggets of incorrect information were knowingly allowed to stand without correction in Dziekanski’s case in the days following his death. An email tendered late in the Braidwood hearings shattered the Mounties’ story that none of the four officers had decided before confronting Dziekanski to use a Taser on him. In the case of Air India, though they are not solely to blame. The RCMP refused to share information with the fledgling CSIS, even though many of its members were former Mounties. Officers treated clandestine sources like street-criminal snitches and stuck to supposedly “tried and true” policing methods while the larger scope of the crime — a network of terrorists that brought down an airliner — seemed to elude them. Numerous RCMP errors that were covered up also contributed to the failure of the government to bring those responsible to justice.
If the RCMP is going to concern itself with national interests, it stands to reason it should consider restricting its focus to that domain and contemplate other models for community policing. At present, the provinces and individual municipalities contract the force to provide a police presence, with the exceptions of Ontario and Quebec. Ontario has a provincial force and individual municipal policing entities. While the Alberta Provincial Police ceased to exist in 1932, there have been repeated calls for its resurrection. When the Provincial Police Services Agreement expires in 2012, it might be time to explore models similar to those in Ontario and Quebec. The financial repercussions of creating new police forces might make the entire exercise seem too expensive, but the public trust shouldn’t have a price tag.
Ultimately the RCMP does good work in our community and in municipalities across the country. Yet every single hit to its credibility impacts the public’s belief in its abilities, openness and accountability, and there have been many in just the last decade. The people need to be able to trust and support their police force, which is becoming increasingly difficult with each new scandal. If the RCMP is a national police force, perhaps we should simply let it be one and leave community policing up to the provinces and municipalities. The history and tradition of the RCMP are rich and meaningful, but the present might require a different policing approach.
