- Aug 6, 2012
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A great article that outlines some of this forces abuses, and it's become worse, if that were even possible. This article is from Macleans and it reads like something you would read from a police force in Russia, conducted by drunk officers in an Easter Bloc hellhole. This should dispell any illusions about Canada and our deficient and human rights. This is what socialism fosters.
If we had a sniff of libertarians in this country, CSIS, the RCMP and their provincial surrogates wouldn't get away with harming American corporations. Alas, these agencies are not only bankrupting many jurisdictions, but now NAFTA is getting a facelift that might cost Canada hundreds of thousands of jobs over decades. A great deal of "credit" for this has to go to the police agencies in Canada.
Sadly, accountability for Canada and these agencies has to come from outside the country in the form of trade reforms, it is well warranted and overdue.
The RCMP: a Royal Canadian disgrace - Macleans.ca
Today, the most rudimentary fixes lie unrealized. The Mounties remain under the umbrella of the federal public service, an arrangement that hamstrings their ability to implement reform. The creation of an independent board suggested by a task force to oversee human resources decisions never came to pass. (The head of that panel, David Brown, famously described the RCMP’s paramilitary management structure as “horribly broken”.) Two federal bills that would have created a civilian complaints commission, while strengthening rules and discipline on workplace misconduct, died when Parliament dissolved for last spring’s election. “We’re not any further ahead,” concludes Cpl. Tori Cliffe, one of four sexual harassment complainants who took the force to court in 2003. “People are still defining their actions as appropriate when they certainly were not. Nothing has changed.”
Certainly the stream of lurid tales emanating from RCMP station houses shows no sign of abating. Last December, a constable in Parksville, B.C., admitted to having sex in a police van with a young woman who had joined him for a ride-along. Another officer, in Hamilton, Ont., admitted around the same time to sending vulgar emails to a mailroom intern, offering the young woman money to strip for him (she refused). Then, two months ago, a staff sergeant in Burnaby, B.C., was accused in a lawsuit of using his authority to coerce a female constable into a four-month sexual relationship.
The scandals tarnishing the RCMP are by no means limited to sexual harassment. Footage of a constable kicking a man in the face in Kelowna last January unleashed a wave of public anger in B.C., where nearly a third of the force’s officers are stationed. So did the findings of the Braidwood inquiry, that officers gave false testimony during the probe into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski. Both incidents arose amid accusations that outgoing commissioner William Elliott—the outsider brought in to clean up the force—had been bullying and intimidating his own deputies. (This week the Conservative government was set to name Bob Paulson, a veteran RCMP officer and deputy commissioner, to the top job.)
Now, Galliford’s allegations have raised the stakes even higher. Within weeks, a woman who once personified progress within the organization—the firm-yet-sympathetic image of police authority—may well be describing from a witness box her belief that her bosses were laying bets on who would have sex with her. Or how the antediluvian attitudes of her superiors toward women compromise public safety. All of which calls into doubt the RCMP’s ability to do its job. If the force can’t safeguard the woman who speaks for it, or even protect the integrity of its most prominent criminal investigation, exactly what can it protect?
If we had a sniff of libertarians in this country, CSIS, the RCMP and their provincial surrogates wouldn't get away with harming American corporations. Alas, these agencies are not only bankrupting many jurisdictions, but now NAFTA is getting a facelift that might cost Canada hundreds of thousands of jobs over decades. A great deal of "credit" for this has to go to the police agencies in Canada.
Sadly, accountability for Canada and these agencies has to come from outside the country in the form of trade reforms, it is well warranted and overdue.
The RCMP: a Royal Canadian disgrace - Macleans.ca
Today, the most rudimentary fixes lie unrealized. The Mounties remain under the umbrella of the federal public service, an arrangement that hamstrings their ability to implement reform. The creation of an independent board suggested by a task force to oversee human resources decisions never came to pass. (The head of that panel, David Brown, famously described the RCMP’s paramilitary management structure as “horribly broken”.) Two federal bills that would have created a civilian complaints commission, while strengthening rules and discipline on workplace misconduct, died when Parliament dissolved for last spring’s election. “We’re not any further ahead,” concludes Cpl. Tori Cliffe, one of four sexual harassment complainants who took the force to court in 2003. “People are still defining their actions as appropriate when they certainly were not. Nothing has changed.”
Certainly the stream of lurid tales emanating from RCMP station houses shows no sign of abating. Last December, a constable in Parksville, B.C., admitted to having sex in a police van with a young woman who had joined him for a ride-along. Another officer, in Hamilton, Ont., admitted around the same time to sending vulgar emails to a mailroom intern, offering the young woman money to strip for him (she refused). Then, two months ago, a staff sergeant in Burnaby, B.C., was accused in a lawsuit of using his authority to coerce a female constable into a four-month sexual relationship.
The scandals tarnishing the RCMP are by no means limited to sexual harassment. Footage of a constable kicking a man in the face in Kelowna last January unleashed a wave of public anger in B.C., where nearly a third of the force’s officers are stationed. So did the findings of the Braidwood inquiry, that officers gave false testimony during the probe into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski. Both incidents arose amid accusations that outgoing commissioner William Elliott—the outsider brought in to clean up the force—had been bullying and intimidating his own deputies. (This week the Conservative government was set to name Bob Paulson, a veteran RCMP officer and deputy commissioner, to the top job.)
Now, Galliford’s allegations have raised the stakes even higher. Within weeks, a woman who once personified progress within the organization—the firm-yet-sympathetic image of police authority—may well be describing from a witness box her belief that her bosses were laying bets on who would have sex with her. Or how the antediluvian attitudes of her superiors toward women compromise public safety. All of which calls into doubt the RCMP’s ability to do its job. If the force can’t safeguard the woman who speaks for it, or even protect the integrity of its most prominent criminal investigation, exactly what can it protect?
