Scandals surrounding the RCMP

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While the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a history dating back to 1873, it has been involved in a number of high-profile scandals particularly in the 1970s.

Contents 1 Early controversies 2 Inquiries 3 Theft of dynamite 4 Break-ins 5 Barn-burning scandal 6 Theft of PQ memberlist 7 False FLQ Manifesto 8 Intelligence mole 9 Const. Justin Harris and the Prince George RCMP 10 Ian Bush Incident 11 References

[edit] Early controversies

Until 1920, the RCMP and its forerunner, the Royal North West Mounted Police, operated only in Western Canada and the North. The new organization was created by an amalgamation with the Dominion Police, giving the RCMP a national security mandate as a departure from its earlier role as a frontier police force. Early controversies grew from its preoccupation with Communism and the labour movement. Following from its operations in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the RCMP intervened in labour disputes, not as an impartial law enforcement agency, but to assist with breaking strikes. In one incident, RCMP officers clashed with striking coal miners for 45 minutes in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1933 and killed three miners during the melee. Part of its strategy against labour organizing included extensive use of spies for surveillance of suspected Communists, which was revealed at the court trial that convicted the leadership of the Communist Party under Section 98 of the Criminal Code in 1932. Political surveillance activities were conducted out of its Criminal Investigation Department until a separate branch, the RCMP Security Service, was established in 1950. The RCMP was also the force used to stop the On-to-Ottawa Trek by precipitating another bloody clash that left one Regina city police officer and one protester dead in the 1935 Regina Riot. The Mounties were frequently criticized for these activities by labour and the left, including one of its most promineant surveillance targets, Member of Parliament J. S. Woodsworth. A dispute with the Government of Alberta over prohibition led to the creation of a separate Alberta Provincial Police from 1917 to 1932.^[1]

[edit] Inquiries

In 1977, the Quebec provincial government launched the Keable Inquiry into Illegal Police Activities, which resulted in 17 members of the RCMP being charged with 44 offences.

In the same year, a Royal Commission was formed by Justice David McDonald entitled Inquiry Into Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate allegations of vast wrongdoing by the national police force. The inquiry's 1981 recommendation was to limit the RCMP's role in intelligence operations, and resulted in the formation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service three years later.

[edit] Theft of dynamite

In April 1971, a team of RCMP officers broke into the storage facilities of Richelieu Explosives, and stole an unspecified amount of dynamite. A year later, in April 1972, officers hid four cases of dynamite in Mont Saint-Grégoire, in an attempt to link the explosives with the FLQ. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31 1977.

[edit] Break-ins

A series of more than 400 illegal break-ins by the RCMP were revealed by Vancouver Sun reporter John Sawatsky in his front-page expose headline "Trail of break-in leads to RCMP cover-up" on December 7, 1976. The story won the Vancouver Sun the Michener Award that year.^[2]

It wasn't until the following year that it was uncovered that the October 6^th 1972 break-in at the Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec office, had been the work of an RCMP investigation dubbed Operation Bricole, not right-wing militants as previously believed.^[3] The small leftist Quebec group had reported more than a thousand significant files missing or damaged following the break-in.^[4] One RCMP, one SQ and one SPVM officer plead guilty on June 16th 1977, but are given unconditional discharges.

A similar break-in occurred at the same time, at the office of the Mouvement pour la Défense des Prisonniers Politiques Québécois.

In 1974, RCMP Security Service Corporal Robert Samson was arrested trying to independently plant explosives at the house of Sam Steinberg, founder of Steinberg Foods in Montreal. While this bombing was not sanctioned by the RCMP, at trial he announced that he had done "much worse" on behalf of the RCMP, and admitted he had been involved in the APLQ break-in.^[5]

On April 19 1978, the Director of the RCMP criminal operations branch, admitted that the RCMP had entered more than 400 premises without warrant since 1970.

[edit] Barn-burning scandal

Perhaps the best-remembered scandal, on the night of May 6 1972, the RCMP Security Service burned down a barn owned by Paul Rose's mother in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle, Quebec. They suspected that separatists were planning to meet with members of the Black Panthers from the United States.^[6] The arson came after they failed to convince a judge to allow them to wiretap the alleged meetingplace. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31 1977.

Staff Sergeant Donald McCleery was involved in the operation,^[7] and today runs his own "investigation and surveillance" company ^[8].

[edit] Theft of PQ memberlist

In 1973, more than thirty members of the RCMP Security Service committed a break-in to steal a computerized memberlist of Parti Québécois members, in an investigation dubbed Operation Ham.^[9] This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 28 1977. John Starnes, head of the RCMP Security Service, claimed that the purpose of this operation was to investigate allegations that the PQ had funneled $200,000 worth of donations through a Swiss banking account.^[10]

[edit] False FLQ Manifesto

In 1971, the RCMP chief superintendent Donald Cobb oversaw the infiltration of FLQ cells with federal agents, and the releasing of a fraudulent "Manifesto" on behalf of the La Minerve cell, calling for increased violence.

[edit] Intelligence mole

In 1972, it was suspected that there was a Soviet infiltrator in the ranks of Canadian intelligence. Suspicion initially fell upon Leslie James Bennett. In the 1980s it was discovered that the mole had been RCMP Sergeant Gilles Brunet, the son of an RCMP assistant commissioner. ^[11]

[edit] Const. Justin Harris and the Prince George RCMP

Following the 2002 case of a Prince George judge, David Ramsay, who plead guilty to misconduct with young prostitutes, similar allegations were made against Const. Justin Harris and other RCMP officers. Harris was accused of having touched an underage prostitute, paying a prostitute for sex, and refusing to pay at all, between 1993 and 2001.^[12]

The RCMP Act forbids a hearing to take place more than one year after a senior officer has been made aware of such allegations, but because the allegations had been made against nine officers with little evidence, the RCMP did not launch a criminal investigation against Harris, and did not launch a misconduct hearing until 2005.^[12] On October 4, 2006, the RCMP disciplinary board decided to stop all proceedings against Harris because the investigation conflicted with the RCMP Act. (This decision has since been appealed by the senior RCMP officer in B.C.)^[13] Public outcry from people like Daisy Kler of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter criticized the RCMP's internal investigation policies.^[13]

[edit] Ian Bush Incident

On October 29, 2005, Ian Bush, 22, was arrested for having an open beer in public and giving a false name to an officer, in Houston, British Columbia. Later, at the RCMP detachment office, Bush died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head. The same officer that arrested him claimed he had shot the Bush in self-defense.^[14] The officer was the only witness to the shooting. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association claimed an RCMP internal investigation was unsatisfactory and called for an external investigation.^[15]

Nearly one year later, a statement by British Columbia's Criminal Justice Branch agreed that the officer had acted in self-defense. ^[14]

[edit] References