Vic Toews is announcing
changes to the RCMP Act that gives the force greater power to discipline orfire officers who give the force a bad name. I’m trying to bite my tongue and
hold back the instinctive cynicism. Vic Toews is about as trustworthy and
credible as Peter McKay. Not very.
Vic Toews was the one that
pushed a bizarre bill that was drastically over reaching. He had the audacity
to say if you oppose the bill you support pedophiles. Then he later admits he
never actually read the bill and claimed he was surprised by some of it’s over
reaching content permitting warrantless surveillance of someone who has not
been suspected of committing a crime.
At first glance, the whole
idea of giving any corporation more power to discipline and discharge it’s
employees is concerning. Especially when that organization as well as the
political party proposing the power grab has been plagued with a longstanding
history of abusive bullying within it’s command culture.
RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson had made an
appeal for changes to the RCMP Act in his frustration of dealing with the
public disgrace that keeping the Alberta wing nut on strength and transferred
him to BC. That officer should have been fired. If he worked in the private
industry he would have been fired. Blaming some review board for keeping him on
when that was the recommendation given them was rather absurd.
My point is and was then, that no changes to
the act were needed to fire that freak. In reality, the RCMP faced legal
liability for his past, present and future conduct for not obeying the law and
firing him.
The question is, how can we take the Harper
government seriously when they say they want to end bullying in the RCMP when
they clearly applaud it and endorse it. Harper fires whistle blowers. How do we
know he’s not going to take this new power to fire whistle blowers to sweep the
problem under the carpet without actually dealing with it?
Nevertheless, one thing in the act that
appears to be a step forward is the creation of a CivilianReview and Complaints Commission. This is needed. Even Jim Chu supported such a
body in BC. Notwithstanding my distain and mistrust of the Christy Clark
government, one thing they did do that was good was create a civilian body to
oversea police complaints in British Columbia. It would appear that this new
RCMP Act would do the same thing federally which would be a step forward. So
let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Right now I’m
feeling a little hey Mr. Tambourine man won’t you play a song for me.
the R.C.M.P. should be torn apart and left in their own shit... each province should follow ontario n quebec path and set up provincial forces.
ReplyDeleteI suppose a provincial police force would be better than all the fragmented forces we have now. Yet Durham is an example of how even that might not solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteWell, if nothing else there would be an increased degree of local accountability, right? Can't transfer an Alberta Provincial cop who fucks up out to B.C. or anything like that, which is of course how the RCMP deals with it's little scandals while protecting the "member's" job/career. Sure, if fired the guy could try and get a job with another Provincial Force, but you'd like to think they'd resist the temptation to save the money it costs them to put someone through training by hiring someone who already has the certification but comes with heavy baggage. Still, it wouldn't be as easy for them to hide as it is now.
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