New review body will monitor RCMP

March 4, 2010
Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News

OTTAWA — The Harper government is going ahead with a longstanding promise to create a new independent commission to keep an eye on the RCMP, committing money in this year's budget to establish a strengthened review body.

Without providing details on how the new commission will operate, the government said it would spend $8 million over the next two years on the organization, which it promised will "enhance independent review of RCMP actions."

The existing RCMP public complaints commission has been repeatedly decried as a toothless body that depends on the force's voluntary co-operation for its investigations and has no power to probe whether the force is overstepping its power involving national security and organized crime.

Several reports and advocates have called for the creation of a new oversight body and the government has often stated it was awaiting the pending inquiry report on the 1985 Air India bombing.

"The creation of a new civilian independent complaints commission for the RCMP will contribute to the overall reform and modernization efforts underway at the RCMP," the budget document said.

The Mounties have been under intense public scrutiny in recent years, arising from their use of Taser stun guns, their involvement in the Maher Arar affair, and a pension scandal that rocked the upper echelons of the force, prompting a major federal review and modernization drive.

In December 2006, the judge who led the inquiry into Arar's deportation to Syria from the United States, after the RCMP passed on faulty intelligence to the Americans, recommended that the RCMP public complaints commission be revamped and given the power to review all national security activities by the RCMP.

Arar, a Syrian-Canadian, was put on a plane and sent to Damascus after being arrested during a stopover at a New York airport.

Paul Kennedy, the former head of the RCMP public complaints commission, has said that a stronger review body should have access to all RCMP files and be empowered to subpoena documents and compel people to testify.

The budget also owns the door to the possible privatization of the RCMP's Forensic Laboratories Services.

RCMP watchdog gets patronage; Canadians just get patronized

January 27, 2010
GARY MASON, Globe and Mail

Give Ian McPhail marks for honesty anyway.

When the newly appointed watchdog of the RCMP was asked by The Globe and Mail's Colin Freeze what he knew about the federal civilian oversight body he was taking over, he said our reporter likely knew more about the agency's background than he did.

The Prime Minister's Office must have loved reading that.

Mr. McPhail's new job as chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is one of the most cynical and discouraging appointments this government has made in the past four years. The only qualification that the man seems to have for the job is the past work that he has done for the Conservative Party.

One of the most critical positions in the country has become a mean-nothing patronage appointment.

As Mr. McPhail acknowledged, he's been active in Conservative politics since the 1970s. His support was recognized by the Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris in the 1990s, which asked Mr. McPhail to head up a few different boards and commissions. Otherwise, most of his career has been spent as a lawyer specializing in wills and estates.

Mr. McPhail is replacing Paul Kennedy, who assumed the chairman's job in 2006 after a long and distinguished career as a civil servant in various justice and law-enforcement-related portfolios. But Mr. Kennedy did two things the federal Conservatives didn't much care for - deliver very public speeches that called on Ottawa to give his toothless agency the powers it needed to be a truly effective oversight agency, and, secondly, issue reports into RCMP conduct that did not cast our national police force in a positive light.

So after four years, the Tories gave Mr. Kennedy the heave-ho.

At least Mr. McPhail's appointment does one thing: remove any doubt about just how low a priority keeping our national police force honest and accountable is for this government. This at a time when support for the Mounties among the Canadian public is at an all-time low; and when an increasing number of provinces are bringing in the type of tough civilian oversight of their municipal and provincial police forces that the RCMP should be subjected to nationally.

(For a disturbing look at just how flawed and organizationally inept the RCMP have become, I recommend a new documentary by Bountiful Films and filmmaker Helen Slinger entitled Mounties Under Fire. It will be rebroadcast on CBC this summer, but you can also see it online at: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone).

Mr. McPhail has been given a minimum one-year term as chair. This is about how long it will take before he begins grasping the complexities of the position. In my opinion, it took Paul Kennedy two years before he began hitting his stride as complaints chair - and knowledge-wise he had an enormous head start over the man succeeding him.

I figure the RCMP have at least a year to run wild.

The CPC had been operating on a base budget of about $5-million a year. However, the last couple of years, Mr. Kennedy managed to persuade the government to give him an extra $3-million-plus so he could launch more in-depth investigations into allegations of RCMP misconduct as well as conduct broader analysis of contentious issues such as taser use.

That extra funding is now at risk.

Without it, some of the best work the CPC does will disappear and staff will have to be laid off. Also, the CPC will have to rely almost exclusively on RCMP officers to investigate complaints against the Mounties instead of using its own investigators.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Is Mr. McPhail going to be in any kind of position to argue for that extra money before budgets are set in the next couple of weeks for the coming fiscal year? He'll still be trying to figure out where the washrooms are.

It sounds like Mr. McPhail plans to run a much different operation than his predecessor anyway. He told The Globe he believes that the CPC chair does not have to be an expert in criminal law or civilian oversight in general. He said his responsibility is to understand how "an administrative agency should operate." Mr. Kennedy felt his job was to ensure that Canada's national police force was held accountable for its actions.

I'm sure the Mounties can't believe their luck. Looks like they finally got their man.

Ottawa names interim RCMP watchdog - Lack of experience with Mounties raises skepticism of estate lawyer with ties to Tories

January 25, 2010
Colin Freeze, Globe and Mail

The new man in charge of holding the Mounties to account is a Toronto estate lawyer who describes himself as “collegial.” But his predecessors question whether a “neophyte” with that mindset is up to the job.

Ian McPhail, who has spent most of his career focusing on wills and real estate, acknowledges he has much to learn about the RCMP. While he has worked as a Conservative organizer and chaired Ontario government bodies, he has never before tried to police the police.

“Look, you probably know more about the background there than I do,” Mr. McPhail said in an interview last week. “I'm going up Monday, it will be my first day on the job.”

The federal government appointed him last week as “interim chair” of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. He is to hold the job for at least a year.

This appointment raised eyebrows, given that Mr. McPhail has no background in policing, criminal law or in federal oversight agencies. Past chairs – even ones with long histories in security and oversight – have left the job in abject frustration. They've complained that Parliament's laws render them toothless watchdogs, allowing the Mounties to remain a stubborn culture unto themselves.

The RCMP Complaints Commission consists of a group of 90 civil servants who try to keep tabs on a sprawling police service with some 30,000 members across Canada. The office has lately hammered home some chronic issues – including the RCMP's use of tasers.

Mr. McPhail, who started his Toronto estate-law firm 37 years ago, said no one need be unduly concerned about his lack of background in police issues. “There's perhaps a misunderstanding in the role of the chairman, which is not to be expert in those fields,” he said. “But rather to understand how an administrative agency should operate.”

His predecessors wish him well, but question his description of the job and his credentials Criminal law “isn't something you pick up on the fly,” Paul Kennedy, whose term finished in December, said in an interview. “If you don't know the law, I don't know what value you can bring to the job.”

Mr. Kennedy spent 35 years inside the federal security agencies before becoming the Mounties' watchdog in 2005. He issued some scathing reports until the Conservatives opted to not renew him last fall.

Mr. Kennedy is to appear on Parliament Hill tomorrow as part of a forum organized by the Liberal party. He'll be joined by other federal watchdogs whose terms have not been renewed.

Shirley Heafey, the RCMP Complaints Commissioner from 1997 to 2005, spent two years inside the agency as a vice-chair before taking the helm. Prior to that, she worked for the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the oversight body of CSIS, Canada's spy agency.

Asked about Mr. McPhail's appointment, she said the Mounties “are going to love to have him there.”

“He's just a caretaker. There's no power to do anything unless you really push the envelope,” she said. “He's coming in cold. There's no way he can do anything in a year … he's a complete neophyte.”

The two previous complaints commissioners had been appointed to the job by Liberals. While Ms. Heafey said she had once dabbled in Liberal politics, Mr. Kennedy described himself as non-partisan.

“And that's the way it should be,” he said.

Mr. McPhail said he has been active in Conservative riding associations in Toronto since the 1970s. The provincial government of premier Mike Harris appointed him chair of TVO for one year in the 1990s. He was later put in charge of the province's environmental-review board and its alcohol and gaming commission.

Past RCMP watchdogs have publicly agitated for change, complaining the Mounties ignore recommendations otherwise.

But Mr. McPhail said he isn't greatly concerned by that. “I don't know a lot about their style,” he said. “I just know about my style. My style tends to be collegial.”

Senators at odds over early release of Liberal RCMP report

January 24, 2010
Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service
National Post

OTTAWA -- Liberals and Conservative senators are locked in a dispute about the pending release of a report that is deeply critical of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and calls for at least 5,000 new officers to help boost the national force.

The Liberal majority on the Senate national security committee, which is dissolved while Parliament is prorogued, is planning to make their report public early next month.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, the longtime committee chairman, said the findings will be based on a draft committee report that was still in the works when the committee recessed in December.

Mr. Kenny is expected to be replaced by a Conservative chairman in the next Parliament, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper appoints more Conservative senators to end the Liberal domination on committees.

Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin said it is "shocking" that the Liberals on the committee would publicize the contents of an unfinished report while Parliament is prorogued.

"That is a completely irresponsible and unprecedented thing to do," Ms. Wallin said. "These reports are confidential until everybody has signed off on them and we are in the middle of that."

Mr. Kenny countered that he and his colleagues are not releasing the committee's actual draft report, but a recrafted "position paper" of their own.

The Liberal report is expected to contain numerous recommendations, including a call for about 5,000 more officers over seven years and increased civilian oversight of the force -- an element of several other reports on the RCMP.

The position paper also touches on Taser use and another "big time" component deals with the force's often-criticized management structure, Mr. Kenny said.

"There are a lot of problems within the RCMP and our report comments on whether the right problems are being addressed," he said.

Ms. Wallin questioned the value of another report on the RCMP, which she said already has been studied to death. She said that the report to be released by Kenny and his colleagues is nothing more than a "Liberal press release."

The committee's last meeting in December, in which they discussed whether to approve a draft report they had worked on for three months, was an acrimonious gathering in which Conservative senators accused the Liberals of going out of their way to disparage the RCMP.

Ms. Wallin chastised the "offensive language" of the draft report, which she said amounted a "drive-by" smear of the Mounties.

"We did not like the tone, which assumed that every member of the RCMP engaged in the misuse of Tasers or engaged in some illegal behaviour," she said at the meeting.

"We did not want the RCMP to be side-swiped by concerns about problem members or issues that years ago were a problem and that the RCMP have been working on actively."

Conservative Senator Daniel Lang said that adding 5,000 RCMP officers would increase the existing complement by 25% and would cost taxpayers "in the neighbourhood" of $500 million.

"I am not saying there should not be increases, but I am also saying that I do not think we heard anything to that extent that should be done," said Mr. Lang, who asserted the report went "well beyond" what was discussed at committee hearings.

There have been several reports on the RCMP in recent years, including two reports in 2007 when the Conservative government commissioned special investigator David Brown to examine the force following revelations of a pension scandal. Mr. Brown made numerous recommendations on how to rebuild the force's "horribly broken" management and governance structure.

The Liberals in the Senate are not the only Grits planning to do business while Parliament is shut down -- Liberal MPs say they are also reporting to work Monday in protest, even though the doors do not officially open until March.