Paul Kennedy and Robert Dziekanski. The RCMP’s William Elliott, its Gary Bass, and the BC Rail Scandal.
Battle lines appear to be hardening. Read the last paragraph of the Globe and Mail editorial (Dec 9 09 A16) on the Dziekanski fiasco:
“The RCMP brutally killed a new-comer to Canada, put out fake information into the public sphere while investigating themselves, then refused to correct the record and held on to the video that showed the horrible truth. The loss of public trust is no mystery.”
The Globe and Mail doesn’t mention that top man at the RCMP, William Elliott, telephoned the men involved to express solidarity with them. They are men whose conduct Paul Kennedy (with comic understatement) says in his 208-page Report “fell short of that [conduct] expected of members of the RCMP”.
Paul Kennedy always writes as if chewing a mouthful of cottonwool. His “scathing report” (the Vancouver Province) repeats what every decent observer has been saying for months – while adding a few busloads of padding.
Paul Kennedy has been a harboured bureaucrat for so long he couldn’t write a scathing report if he was the first investigator of the Nazi Death Camps. I imagine him writing – in a brief 2000-page report – that Death Camp employees followed to the letter the procedures set, and should be commended for that. I imagine him going on to say that Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and Goring probably meant well, but somehow, the execution of their orders may not have been carried out in the best of public interest in the Death Camps.
The Globe and Mail doesn’t tell its readers that BC’s premier Gordon Campbell met top BC RCMP officer Gary Bass and expressed his personal feeling of sympathy for those guilty of serious impropriety (at least) in the Dziekanski fiasco.
The Globe and Mail doesn’t connect the Dziekanski cover-up with repeated RCMP cover-up of RCMP officer wrongdoing: Ian Bush, Kevin St. Arnaud, Kelly Marie Richard, David Ambrose, and…and…and….
Nor does the Globe and Mail mention that Paul Kennedy’s Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP frequently backed the RCMP’s dangerous folly – and its almost certainly manipulated “investigations of itself”.
Now being given the Heave-Ho by the Harperites (who I believe want a corrupt RCMP to match their own core values), Paul Kennedy unleashes his death-bed repentance. Too little. Too late.
Perhaps, at the other end of the scale, angry motorcyclists who rallied at Surrey provincial courthouse Tuesday carried too extreme a sign, saying “RCMP Canada’s biggest criminal organization”. Motorcyclists were there because Corporal Benjamin (Monty) Robinson seems to have been given special treatment by Crown prosecutors. Recommended for a charge of impaired driving by the Delta Police after he had hit and killed motorcyclist Orion Hutchinson on October 25, 2008, the charge was changed to the lighter “obstruction of justice”. That kind of action by the Crown appears to happen all too often in cases involving the RCMP.
The same Robinson is singled out in Paul Kennedy’s 208-page report – as senior officer in the Dziekanski disaster – for failing to take charge (implying, I suggest, a failure to regulate action to prevent death).
The population of B.C. (and of Canada and the world) is largely of the view that criminal charges should be laid in the Dziekanski affair.
But the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch, which decided not to lay charges earlier, is still holding to its decision – despite a growing flood of incriminating evidence in the matter.
And so Corporal Benjamin Robinson seems, now, to have been twice protected from facing criminal charges others believe his actions warrant. The actions in which Robinson has been involved are extreme – both involving the death of innocent people.
A reasonable Canadian must ask if we are facing a combination of RCMP cover-up and Crown prosecutorial discrimination that shields wrongdoing? If so, it appears to happen where RCMP investigates itself and finds no reason to censure apparent glaring improprieties committed by police officers. It appears, too, to happen when the Crown decides not to charge, or to mitigate charges, where allegations are brought against police officers.
Those recurring matters seem to happen, also, at much higher levels. Repeatedly, in pre-trial hearings of the Basi, Virk, and Basi charges in the BC Rail Scandal matter, Defence counsel has claimed delay and obstruction by the RCMP – and, as well, by the Special Crown Prosecutor.
Defence counsel – seeking disclosure materials relevant to the defence of their clients – have uncovered a large amount of material to support their position as Defence. They allege (as a part of Defence argument) that Gordon Campbell and senior others intended to transfer BC Rail to CNR long before announced, misrepresented the real and potential value of BC Rail, deliberately dismembered it, staged a phoney open, public auction of BC Rail, and did so with an expensive campaign using vast amounts of public money. Defence base their allegations on real, secured evidentiary material.
That material, I allege, points to criminal breach of trust and to violation of fiduciary duty on the part of Gordon Campbell and associates involved in the transfer of BC Rail to CNR.
I have written to Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass requesting full RCMP investigation to determine the facts of the matter. Bass has written me mostly empty rhetorical bombast. He has suggested others, too, are interested in the matter.
Then he asks me to give him evidence that he can act upon. That is THE GRAND POLICE COP-OUT. When someone like Bass wants to kill allegations and to do nothing, he says “YOU get the evidence and YOU bring it to me” – when that is one of the main tasks of the police (and he knows it).
Responsible officers of the court have based Defence strategy on the integrity of their allegations about the gigantic fraud and misrepresentation undertaken by Gordon Campbell and his associates that they attest are revealed by hundreds of documents in the possession of the court.
I have pointed Deputy Commissioner Bass to that material – which I am forbidden to possess but which I have heard extracts of and arguments from for more than two years in court.
I have done my duty as a responsible Canadian. I insist Deputy Commissioner Bass refuses to do his. And his refusal – I sincerely believe – is a part of the whole, present refusal of the RCMP in British Columbia to uphold the rule of law.
I may be correct in believing that the present behaviour of the RCMP not only points to laxity in relation to unchecked criminal action among Force members at lower levels, but also to RCMP support for and prevention of investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing at the highest levels of government.
The administration of justice in British Columbia seems to follow a pattern of abuse that is seamless. From the so-called “cop on the beat”, through Crown prosecutorial agencies, up to (and including) the cabinet, the administration of justice seems deliberately faulty.
The role of the courts in what I believe is that seamless maladministration of justice casts huge shadows on the courts themselves. They cannot be untouched when general corruption is the milieu in which they work.
Stumble It!
Had our national police force had adequate funding for the proper and extensive training the modern cop requires to function today, it is a fairly certain bet that the officers in question would have been cashiered long before any of them had a chance to confront Mr. Dziekanski.
But the Ottawa mandarins have likely seen the taser as a simple cost effective way to cut back on training times and methodologies -- the 21st century version of the billy club in the hands of goons.
A saying comes to mind for all of this: You cannot blame the dog for the owner's incompetence.
Taser International has made a tacit admission it can be fatal as they have sent out an advisory not to aim it at the chest area. The hard truth is that for some people it is death by electrocution, and of course we banished capital punishment in 1965.
The taser was no doubt inspired by the electric cattle prods used in stockyards to steer cattle into the slaughter chutes. So some outstanding genius decided what is good for cattle can be applied to humans.
It will never be banned because politicians, especially conservative politicians, are too cowardly and too insensitive to challenge the police on taser use. Ergo, we become the torture tolerant society
It will never be banned because politicians, especially conservative politicians, are too cowardly and too insensitive to challenge the police on taser use. Ergo, we become the torture tolerant society
Tasers are permitted, because in the name of political correctness the Mounties and police forces across Canada have to hire from across the spectrum of people. There used to be height and physical requirements for a reason. Now a 5'5" lady must be made 'safe' so she requires this to defend against a 6'6" attacker without the unsightliness of a gun.
Police have forgotten how to physically restrain a suspect, so they resort to tasers.
Whereas, I maintain that it is the politicos that cut budgets for training, opting instead for 'gadgets'.
Whereas, I maintain that it is the politicos that cut budgets for training, opting instead for 'gadgets'.
. . .and I don't think it even occurred to these officers that one polish guy with a stapler was no match for 4 burly officers - let alone with batons and guns.
It was Paul Kennedy who mentioned in his report that total elapsed time from when the cops entered the secure area and when they tasered him was all of 4 seconds.
If somebody breaks into my house and I shoot him, as I would without any hesitation, I would be charged and I have no problem with letting a jury decide my fate. In this case, the cops acted like some street gang thugs without any excuses and should have been charged the next day.
Ed Deak.
should have been charged the next day
But Ed -- how then would the lawyers make their money?
They remain "The RCMP Public Excuses Commission."
Cover up in the RCMP is standard proceedure. That is what the commission was set up for
The activism we read about in South America is a good example, where the ordinary citizens are much more directly affected by the nuances of their "overlords", and are far more willing to put their necks on the line to achieve some justice.