PACP Committee Report

Bloc Québécois Supplementary Report

CALLING FOR A PUBLIC INQUIRY AND

LEGAL RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE

It is obvious that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has lost some of its traditional popular esteem and is suffering from both organizational and structural problems.  The Bloc Québécois is therefore calling for a public inquiry under Part 1 of the Inquiries Act.

Fraud involving RCMP pension and insurance plans, the failed investigation into the destruction of Air India flight 182, the Maher Arar case – the problems putting the integrity, efficiency and transparency of the RCMP at issue are legion.  They suggest an unhealthy culture of secrecy within the force, which fully justifies the Conservative government’s ordering a public inquiry.

To restore the RCMP's credibility, the government should take as its model the Poitras Commission, which made possible a rewriting of Quebec's Police Act.  The Act now imposes a whistleblowing obligation on every police officer.  The Poitras Commission, set up following the Matticks case, made it possible to improve the transparency and accountability of all police forces in Québec.  The Harper government should show the same firmness with the RCMP instead of excluding it from its transparency reform, a decision that can only reinforce the suspicions that are undermining the force's reputation.

The public inquiry must not focus on individuals, but on the RCMP's organizational structure.  Everything must be looked into:  solutions that will put an end to the culture of impunity within the RCMP, ways of promoting transparency and accountability, the timeliness of increased civilian oversight, even the possibility that criminal offences may have been committed.  The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the RCMP's mission must be re-examined and reformulated:

• the training provided to its members, whatever their rank, must be evaluated, both basic training and professional development;
• the administration and transparency of discipline must be reviewed.  The circumstances in which internal investigations should be entrusted to other police forces should be the subject of recommendations;
• the nature of the RCMP's relations with other police forces and crime-fighting bodies, including CSIS, should be the subject of in-depth examination;
• its relations with the media should be clarified, to ensure that they respect principles such as the presumption of innocence and absolute non-involvement in political debate;
• the commission of inquiry should be able to study the extent to which and the reasons why the RCMP has given up or delayed investigating such areas of criminal activity as counterfeiting, cigarette smuggling, surveillance of land borders and various types of fraud.

The right to organize

It must not be forgotten that the RCMP still has not formally recognized the right of its members to form a union, as confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.  A recognized association would give members a sense of strength in numbers that would facilitate whistleblowing.

The current hierarchical structure in the RCMP, based on a paramilitary culture, did not manage to avoid the scandals brought out in the Committee's proceedings regarding fraud in the administration of pension plans.  Allowing unionization to go ahead would in the opinion of the Bloc Québécois be one of the ways to restore a certain balance of power among members of the force.  It would also introduce more democracy into relations among the members, no matter what their rank, to the benefit of the people they serve.

For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois hopes that the Government of Canada will amend its legislation to give members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the right to form a union and bargain collectively.