Quote:
Originally Posted by Epsilon
The RCMP is a disreputable, detestable organization.
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The RCMP is broken and dysfunctional organization with a culture that seems impervious to change.
Or "horribly broken" in the words of David Brown, Q.C., Counsel with the firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, and former head of the Ontario Securities Commission who was tasked by the federal government to study the RCMP in the wake of the pension scandal and other such matters. This characterization was in a report dated June 2007, "A Matter of Trust", the Report of the Independent Investigator into Matters Relating to RCMP Pension and Insurance Plans. That report raised serious issues with the RCMP's culture and governance.
On the recommendation of the Investigative Report, the Government of Canada established the Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP under the chairmanship of David Brown to consider these issues more closely. And the Task Force found much deeper seated problems than the initial Brown report found.
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/rcmp-g...p-tfr-eng.aspx
Dr. Linda Duxbury, a professor and management consultant at Carleton University who has authored several reports about workplace issues in the RCMP as an independent consultant for the RCMP and federal government including
The RCMP Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: An Independent Report concerning Workplace Issues at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/duxbury-eng.htm is not optimistic about the future. She does not believe that the RCMP can or should survive in its present form.
The RCMP are disaster. They cause any number of problems and they do not "play well with others". They seem to have this inflated sense of self-importance and who knows why given their recent abysmal performance in so many areas.
It is well past time to scrap this out-dated, ineffective, systemically broken organization and create a real national police force. I have been involved in these issues for many years and way back when one of the study commissions in which I participated 25 years ago recommended that Canada adopt a national police force along the lines of the US FBI.
It is well past time to trade the RCMP for the FBI so that we have an educated law enforcement agency able to take on organized crime and sophisticated criminal enterprises. I have advocated for many years that if you want to fight organized crime you need a different model. In the US they take university trained graduates in law, accounting, computer sciences, etc. and turn them into law enforcement officers. They call it the FBI and it has been singularly successful in smashing organized crime working with local and state law enforcement.
In Canada the RCMP takes Grade 10 grads and wonder why they have little or no success in going up against sophisticated organized criminal organizations.
A national organization is needed and it cannot be the paramilitary force that is the RCMP. They may be fine as street cops (and there are some definite concerns even there) but they are inept and unable to deal with sophisticated organized crime and in particular sophisticated white collar crime (securities fraud, computer fraud, etc.).
Keep the RCMP out of municipal policing - that was what was recommended by Paul Kennedy the former Chair of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission. Get them out of municipal contract policing in BC so they cannot be involved in any way.
The RCMP were allowed to continue with some security related functions concurrently with CSIS and as result helped to screw up the Air India investigation by failing to share information.
The FBI takes college graduates with specialties like accounting, computer sciences and law and teach them to be agents so they can use their skills. Also they want older applicants with work experience - not high school kids hopped up on testosterone.
Here are the FBI qualifications - note there is NO WAIVER for a four year university degree - no equivalency, no experience in lieu of a degree and you must have three years professional work experience in addition to your degree - then they give you agent field training:
To become an FBI Special Agent you must be a U.S. citizen or a citizen of the Northern Mariana Islands. You must be at least 23 years of age, but younger than 37 upon your appointment as a Special Agent. Age waivers may be granted to preference eligible veterans who have surpassed their 37th birthday. You must possess a four-year degree from a college or university accredited by one of the regional or national institutional associations recognized by the United States Secretary of Education. You must have at least three years of professional work experience. You must also possess a valid driver's license and be completely available for assignment anywhere in the FBI's jurisdiction.
All applicants for the Special Agent position must first qualify under one of five Special Agent Entry Programs. These programs include:
- Accounting
- Computer Science/Information Technology
- Language
- Law
- Diversified
After qualifying for one of the five Entry Programs, applicants will be prioritized in the hiring process based upon certain Critical Skills for which the FBI is recruiting. The FBI is currently recruiting for Special Agent candidates with one or more of the following Critical Skills:
- Accounting
- Finance
- Computer Science/Information Technology Expertise
- Engineering Expertise
- Foreign Language(s) Proficiency
- Intelligence Experience
- Law Experience
- Law Enforcement/Investigative Experience
- Military Experience
- Physical Sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) Expertise
- Diversified Experience
Candidates with these Critical Skills are essential to address our increasingly complex responsibilities. As such, candidates with one or more of these skills will be prioritized in the hiring process.
http://www.fbijobs.gov/111.asp
The RCMP takes high school grads or even those with GED equivalents, gives them a bit of paramilitary training and then are surprised when they are unable to to deal with sophisticated white collar and organized crime.
Here are the RCMP qualifications (NOTE - If you did not complete secondary school, you must obtain an equivalency assessment. For more information, contact your local board of education or adult learning centre to be assessed and take a General Educational Development (GED) test):
To apply for a job as a Regular Member of the RCMP, you must meet the following basic requirements:
- Be a Canadian citizen;
- Be of good character;
- Be proficient in English or French;
- Have a Canadian secondary school (high school) diploma or equivalent;
- Possess a valid, unrestricted Canadian driver's licence;
- Be at least 19 years of age at the time of engagement (may apply at 18 years of age);
- Meet medical/health standards;
- Be willing to relocate anywhere in Canada; and
- Be physically fit.
http://www.rcmp-grc....igences-eng.htm
About twenty five years ago I was on a government task force and recommended that Canada needed a federal police agency like the FBI if we wanted to make a dent in sophisticated criminal enterprises. The RCMP are pretty much useless at that.
Back in the day when I was doing criminal intelligence work we did everything possible to minimize any RCMP involvement in our operations because they could be counted on to screw up the investigation or project.
The arrogance and inability to work with others is well documented in a number of cases including the Pickton investigation and in the lack of action against organized crime in this province. The case of Allan Dahlstrom a former Vancouver Police Officer is instructive. I happen to know Al and he has more knowledge of organized crime and biker gangs in his little finger than I have ever seen of a detachment of Mounties. In that case the Mounties got their man - unfortunately that man was Al Dahlstrom.
Consider this loss of one of the best anti-biker cops from the VPD whose career was deep-sixed by the RCMP. This was a result of infighting and just plain turf protection on the part of the RCMP, a major anti-organized crime initiative targeting Hell's Angels (Project Phoenix) fell apart and a highly specialized VPD officer Al Dalstrom recognized as a national expert on biker gangs was targeted and forced out by you guessed it - the RCMP. Yup the RCMP got their man - unfortunately it was one of the really good guys - Al Dalstrom.
The bill to the taxpayers?
Well over $3 million down the tubes for mounting Project Phoenix and that never resulted in any charges despite all the evidence gathered.
Insp. Andy Richards, a former investigator with the OCABC who now works for Port Moody police, said Wednesday that Phoenix targeted nine suspects, including three full-patch members of the Hells Angels, and the case should have gone to trial.
"It was a very compelling case and ... highly prosecutable," said Richards. "But because so much baggage had been raised and so much mud had been thrown, Crown was not willing to proceed because ... it was not in the public interest to publicize the level and extent of the infighting."
Richards said, in his view, Phoenix was scuttled by senior RCMP officers because they were jealous another agency had succeeded against the Angels on what they saw as the Mounties' turf.
Then Al sued and the RCMP settled - more taxpayer dollars down the drain and still nary a conviction. A further $2 million dollars paid to Dalstrom in settlement of his wrongful dismissal suit so the story would hopefully be hushed up as the RCMP could not have any further horrendous publicity given the Robert Dziekanski death and screw-up in the Air India investigation.
The facts in the Dalstrom wrongful dismissal case and the sabotage of Operation Phoenix targeting Hell's Angels are coming to light. And the RCMP is again embarrassingly at the centre of this ungodly mess. CTV and the Globe and Mail examined the case in detail but not whimper from the put upon tax payers. Maybe we deserve the RCMP?
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/l...shColumbiaHome
The RCMP is a significant obstacle to effective policing in BC - particulalrly against sophisticated criminals such as organized crime, white collar crime and complex frauds.
The dysfunctional RCMP sabotages efforts to investigate and prosecute organized crime through utter incompetence and the inability to work with other BC police police agencies.
BC has failed to combat organized crime for the past 35+ years as the RCMP has continually sabotaged efforts.
For years the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit (known as CLEU but more like Clueless under the direction of the RCMP) dutifully reported year after year that Hell's Angels were the biggest organized crime threat in BC - yet were unable to secure one enterprise crime conviction in 25 years of operation.
The laws are fine, it is the investigation and evidence gathering that is the problem. It has been this way in the past 35 years in BC. Inspector Clouseau has done a better job than the BC police forces in investigating organized crime.
CLEU was formed in 1974 to fight organized criminal elements. The rationale was it was needed to transcend the traditional boundaries of jurisdiction. CLEU was a Joint Forces Operation, (JFO) funded in part by the provincial government and in part by the RCMP and all municipal police forces in the province. The RCMP was never happy having to share jurisdiction.
Every year CLEU dutifully published reports and analyses of organized crime in BC and named the number one target as Hell's Angels in virtually every report. Problem was during the 20+ years that CLEU existed they were unable to convict a single Hell's Angel of a any sort of organized crime offence. After years of bumbling and mismanagement CLEU was disbanded.
The problem I have pointed out is the inability of Canadian police as constituted to deal with sophisticated organized crime and sophisticated white collar crime. And then there is the more recent issue of cyber-crime.
It is not as if this is any secret as Stephen Owen clearly pointed this out in 1998 in his report commissioned for the BC government to examine the police response as currently constituted "is unable to cope with the growing sophistication and diversity of organized crime." (Report of the Organized Crime Independent Review Committee, S. Owen (Chair), R. Stewart, R. Bergman, Ministry of the Attorney General of British Columbia, September, 1998)
The Co-Ordinated Law Enforcement Unit (CLEU) spent 25 years targeting organized crime in BC particularly Hell's Angels which CLEU continually declared was the biggest threat to public safety and security while ignoring the Mafia and and failing to come to grips new threats like Asian gangs. Unfortunately CLEU was unable to secure a single criminal enterprise conviction against the Hell's Angels in its history and there were serious problems with security as apparently Hell's Angels placed a number of civilian workers inside. Cue all the jokes about the CLEU-less approach to fighting organized crime in BC.
Unfortunately CLEU was really only replaced in name only the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia in 1999 which was again restructured in 2004 and put under the control of..... wait for it... the RCMP.
Maybe the best commentary on this organization may be found at its website where after decade of operations you are still met with the home page that has been thus for many years:
"The mandate of the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia is to facilitate the disruption and suppression of organized crime which affects all British Columbians."
Please note that this web site is currently under reconstruction.
It might be funny if it were not so sad.
The RCMP as an effective police force is a myth.
