RCMP needs stronger oversight: Liberals

By LAURA PAYTON, Calgary Sun

 

OTTAWA – The RCMP must face an agency that can independently review its officers' conduct, subpoena witnesses and lay charges if necessary, six Liberal senators say in a position paper released Monday.

 

The senators, led by former National Security and Defence committee chair Colin Kenny, say RCMP Commissioner William Elliott's plan to refer serious cases to federal or provincial oversight bodies, announced Feb. 4, is “full of half-measures that won’t do the job.”

 

“The RCMP is now at a watershed point that will determine whether the reform process falters or gains steam,” the senators write in the report's introduction.

 

The report covers four areas the senators say must be tackled now to continue reforming the RCMP's much-maligned image, including funding and the future structure of the force's upper echelons. The report was due to be released last year, but was held up over battles between the Liberal senators and the Conservatives on the committee. The Conservative senators say the report is too critical of the RCMP.

 

Elliott has talked about the difficulty of investigating cases in remote areas, but the senators lay responsibility for proper review at the feet of the government.

 

“It is the federal government's responsibility to design and fund a federal review agency that deals with all serious allegations against the RCMP across the land, and so far it hasn't come through,” the report says.

 

They also recommend installing cameras in RCMP cruisers and on officers' uniforms to “enhance transparency for both officers and citizens from false accusations of improper behaviour.”

 

“While we have seen some encouraging signs, we have also witnessed what appears to be a lack of vision in at least two areas – the need for more diligent public oversight of questionable RCMP activities, and the need to recruit officers who are more representative of the face of Canada,” they say in the report.

 

The senators point to the lack of women and visible minorities on the force. Right now, only one in five RCMP officers are women. Only six per cent of officers are visible minorities.

 

The senators call recruitment targets “truly bizarre” because they are lower than the percentage of women and visible minorities already working at the RCMP.

 

laura.payton@sunmedia.ca