Merry X!

Posted on by Pete Cross

This is just a brief note to wish you and your families well during this festive period.

To call these times “unusual” seems rather quaint and old-fashioned.

If you are like me, you are simply getting tired and this is as good a time as any to rest. You are likely not tired from the normal activities of life, so much as tired of all the bombarding politicians, the well intending but over-exposed epidemiologists, and all those clairvoyants predicting armageddon or a “new normal”. The constant references to “standing with you in these trying times” truly rankles the now over exposed nerves.

I am sapped of any strength to argue over such things as personal rights versus the public good, or where all the rules, regulations and unenforceable guidelines are going to eventually take us.

So this seems like a logical time to take a pause; a time to re-order our respective universes and measure what is truly valuable. A time to hopefully regain our once rational and common sense perspective. We will have lots of time in the coming months to wind up the rants– after all, the possibilities are endless.

For example. Will Surrey Doug McCallum be granted visitor rights from the Surrey pre-trial centre? Will Covid numbers be the new entertainment, a ticker tape playing over the intersection of Yonge, Bloor and Bay streets; or will you be able to lay down some money over Betway as to the next day’s hospitalizations? Will Toronto do away with Covid restrictions because the Leafs finally get past the first round of the playoffs? After all, they did it for the Blue Jays.

Will the Liberal Party become the Liberal Social Democratic Party of Canada? Will we remember the name of the Conservative Leader in 2022? Will the Green Party finally go quietly into the night? Will Chrystia Freeland survive being Finance Minister and the billions in debt to give her time to arm wrestle the Crown from Justin?

Will the Federal government workers ever go back to work? Will we know if they do?

Can another letter be found to add to the LGBTQIA2S+?

Will the disembowelled Military executive have anybody left to head the next Covid 20 or Covid 21 Operation? No doubt to be titled Operation Here we Go Again.

Will Commissioner Lucki do the expected and predictable and retire to a plushy post with Interpol or some similar benign agency? Will anybody notice if she is missing? Can she please take Bill Blair with her?

Will Cameron Ortis, a genuine black hat in the world of spy versus spy be convicted? If he is, will we ever know?

But I digress.

I started this blog in 2017, and about a hundred thousand words later I continue to be encouraged by you and to continue to work on the craft. There are clearly some blogs which hit an exposed nerve and garner a lot of attention, rewarding in its unpredictability.

I continue to look forward to the comments and am still surprised by the people taking the time to write and offer up their well thought out opinions. Personally, I have connected and re-connected to people across the country and a few around the world.

I try and improve the style and content with every publication but like most people who make an attempt to write, I am usually never totally satisfied. Thomas Mann said “a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people”.

My fragile ego aside, to those who read and follow along, I offer a heart felt thank-you and this season’s best wishes.

We will see you on the flip side.

The North Pole as photographed by the Mars Express via Flickr Commons by Justin Cowart – Some Rights Reserved

Clouseau versus Sherlock

Posted on by Pete Cross

Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, Hercule Poirot and Nancy Drew.

Part of our fictional world list of some of the best “investigators”. All, amazingly adept at solving crime and the puzzles created by dastardly human behaviour. They were also very quick– often taking less than two hours or a few hundred pages to get to the bottom of it all. Of course, they were largely unburdened of actually presenting scrutable evidence and were also able to evade the vagaries of court rooms. Sadly, reality is much different. Or is it?

Like those fictional characters our new world reality has let loose upon us a burgeoning group of “investigators”. Strutting their investigational chops via the internet and the ever broadening world of social media. We are being inundated by a variety of individuals, from every walk of life, from every strata of society, all proclaiming themselves to be conducting revealing “investigations”. A cacophony of personalities with a view, a particular bent, a hunch, or just full of righteous indignation, wanting and willing to expose all of society’s evils. Able to reach quick decisions and thus clearing the way for simple formulations and black and white conclusions. We, the demanding public, have created the 21st century ‘investigator”, but is it our very own Frankenstein?

Television, podcasts, blogs, and the like are all granting themselves diplomas in a range of investigative abilities. No one is a poor investigator (which actually would be refreshing) everyone is a top notch, state of the art, card carrying 007. Overnight, they become self-proclaimed experts in forensics, interviewing, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Often they are polygraphic savants.

Their tools are their laptops and video viewers, able to see in video and photos the clues that have apparently long evaded all others.

They make broad assumptions such as: police can not see what we see; that their single witness can be relied upon for the singular truth; that the blood on the wall must be the blood of the victim; that clearly he/she is lying.

In this country, the big media; CTV, Global and the CBC have all fallen into the trap of filler versus content. They zealously portray many of their programs as being “investigative” journalism. Then, annually they take turns giving awards to each other.

Netflix, Amazon, Apple are all pushing programs claiming new or re-opened cases. Old murders, new murders, all slotted in and vying for views and likes, spliced in amongst their UFO “investigations”.

According to Wikipedia, an investigator “searches for clues, to gather evidence. They interview people, verify information, conduct surveillance, find missing persons, and gather vital facts for cases.” A rather shallow hurdle, allowing for a broad range of people with access to a microphone or a laptop to search for clues and evidence. All are now becoming involved, from the clearly mentally unstable to the geek in the basement watching his neighbours with his Ring camera.

The general public are equally at fault, falling into the irrational abyss– that if it is posted it must be true. It is truly rare that someone examines the information being provided with any sense of a critical eye. We look at an insurance company investigating an auto accident equally to that of the police investigating that same accident? A private investigator working for defence counsel proclaims findings in front of a herd of photographers is seen and measured through the same lens as the actual court record itself.

The internet investigators, the ones who are in some cases interfering with the actual gathering of evidence are often in a category to themselves. Digital photo or video captures often represent the height of their evidence and in most cases no attempts are made for corroboration.

Podcasts abound where the evidence is gathered on a slant, the perspective honed by a clear pre-set belief, often allowing a singular allegation as sufficient to condemn a person in the court of public opinion. The most recent glaring example in the U.S. is the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha Wisconsin, where even the President of the United States Joe Biden was quickly convinced by the media “investigation” that he suggested that Rittenhouse was a white Supremacist on two occasions. The fact that the victims were in fact white eluded the media and internet investigators. Since it was at a protest over Black Lives Matter– that it must have been black individuals who were the victims.

The CBC is one of this country’s greatest advocates of this investigative sleight of hand. A recent example is what prompted this particular blog.

The template seemingly being followed by the CBC goes like this:

1) Have a viewpoint and then set out to prove it.

2) Make sure it is portrayed as ‘ground breaking” (even if it isn’t)

3) Find people who are willing to support both your proposition and your findings. (Disregard all others)

4) The headlines should reflect some sort of conclusion. (whether the body of work supports it or not)

And finally,

e) Make it look like a massive amount of work.

There are plenty of examples, but this most recent example is a classic.

Titled, “Warning Signs Present in 1 of 3 Homicides of Intimate Partners, CBC investigation finds”

There are three identified “investigative” journalists in the masthead: Tara Carman, Kimberly Ivany, and Eva Uguen-Csenge. Tara is the “senior investigator” and is a “data journalist” which should give you a bit of clue of the nature of the evidence that is about to be revealed. Kimberly is an associate producer for the 5th Estate (another clue) and Eva is an “investigative video journalist” with a like for “data-driven” stories.

So these three individuals spent 16 months, put in over 30 Freedom of Information requests, then scoured the media entries and looked for fifty different “data points” concerning domestic homicides. They looked at the period of time between 2015 and 2020. The headline of the eventual story in its many forms is to be titled “Deadly Relationships”.

They claim and there is no reason to doubt them, that they have “examined” 400 cases.

Their pre-theory seems to have been that there are commonalities to all domestic homicides; and that they can be measured as predictors of the future of the crime.

Their conclusion was that “these crimes are preventable.” Pretty dubious theory, but using their measuring stick one can maybe say all crime is “preventable”.

Remembering the pre-mentioned template and the need to hype the findings they say– “the data points a never-before-seen mosaic of relationships that turn deadly. ” Never before seen is clearly a stretch of the truth, but the idea that they could predict and thus prevent this horrendous problem is really playing outside the sandbox. This is a crime that has been around as long as humankind and studied in many courses of psychology and sociology, but this investigative series is somehow new and revealing?

So what earth shattering “evidence” did they find in their quest? Well, lets start off with the mind-bending statistic that 3/4 of the victims were women, and, that 78% of the accused were men. Who could have guessed that?

Here are some other examples of their purported belief altering discoveries.

  • 1 in 5 cases had been involved in recent or pending separations
  • that in 15% of the cases there were patterns of coercive and controlling behaviours
  • 36 out of the 400 had had protective court orders in place
  • the most common charge was 2nd degree murder, followed by manslaughter
  • the most common weapon, the knife, the 2nd the gun (you were probably guessing blow dart)
  • 1 in 4 victims of homicide were Indigenous, clearly making them “over represented”. They represent 6% of the population and 18% of the homicides. By the way more Indigenous men were killed as well, then caucasian. Again “over-represented”.

Of course there would be no story without a villain.

So they point to some nefarious police behaviour. They accuse the police of “hiding these things” under ” a cloak of secrecy”. This is because the police did not reveal all the names on some of these investigations when served with a Freedom of Information request, the police arguing the privacy act. Not good enough according to these intrepid investigators.

Then came the interviews of all the victims of domestic violence who praised the CBC investigators for uncovering such a large stash of un-before seen findings. It would be all so laughable if it wasn’t such a serious subject.

So what should constitute an investigation? What are “investigator” qualifications? Is there a characteristic that is unique to being allowed to pronounce one as an investigator or your findings constituting an investigation?

It comes down to experience, one’s qualifications, and the level of inquiry.

In policing, it is the ability to sit in a room with someone having just killed their child and remain above the mental sewage and still able to try and show empathy. Or to sit with the rape victim through a rape forensic kit –knowing that this is the easy first step in a long investigation and court process. It’s the ability to enter a blood encased crime scene and interpret the meaning of the splatter, the placement of a fibre or a shell casing.

In some investigations, forensics, data knowledge and the ability to follow a paper trail is an asset, but in the end, there still has to be some knowledge and measurement of human behaviour. An ability to interact with people, to read and predict their reactions and their level of truthfulness. Not to judge, not to assume, to always be wary of preconceived notions. One needs to pick up and learn the patterns of human frailty.

We simply can not continue to downplay experience and the passage of time spent embracing a particular field of knowledge.

Of course, it takes years for this level of understanding to be able to refer to yourself as an investigator. By saying you are an investigator on LinkedIn or in a podcast does not make it so. Taking a Masterclass by an investigator will not make it so, just as a Masterclass by a novelist will not make you Ernest Hemingway.

We are a too impatient a society. We demand instant answers to complex situations. We don’t like grey, just black and white. We need to understand that it takes time. It is hard work. If it is not there then the contents and findings should be disregarded.

This is not to say that the media and some news organizations are not doing investigative journalism. ProPublica, the New Yorker, PBS Frontline, and the Washington Post are examples of investigative journalism, definitely left leaning but they are still maintaining standards of fact checking and corroboration. The Globe, the National Post, and the Financial Times have sporadic moments of in depth coverage, but they too are getting pulled into the fires of hyperbole.

For you in the CBC, and your latest foray into in-depth reporting, I am just asking that you call your “investigation” what it was– a “review” of data. No doubt it was time consuming and maybe even worthy in someone’s eyes, but it was not an “investigation”.

I think one should have to earn the moniker of “investigator”.

Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons by Olarte.Ollie – Some Rights Reserved

Decay, Disorder and Delusion

Posted on by Pete Cross

Recently, while walking in Canada’s most expensive city, in the worn 1000 block of Granville Street, I came across a middle aged man slumped; still in a standing position, balanced on an invisible fulcrum, his face pushed into the corner of a Vape store wall. Pants down passed his hips, his dirt streaked ass and genitals exposed to those walking by, all of whom were trying unsuccessfully to not look over. He was in a battle to hang on to something, immersed into a mental space few of us could imagine or would want to go. Immune to embarrassment and long past caring about anyone or anything.

I too moved on, a few paces later, coming up behind a noticeably tall girl, with dirty blonde dreadlocks, my eyes drawn to her footwear. White faux fur calf length boots, matted with the mud and small twigs of the alleyways. She shuffled beside a paunchy, unshaven, aged street tough. Although still playing the role, he had the air of someone beaten, fatigued. In this instance he was clearly the provider, able to provide her escape as he nonchalantly passed her two pills. He too was oblivious to embarrassment or any fear of getting caught.

People all living life in short instalments.

This is the Granville of old and the Granville of new. Nothing has the appearance of change in the last thirty years, while those disaffected and disenchanted are growing in numbers and pushing further outward.

Granville street is often now considered part of the infamous downtown Eastside (DTES)–just an extension off the Main and Hastings decayed and rotting epicentre. These further flung streets just purgatory to the centre hell. A neighbourhood which Wikipedia euphemistically describes as a “complex set of social issues” with a “strong community resilience”.

It is indeed a “complex” experiment if viewed from a distance through a prescribed social worker prism of generalizations and psycho/social theories. More pointedly it is an economic, political and social unmitigated disaster with no one accountable and the general public seemingly numb to the obvious.

Through the years we have been fed a continually regurgitated social theory pablum. We are over-dosing on the the do-gooders of the liberal left who are continually feeding us the pieties of helping others. This neighbourhood is a world of social workers, counsellors of very stripe, nurses, firefighters, police, doctors, housing authorities, drug experts, safe-injection sites, safe spaces, food banks, shelters, city planners, and single room occupancy hotels– part of a permanent but seemingly always crumbling infrastructure.

This city and those at the political centre are in effect promulgating an empire. An empire that caters to this underworld, but in turn is fed and nourished by the continuing misery and never-ending poverty.

These practitioners of the victim philosophy when confronted with the clear lack of progress spew forth a continual patter of under-funding and under-resourcing. They portray the “burned” out, saints in the battle and the burden they carry on society’s behalf.

Over and over again the city, provincial and federal politicians bray and echo the demands for greater funding and resources. They are the very epitome of always expecting and predicting that more of the same will yield those different results.

Depending upon who is drawing the geographical borders, the DTES is only about 7,000 people, but is often measured up to include parts of central downtown and further east. It then could total about 18,000 persons, a total of 30 blocks. Apparently the governments can not even agree on the size of the “community”. In actuality, most identify the core as about 10 city blocks.

This “community” according to Wikipedia, has an “over representation” of single males, and Indigenous and this a community overwhelmed with mental health and addiction issues.

There is a definable timeline to this ongoing deterioration.

It was during the 1980’s that the idea of this area becoming a drug haven began to develop and combined with a severe housing shortage.

In 1989 the first needle exchange began

In 1997 HIV infections entered the fray.

Between 1980 and 2002, 60 women went missing from the neighbourhood. (Pickton claimed to have killed 49 of them)

In 2003 the safe injection (they are now called “consumption” sites) sites opened.

In 2007 Vancouver Coastal Health estimated that 2,000 DTES residents “exhibit behaviours that is outside the norm”.

In 2008, the Vancouver Police Department estimated that 500 persons were “chronically mentally ill with disabling addictions, extreme behaviours, no permanent housing, and regular police contact”

Riverview hospital closed in 2012, because the government wanted to “de-institutionalize” the “mentally ill”, and with that wisdom forced many patients onto the streets.

Somewhat more currently, in 2013 a study showed that in the single room occupancy units, 95.2% had substance dependence while 74.4 % had some form of mental illness. 82% live alone and have a median age of 44 years old.

Around 2014 fentanyl began to replace heroin as the drug of choice and the amount of street deaths began to escalate.

In 2018 the area was declared a “public health emergency”.

Clearly, this litany of failure has nothing to do with an un-caring government, it is the failure of liberal policies unable to make their way out of this North American disgrace. These socially enlightened governments have purported and extolled many policies and the money has flowed accordingly. Four pillars, three pillars, task forces, committees and advisory groups have flourished.

Since 2009 it is estimated that $1.4 billion has gone into this relatively small area. That is $360 million per year, or $6.92 million per week.

At last count there are over 250 social service agencies in the DTES.

75% of the money comes from the three levels of government.

In a study done by Simon Fraser University, they found that $26.5 million of the government funding was spent on just 300 frequent offenders who were on the streets and continually embroiled in the justice system. This study further stated that there “was no evidence of improvement” and that the costs incurred per person exceeded the average per capita income in the city.

This has not been a problem where the aristocracy have pushed these people to the street, where uncaring capitalism has reigned over them. This a problem that has developed under a socialist environment and exponentially grown after successive Liberal and NDP governments. Those that forever proclaim looking after and being concerned for the common man.

Provincially the NDP ruled since 1991 beginning with Premier Harcourt and in 2001 with Glen Clark. Then along came the Liberals from 2001-2011, and now back to the NDP in 2017. The socially enlightened individuals have been in power throughout.

On the Federal side, since 1993 the Liberals have been in power except for a four year stint under Conservative Harper and we are now back to the present day Liberals under that irrepressible woke leader himself.

On the municipal side the parade of do-gooders started off with Larry Campbell, Sam Sullivan, then three terms with Gregor Robertson, and finally we have arrived at Kennedy Stewart. All of whom would proudly proclaim themselves as “progressives”.

So as we swim in this sea of social workers and broad minded politicians we are buoyed by massive amounts of money– yet, the streets stay the same. In fact they get worse.

It is an insult to reason. It is cold and lacking of any real compassion.

It calls for a truly new attempt to salvage what has been destroyed over decades. Or do we believe that this problem is insurmountable? We are in the 21st century, filled with driverless vehicles, satellite connectivity to the entire world, and have enjoyed unbridled prosperity, but this problem somehow confounds us?

Maybe let’s start with a massive forensic audit of all three levels of government.

It requires a central decision maker which excludes and ignores the three levels of government.

It needs a full assessment and culling of the 250 agencies who are now part of the system.

It needs enforcement of the Mental Health Act and it requires the authority to remove people from the street who clearly can not look after themselves. A forced drug withdrawal not a system of choices.

We should be building psychiatric hospitals rather than housing units. Definitely not housing units in the midst of the drug and criminal centres.

Is this too harsh? As one who has personally searched the streets on behalf of family friends, looking for the addicted younger sister, just to see if she is still breathing, but unable to entice her away from the diseases she was facing. Are we doing that person a favour by simply giving them a safe place to shoot up or a safe needle? Isn’t it all because we can not face the brutal truth that some may need to be forced into therapy and into hospitals?

The latest pushed policy is to provide hard drugs to the addicted free of charge thereby insuring that the drugs are safe, not fentanyl laced. Probably a good thing, but it will not clean up the streets, the tent sites, or curtail the violence. We will continue to be Canada’s safe harbour for those wounded by drugs or psychiatric disorders.

Maybe we should take those politicians that volunteer to dole out Xmas turkey dinners (with requisite photo ops) and put them in a position where they can daily view the destruction.. Let’s let them jab the needle of Narcan into the twitching chest of the addict laying in their own urine; let them attend to the sixteen year old girl beaten repeatedly, blood leaking from a broken nose and teeth, unrecognizable to anyone who knows her, whose crime was not cooperating with her block pimp. Let’s let them help hoist the body in the white body bag from the alleyway into the back of the station wagon, the stench of death indistinguishable from the nearby over-flowing Smithrites.

Over the years I have known many on the street level who have to be admired for their steadfast dedication, their ability to relate and talk to those no one else will talk to, whether manning an SRO or a needle exchange. But in small moments of honesty they will all admit that they are on a treadmill of policy and politics. This is not a problem at the ground level. This is a problem on the next level up, and the level above that.

The people in positions of authority need to be taken out of the committee meeting rooms, removed from the ever revolving academic theories in sociology 100 classrooms– their collective faces pushed into the sewage of the decrepit and disillusioned.

The madness needs to stop. It requires hard policies and a hard heart –that is if you actually care about this “community” and the people swirling around the drain.

Photo Courtesy of gotovan via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved

Start taking down the tents…

Posted on by Pete Cross

For some time now, there has been a large tent set up at 134th and 104th Ave– Surrey City hall.

The tempest under the tent is about the nascent Surrey Police Service and it brings to mind the three rings of Barnum & Bailey. Jugglers, hire wire acts, trumpeting elephants, and clown cars all featured as part of what makes up Surrey civic politics.

This show under the big top has been going on for awhile now, it was 2018 when Mayor McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition were voted in, under two main election promises; cancel the contract with the RCMP and secondly the further extension of the skytrain. At the end of this month, the new SPS is to actually begin patrols, in coalition with the RCMP, as this plodding along transition carries on. Many are predicting disharmony, resentment, and at the very best an awkward moment or two. 

The transition process has met with infighting, personal barbs and innuendo, even allegations of assault and intimidation have been echoing off the walls of the city council chambers. In the last few weeks it seems to have reached a crescendo of inanity and misinformation. Those of us who once policed this burgeoning municipality of five police districts were often want to say in those days “only in Surrey!” This disparate community has always seemed willing to defy the expected norms of a civil society. 

A multi-cultural community of distinct areas, a diverse populace of haves and have-nots, abject poverty and street level violence versus one acre mansions of multi-million dollar homes. Whites, south east Asians, blacks, all forming up in their distinct neighbourhoods of Cloverdale, Newton, Whalley, South Surrey, and Fleetwood. 

It should not be assumed that they are living in harmony. In the nineties we patrolled the high schools which were even then being inundated by racist fights between south east asians and caucasians, each group not allowed to enter into the school property of the other. This is to say that there is nothing singular or cohesive about Surrey and there never has been an honest discussion of the many problems which afflict it. 

It is a unique area to police and it is where an eye for an eye tooth for a tooth mentality is visceral.  Often police officers having worked in Surrey have seen it as a badge of courage having once survived the posting and then moved on. And they almost always move on. 

So who are the people in this three ring circus, all vying to drive the clown car?

On the one side is the irascible Mayor McCallum, a curmudgeon, smug, wily, and of long standing. Mr. McCallum has never liked the RCMP, and vice versa. The animosity has always been well known but never publicly stated. This uncomfortable relationship is now coming to a head as the exasperation builds on the part of the Mounties who are about to be booted out and those seeing themselves as pioneering a new police model for the city. Ironically, the people sweeping the place with a clean broom are actually hiring a bunch of ex-Mounties to lead and aid in the takeover.

On the other side is a group of disgruntled and pushed from power politicians, a new union head for the RCMP, and the media who doesn’t like McCallum who continually refuses to be party to their reporting. 

Neither side ever reach a point where the real issues could be debated. Both sides continually throwing up illogic and misstatement as their campaigns wage war, and it has reached the stage of the whole exercise being a bad punch line. 

The current opposition to the quickly advancing police service is made up primarily of three groups; the National Police Federation with self-appointed constant spokesperson Brian Sauve; the Keep the RCMP in Surrey group and those behind the highly publicized petition entitled “Surrey Police Vote”. 

These groups in turn have the political support of the likes of Linda Annis, Brenda Locke, and Jack Hundial. All three of these politicians have a particular political axe to grind. Annis, was the sole politician who survived the purge of the once in control Surrey First group started by Diane Watts. Her antipathy to McCallum has reached a very personal level. 

Brenda Locke is also a long standing Liberal, once a Provincial Cabinet Minister and MLA , she too now thwarted by a largely Provincial NDP stronghold in Surrey. Also ironically she, along with Jack Hundial got elected on the coattails and under the banner of Mayor McCallum and the Safe Surrey Coalition who proclaimed the need for a separate police service. Clearly, since then there was a falling out with the mayor and she and Mr Hundial left the civic party and became independents. 

Jack Hundial was a police officer with Surrey for 25 years. When McCallum announced the people he had picked for the tripartite transition team, Mr. Hundial found himself left out, out in the cold despite his Surrey policing background. Since that time he has been an outspoken critic of the motion to form a city force even though he, Locke, Annis, and Steven Pettigrew had all originally voted for it. 

Knowing Mr. Hundial personally, I was somewhat taken aback at this reversal and his current support of the RCMP after having had many conversations with him about the dysfunctions of the Federal Force which had nursed him and now provides him with a pension. Politics clearly does make strange bedfellows.

All the parties explain their reversal in support because of the “secrecy” they allege about the transition, and the hidden costs they believe are forthcoming. They extoll the fact that the Fed’s subsidize the Mounties to the tune of 10% each year– therefore in theory they are correct, they are likely always going to be a cheaper alternative. The transition costs they allege are skyrocketing and is a harbinger of dangerous over-spending to come. 

The current transition costs are estimated to be at $63 million, going up since 2019 when they were estimated to be $45 million. What the councillors don’t often say is that is the estimate is spread over the next five years. Surrey’s current overall budget to offer some perspective, is $1.2 billion with its 600,000 residents., and this year Surrey will be borrowing about $150 million to meet those expenses. The councillors often rant about the costs of transitioning all these officers, but usually do not mention that the vehicles, equipment and station buildings are already owned by the City of Surrey. 

The NPF has been quite vocal and has been spending the union dues of their RCMP members to fight against the transition. They often pretend it is an issue of defending their members. They bought and paid for ads, lawn signs, and polls to firm up their position. They continually quote that “84 % “ of Surrey residents have a “favourable impression” of the RCMP and that “76%” say the transition should be “halted”. 

The Surrey Safe Coalition headed by MaCallum show their own polling and say that their polls indicate people that only 6% of the Surrey residents prefer keeping the RCMP and their “cardboard cutouts”. 

How does one get such disparate polling results. Its all in the questions you ask. Neither poll from either side should be seen as anything more than political posturing. 

The NPF has clearly got a reason to fight the situation. They do not want to lose the largest RCMP detachment in Canada and they are clearly worried about these thoughts of policing independent from the Federal force as a possible trend. (Alberta has recently talked about getting rid of the RCMP—and there is a great deal of conjecture that if Surrey falls, there will be renewed consideration for a Lower Mainland Regional Police service –or some version of it). It should also be noted that the new SPS will also be unionized under CUPE. For them, this is a union fight.

So this assembled group of dissenters then added a couple more tactics to their arsenal by introducing a petition to call for a referendum in Surrey utilizing the Referendum Act which flows from Elections B.C.  Those that follow this kind of thing would shake their head a bit at this, as it is a momentous task to force a referendum; wherein one is required to obtain 10% of voter support in all the ridings throughout B.C. 

 Do the people of Castlegar, or Radium, concern themselves with the Surrey police issue? Highly unlikely one would think.

The petition went ahead in any event, entitled the Surrey Police Vote, and it was primarily fronted by the Keep the Police in Surrey group. (Interestingly, this group bragged about raising $10,000.00 for their cause but would not comment how much money came from the NPF)

Somewhere in the process, once they realized that this could never be pulled off Province wide, the group concerned itself with only going after Surrey residents on their petition. 

They enlisted Darlene Bennett to head the Committee and Eileen Mohan to be a spokesperson. Both of whom will be remembered as being victims of violence themselves. Darlene’s husband Paul was killed mistakenly in his driveway (still unsolved) and Eileen’s son was killed in the infamous Surrey 6 file. Both horrendous cases, both generating unspoken grief.

However the arguments for retaining the RCMP by these two women although emotional, lacked specifics and quite frankly make little sense. Definitely nothing that could contribute to the debate. Being a victim of crime unfortunately does not necessarily translate into knowing about policing issues. However this group felt that by exploiting their personal agonies it would draw out the petition signers. Quite frankly it was manipulative and crass.  

Nevertheless, the petitioners, in a November 15 press conference, publicly proclaimed that they “did it” and held up a sign saying they had raised 42,000 signatures, representing about 13% of the population. 

When asked why they think this would succeed, as clearly it did not meet the referendum guidelines, they prevaricate, and dubiously argue that they are asking that the Provincial government to take into consideration the results regardless of it not meeting the current criteria. They are asking that the Provincial government in effect reconsider and change their rules. 

During the search for signatories the rhetoric and nonsense escalated. The group argued that they were being harassed by Bylaw enforcement and that they were being victimized by he slow turnaround at Elections B.C. Paul Daynes of Keep the RCMP in Surrey called McCallum a “little tinpot fascist dictator”.  McCallum in turn banned seven members of the Keep the RCMP in Surrey group from the city council meetings.

Then there was “Toe Gate” on September 4th.  In the normally placid South Surrey enclave of the well off, McCallum confronted some petitioners who were using the Save On Foods parking lot as a place to rally the troops. A verbal argument ensued between one of the petition organizers, Ivan Scott, who was sitting in his car, and McCallum who was standing outside it. After going back and forth and Scott demanding McCallum resign, Scott drove off, and McCallum argued turned the car in such a way as to hit him in the hip and drive over his toe. McCallum contacted the police and made allegations of assault. 

The RCMP somewhat surprisingly, within a week then swore out a search warrant for CTV video footage of the interview of McCallum, under the auspices of a possible public mischief charge, clearly implying they did not believe McCallum. Having worked in Surrey for many years, public mischief is not usually a first step, so there is good reason to believe that this too is politically motivated. As a result, the Provincial government has had to hire a Special Prosecutor to look into it. We are still awaiting that judgement and the Keep the Police Surrey movement needless to say is hoping to see McCallum led off in handcuffs. It seems unlikely.

Where is Commissioner Lucki in all this? Should we assume she is under some sort of gag order from the Liberals? 

However, the comment about the “cardboard cutout” mounties stirred the harnessed wrath of Assistant Commissioner Brian Edwards, head of the Surrey RCMP, who called the remark a “deliberate attempt to undermine public safety”. That the tweet was “disrespectful” by “ending public confidence in policing at the current time”.  Really? 

The coalition group responded “in spite of the efforts of a bitter minority surely the indignation that he has voiced today equally applies to these groups organized efforts to de-stabilize and de-moralize our city’s incoming police force”.

And where is the Provincial NDP government in all this? Well they are busy reviewing the overall structure of the police in B.C., by examining the structure of the Police Act to: “examine systemic racism and modernize laws in alignment with UNDRIP (the U.N declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)”.  

To sum the issues up which are facing Surrey residents is in fact quite easy. Do the citizens of Surrey wish to have a more accountable police department? If so, how much are they willing to pay for it? There is no doubt among the current officers of Surrey detachment that the RCMP, in its many and varied forms is suffering—at every level. 

Would or should the cost savings mean more to Surrey residents than being subservient to Ottawa and susceptible to the vagaries of Federal policies–which seem more intent on gender identification than the property crime rates in Whalley? 

No need to worry about the officers in Surrey. They will be just fine, they will move on to other details, other detachments and other policing challenges; and Ottawa might finally get the message of growing discontent and the need to reform.

The citizens of Surrey clearly voiced their opinion once before and decided to elect McCallum and his platform.

It is clearly time to undo the tent pegs and bring down the circus tent.

Time to move on.  

Photo courtesy of Steve Parker via Flickr Creative Commons – Some rights Reserved

Heroin, guns and a bullet proof vest –but not “morally blameworthy”

Posted on by Pete Cross

There are many cases that come before the courts, almost all receiving little attention or public mention, but once in awhile there are some that make you take note. From Provincial courts to Supreme Courts to Appeals courts one can almost always find a case or two that will make you scratch your head, or possibly get a little agitated.

The case that recently had me perk up and get a higher blood pressure reading is the case of Robert Mero.

He is a 34 year old male, whose father was Metis and his mother was non-indigenous; making him one fourth of Indigenous heritage. Why are we mentioning this, because it was this 25% of his heritage which was enough to keep Mr. Mero from going to jail.

In the eyes of the learned Justice Len Marchand of the BC Court of Appeal, his “moral blameworthiness” necessitated that the 40 month sentence to which he was originally sentenced (by the Supreme Court of Vancouver Judge Joel Groves )–be reduced, more accurately eliminated. Mr. Mero should not go to jail in the view of the Appeals Court as he should not be held accountable due to his Metis heritage. The sentencing was wrong according to Justice Marchand because “neither the Crown or Judge addressed his Indigenous background”.

The unwieldy terminology of “moral blameworthiness”, clearly something only lawyers could come up with, stems from the Supreme Court of Canada and what is now referenced as the Gladue decision.

Regina vs Gladue was a decision by the Supreme Court specifically dealt with sentencing principles that had been layed out in Section 718.2 (e) of the Criminal Code of Canada and had been enacted by Parliament in 1995. This section directed that the courts need to consider “all available sanctions, other than imprisonment” for all offenders. However, it needed to pay “particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders”. (It should also be noted that these provisions were put into the Criminal Code under Prime Minister Jean Chretien and the Liberals who ironically have been recently criticized for not understanding the problems in the residential schools.)

Gladue was the first case where the Supreme Court considered these provisions and set out to try and define what factors should be taken into consideration under this newly defined law. In the Gladue case, a young Indigenous woman had appealed her manslaughter sentence of three years for stabbing her boyfriend to death (life was cheap even back then). The pitiful sentence of three years was upheld despite the appeal, but the Supreme court ruled that they should have at least considered her Indigenous background.

The changes to the Code were orchestrated and passed because of the “over representation” of the Indigenous in the Canadian judicial system. The term “over representation” is a bit of a misnomer, they were not going to jail in disproportionate numbers because they were being picked to “represent”, they were going to jail due to the massive criminal problems existing in the Indigenous populations.

This was an attempt by the Liberals of that time to solve the abnormally high criminal activity amongst the Indigenous– from the top down. Too many in jail, simple solution, just don’t send them to jail.

No need to address the actual criminal activity at its origin, which is a much more complicated set of social ills. The overall affect of course was the diminishment of personal responsibility, and broadly, it also had the affect of creating different laws or at least very different treatment before those laws according to race.

In the years since this has morphed into Judges now automatically asking for a pre-sentence report which formalize these considerations for Indigenous offenders. This sociological based report is termed a Gladue report. This report, or lack of a report was a central factor which played out in the case of Mr. Mero.

Mr. Mero’s crime in this case was not a minor crime and he would be unlikely to have received any nominations for citizen of the year in Prince George, where this matter began. A search warrant was conducted of Mr Mero’s residence by the police in Prince George in 2016. It led to the seizure of a .38 calibre pistol, ammunition, 23 grams of heroin, and a bullet proof vest. Clearly, Mr. Mero was exhibiting all the characteristics of a drug dealer.

Mr. Mero had previously served two other jail times, in 2005 and 2006. It was what the Appeals Court called a “dated criminal record”.

Mr. Mero and his defence council (he went through two defence counsels) went through all the motions that are tried in this day and age. A motion of too long to get to trial (Jordan decision) was first tried. The Judge ruled that the delays were due to defence counsel scheduling and the fact that his 1st defence lawyer had gotten suddenly sick. The court chastised the defence counsel: “Mr. Mero’s trial counsel has shown, effectively, since the beginning of the trial, an ability to delay matters on behalf of his client”.

Then the defence argued that Mr Mero who suffers from a lung disease should not go to jail because of the high rate of Covid in the jails which could prove to be detrimental to his health. Worth a try, considering the panic which has pervaded Canadian society over Covid, but this too didn’t work.

The defence counsel then argued that no Gladue report had been prepared. It turns out that they had six months to produce a pre-sentence report but failed to get one before the courts in time. So the sentencing went ahead without a Gladue report.

Justice Marchand of the BC Appeals Court felt that this was a massive oversight.

As a result he imposed a “conditional sentence” of 2 years less a day– the 1st year to be served under house arrest, to be followed by a curfew. He was placed under probation for the drug offences. This decision by Marchand was concurred with and signed off by two other Justices; Mary Saunders and Bruce Butler.

So what would have been in a Gladue report that could alter an outcome to such a degree? Usually, there is general information about the Metis “nation”, the intergenerational aspects of “colonialism” and “displacement”, racism and systemic discrimination, forced attendance at Residential schools and the “over representation” of the Indigenous in the jails of this country.

This is not to deny that Mr. Mero clearly had a troubled life. Most criminals can point to historic family issues. In his defence argument he pointed to the fact that he was “unable to complete school”, his “childhood was traumatic”, his “life was marred with addictions” and that he had “come into conflict with the law”. Mr. Mero’s father was not believed to have been at fault but he was often “away at work” and this left him with a mother who had significant mental health issues. He had runaway from home at 12 years old and got caught up in the street level drug trade, an all too common story.

However, it would be difficult for Mero to argue that these issues were directly related to his Indigenous upbringing. One need not worry because the courts have ruled that “it is not necessary to establish a direct causal link between systemic and background factors and the offence at issue”, as it may be “impossible to establish” a link. In other words you don’t have to prove a causal relationship.

The other aspect of this case which gave me pause was that this was a verdict by Justice Marchand. There are 26 Justices in the Appeals court, but in this instance Mr. Marchand was assigned the case.

Mr. Marchand is the son of Len Marchand Sr, the first Indigenous cabinet minister who once served under Pierre Trudeau. Len Marchand Jr. is a member of the Okanagan Indian Band having grown up in Kamloops, B.C. He articled and practised law in Kamloops with Fulton and Company. While there he spent a substantial part of his career working on “reconciliation for Indigenous people”, was pursuing historic civil claims of child abuse and represented residential school “survivors” and also served on the selection committee for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.

There is no evidence here that Mr. Marchand had a clear bias in favour of Indigenous claims of “systemic racism”. Also, this is not to claim that all Indigenous cases need to be assigned based on their cultural background. But in this instance the appeal revolved around a Gladue application, central to which is the belief that there should be judicial favourable considerations granted to the Indigenous that are not available to others. That the application of the laws should be different because of their culture and background.

It is difficult to determine whether justice was served in Mr. Mero’s case, but I suspect he was merely a player of the system.Whether justice was served in this case we can leave to others, but does justice also need to be seen as having been done?

Should this case have been handled by someone who had spent the majority of his working life on Indigenous causes or is there a definite taint to this case.

Gladue is just one of the many pronouncements coming from the benches of the Supreme Court of Canada, the BC Supreme Court and in this case the Appeals Courts. They are germinated from the left leaning political dominance in British Columbia. It leads to favourable judicial appointments. Maybe well intentioned, but clearly with very pronounced political leanings. A left propensity to believe that government must protect all and everyone from the evils that society put upon us. Personal responsibility replaced by societal responsibility.

Maybe it is time for a return to the centre, where the vast majority of Canadians actually live. Not necessarily to the right or the left, but where common sense is the prevailing ethos.

The laws of this country are being diminished, watered down, leaving a large class of people now feeling disenfranchised. Many would not be o.k with rules and laws being applied differently depending on your cultural background. It is a difficult issue, but the current judicial climate seems destined to lead to trouble.

Photo Courtesy of Paul Sableman via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved

A personal note

I apologize for the delay in the publication of this blog.

I have recently moved– swimming against the prevailing current and have moved back to the heart of the City of Vancouver leaving the quiet countryside. I have been surrounded by cardboard and the joys of re-connecting with life in the supposedly faster lane.

Thanks for your patience and your continuing support.

Pete

Learning the Language of “Woke”

Posted on by Pete Cross

One of my writing influences in my much younger days was the journalist Edwin Newman, a long time broadcaster for NBC. A foreign correspondent who travelled and reported from around the world, meticulous in how he wrote and the use of language, and would say nothing if nothing needed to be said. He was in the truest and best sense a reporter of the “old school”. His love of the English language and its use was clearly a subject near and dear to him, eventually writing two books about the proper use of language: “A Civil Tongue” and “Strictly speaking”. The books were attempts to sound the alarm and possibly curb our language from turning into a pablum of double speak and mediocrity; which he believed would ultimately irreparably damage the role of journalism. That was 1976.

Some 45 years later we seem to have reached that pinnacle of mediocrity, a total loss of objective reportage, the polarizing and prejudice of any political discussions and the outright abuse and misuse of the English language. Mr. Newman’s take on the new “woke” language would undoubtedly have been harsh.

In this age of auto-correct and on-line editing tools, is it even important that we adhere to definition and the proper use of a word?

It may actually be now more important than ever. The use of language is central to our seemingly fragile democracy and the institutions within it. Maybe now more than ever there is a more pressing need to be clear and concise in our language as we get pulled into and transported along the information highway and immense reach of the digital world.

Language allows us to express, to inform, and to reason, and we humans have the unique capacity to use complex language. We need it to communicate with others and even to construct and maintain our social world.

When many take liberties with the language or re-define its meanings there is a greater tendency to misconstrue, confuse, or obliterate the original meaning and therefore our understanding.

Being firmly cemented into a limitless broadband of narrative the endless bombardment of information seems to be have had the affect of dividing us into our own fragmented segments of society. Forcing people into their own space, a safe space, free from examination. We are becoming a mosaic of information sources, not a blending of our interests and goals. This lack of a central common interest seems to also lend itself to endless claims of disenfranchisement and victimization; of never being part of the majority. Politicians being politicians, now busy themselves with answering and catering to these endless slivers of society not the middle majority.

These separate groups of the like-minded– communicate within their group, often resorting to new terminology or a warping and blending of meanings. The translation of these newly formulated words is often unclear especially to those outside that immediate sphere of special interest.

An example of using language as a tool by a special interest group and the ramifications of when language is not clear has recently come to public light.

For the last number of years, every government and public forum was encouraged to open up any public meeting with an announcement that they were giving thanks to the local indigenous for allowing us to be on the “un-ceded territory of …”

This was of course aimed and perpetrated by the special interests of the Indigenous, and from the outside seemed relatively harmless. So our political leaders championed this clearly scripted genuflection and the word went down the Federal government line to the Provinces and local city governments. All quickly followed suit –not wanting to be left behind in this progressive narrative, or worse, branded part of the systemically racist Canada. But, it now turns out the language matters.

“Un-ceded” is not actually a word by the way, but “cede” means to give up power or territory.

When everyone in unison was saying “un-ceded territory” the implication could loosely be interpreted to mean that the Indigenous had from somewhere, clearly acquired “territorial and property rights” to the land. The more sinister gravamen was that land had in fact been taken from them and therefore an implied need for compensation for property or territory lost.

It was politically astute on the part of the Indigenous –the use of the term “cede” and “un-ceded” was a purposeful use of mis-leading language which could eventually form a foundation for an admission of political and economic responsibility on the part of the majority of Canadians.

The political and legal warning light has finally gone on in New Brunswick.

Justice Minister Hugh Fleming has ordered that staff stop making Indigenous land acknowledgements. The Indigenous, you see, are now claiming title to over 60% of the Province and the Province now finds itself in a series of legal arguments and land claims. The Attorney-General’s department has told the government workers that they should not make or issue “territorial acknowledgements”.

Predictably, the Six Chiefs of the Wolastoqey in the Province have countered by saying that they have “un-ceded Aboriginal title in the Province of New Brunswick”. They said land acknowledgements by the Provincial government were “a symbolic gesture but represent a starting point toward building and improving a relationship with First Nations”. Clearly, there is now some legal advice being given to the lawmakers of New Brunswick that the language being used is misleading at best and could be politically motivated.

The word term “reconciliation” being used and trumpeted by all the political woke is a very similar term and will likely prove to be equally misleading, and possibly equally legally detrimental.

But, what prompted this blogger to an examination of the use of language was not the politically astute Indigenous.

It was my recent discovery of a “glossary of terms” provided by the Association of Chiefs of Police. Prepared, no doubt, as a service to those working in the real world and not safely ensconced in an inclusion seminar in a government meeting room. The clear purpose here is to teach officers on how they should speak and write so as not to offend, a believed need to teach the language of the “woke”.

Before I go further, there is no offence intended, but police officers, at least in my experience were not always the most prolific writers or the best practitioners of the English language. It was often a supervisory life and death struggle to get officers to write reports that were lucid and properly explained the who, what, and where of a particular offence.

Reports to Crown Counsel was often a through the looking glass experiment as at the end of an eye watering read, one would be unsure as to meaning and point of the narrative.

There was the police tendency to write in your best imitation of a learned academic or a lawyer– he “stated” rather than he “said”. “Observed” rather than “saw”.Warrant applications were often long, redundant, with superfluous language designed to heighten the status of the writer rather than to communicate a message. Internal reports and other court applications were often measured and termed to be well done judged by their length rather than their content. The copy and paste function has now allowed obsessively long narratives to expand to the point of farce and is in and of itself proving to be a burden to the entire justice system.

So now, the poor police officer sitting at two in the morning, typing madly away at a search warrant, now needs to be concerned with the language of the “woke” and apparently needs to be armed with the glossary of language on his or her desktop.

Here are just a few of examples the police officer should take to heart according to their leaders. Starting with the “A”‘s

Quote

“ableism” – is a belief system that sees persons with disabilities as being less worthy of respect and consideration.

“agender” – is a person whose gender identity does not align to the traditional system of gender, who does not have a personal alignment with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or sees themselves as existing without gender, sometimes called “gender neutrois”

“Classism” – the cultural and institutional set of practises and beliefs that assign value to people according to their socio-economic status

“Co-gender” – is a term with at least three known possible definitions ( I will only just give you the first) is the mathematical union of two gender, as opposed to vengender, the intersection of two genders. A co-gender person is okay with being identified as either of the two genders.

“Deadname” – generally refers to the birth name of a transgender person that they no longer use.

“Demisexual” – refers to a person who only feels sexual attraction once a strong emotional bond is formed

Closed Quote.

Obviously, I could go on for quite some time, in fact all the way to Z. As a matter of interest, the last definition is of “white” which they say is a “social colour” only “indicating the majority” of Canadians. It is recognized that there are “many different people” who are white but who face class discrimination; because of their class, gender, ethnicity, religion, age etc.

The glossary also gives you examples of problematic language which you need to avoid and gives better alternatives that one should be using. For instance, you should not refer to anything which has “man” in it. Mankind, manpower, man hours, all are inappropriate. Biological sex should become “assigned sex”, and wife or husband should always become spouse or partner. It is not appropriate to say “caucasian” any more, you need to say white people, or European Canadian. (think of all the police forms that need to change). (I guess they didn’t realize that by saying European Canadian they were actually going against the “white” definition they had given earlier.)

So where does this leave us? Are we destined to all sink in this quagmire of ridiculous definition and narrative? Quite possibly.

Will it lead to an inability to communicate with the “majority”. That seems equally obvious.

Alternatively, maybe we could all take the Master Class offered on Clear and Concise Writing. There is a couple of fundamental rules which they all seem to profess. Avoid wordiness and distended sentence structures and to use shorter sentences and simple words. These authorities by the way all point an accusing finger at the biggest offender– government.

Mark Twain ” a strong advocate for simplicity and clarity, said “when you catch an adjective kill it”.

This glossary by the Chiefs was a glossary of adjectives that Mark Twain would like you to kill.

Of course, it would be a safe assumption that the Chiefs who authored this glossary didn’t actually write it. They themselves would likely not know half of the definitions. It was simply a check in the box of inclusion and diversity, a sacrifice to the Woke God to whom they now all pray.

Photo Courtesy of Alby Headrick via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved

Welcome to 1984

Posted on by Pete Cross

There is often a longing for the good old days when even the conspiracy theories seemed simpler–those never ending cover up theories such as the capture of aliens and Roswell UFO’s, or the Kennedy assassination from the grassy knoll. All throwbacks to a simpler age. Some were tenable, but running counter to them was this belief that somehow the government wouldn’t lie to you or be able to cover up any of the outrageous allegations. Now, in this age of instant communication, plotted and sinister theories relentlessly bounce off our brains, coming at us from both the right and the left in the world wide broadband. Outrage and accusations quickly follow, oozing out of the dark holes of Instagram and Facebook, twitching the nerves of the unsuspecting and unquestioning.

The problem with all conspiracy theories of course is that they almost always have at their foundation in the obvious need for several people, if not hundreds of people, to be willing to share and thus be complicit in the conspiracy. One needed hundreds of people all sworn to never reveal the innermost secrets that are central to any alleged plot. And that, is where virtually all conspiracy theories fall apart. Humans, being human, can not effectively keep secrets.

Covid has proved fertile ground for conspiracy theories mainly emanating from those opposed to the double shot in the arm. The root of opposition is a distrust, an exponentially growing distrust of government in any form or political inclination. Objectively, one should at least be able to understand this wariness in the government being able to govern, let alone dictate where you can go, what you can do, and as they are now doing, to take command of your personal physical health. We may come to regret the Charter of Rights being ignored with abandon, but that is another topic for another time.

The anti-vaxxers are being described as the seeds of satan–selfish, ignorant, unwashed, and endangering the rest of us who are on the righteous end of the argument. The media and government messaging has been constant, but mixed, at times even contradictory. All of which gives further rise to the non-believers. But, for the most part the majority of Canadians simply dismiss this fringe group of the discontented as not worthy of consideration, beneath our contempt. Up to now, there has been whole hearted support for the governments of the day who are with grim faced determination are setting out to conquer those damnable anti-vaccine fiends. The un-questioning media gladly plays to the fears of the vast majority of Canadians, continually searching for the anti-vaxxer now providing dying declarations from a hospital bed.

However, a recent story, uncovered by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper; through Freedom of information sources, and authored by David Pugliese should give everyone pause. It would seem that those who saw the vaccine as some form of government conspiracy aimed at controlling both the message and its use may have just gained an extraordinary admission from the government.

This story should make everyone shudder and view any and all messaging from the government with a heavily jaundiced eye. It turns out that the year 1984, the year enshrined by George Orwell in describing his dystopian universe is now upon us –thanks to an unchecked, unguided, and unglued Canadian Armed Forces.

We have now learned that there was a group in the high levels of the military, our very own Canadian Armed Forces, who thought that the Covid scare would be a “unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public”. The Canadian public to whom they are sworn to serve were to be targeted by the Canadian military, in particular, their “Information Operations” group. This Orwellian titled group is part of the Canadian Joint Operations Command –headed by Lt. General Mike Rouleau.

These information “techniques” apparently were “similar to those employed during the war in Afghanistan”. In essence the Canadian public would be targeted like they had the Taliban.

The senior military leaders astonishingly did not feel any twinge of guilt once outed, that the targeting of Canadians was out of the norm and furthermore they “didn’t believe they needed to get approval for this operation”. The specific goal was to “head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic” and to “bolster government messages about the pandemic”. The pandemic to these intelligence strategists, was a “unique opportunity to test out such techniques on Canadians”.

Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia, Chief of Staff for the CJOC, echoed the beliefs of this group and felt that this was a good “learning opportunity and a chance to start getting information operations into our routine”.

These tactics were going to be done in support of “Operation Laser”. Operation Laser was where members of the Armed Forces were helping out at “long term care homes” and were directing the “distribution of vaccine” to the northern communities. Not even a military operation in the classic sense.

This Orwellian plan only lasted about a month because thankfully some saner heads inside the Department of Defence began questioning both the ethics and legality of this operation. They managed to catch the ear of Staff General Jon Vance who promptly shut it down, clearly recognizing the political minefield he was being handed.

Vance then directed Major General Daniel Gosselin to look into the matter and it is Gosselin’s eventual report which was the source of this news story.

It doesn’t stop there. The report also uncovered a second separate initiative, which was not linked to the CJOC but was overseen by Canadian Forces “intelligence officers”. As part of this separate initiative they began to gather “culled information from public social media accounts in Ontario and were gathering information on the Black Lives Matter gatherings and on their leaders.” Targeting the BLM group has since made many in that group legitimately wonder what could be the possible connection to the distribution of vaccine.

According to Gosselin’s report “support for the use of such information operations was clearly a mindset that permeated the thinking at many levels of CJOC”. He went further saying that some inside the Department of National Defence “want to expand the scope of such methods in Canada and allow them to better control and shape government information that the public receives.”

There were other DND attempts.

In September 2020 military operations “forged a letter from the Nova Scotia government warning about wolves on the loose in a particular area of the Province”. But, the ineptness of the military shone through. The letter leaked out to the general public, causing alarm in parts of the Province. In apportioning blame the Armed Forces said it was done by some “reservists” who “lacked formal training and policies governing the use of propaganda techniques”.

Also in 2020 a plan was launched to allow “military public affairs officers” to use “propaganda” to “change attitudes and behaviours of Canadians” and to “collect and analyze public social media accounts to move to a more aggressive strategy” of using information “warfare” and “influence tactics on Canadians”.

How were they to do this? One of their techniques was to use “friendly defence analysts and retired generals” to push military public relations and to “criticize on social media those who raised questions about military spending and accountability”.

The DND also has spent $1million to train public relations officers on “behaviour modification techniques” –similar to those used by Cambridge Analytica. This was shut down when the Ottawa Citizen revealed details of this plan in November 2020.

After all these revelations, one would think that there would be some government blowback. The DND Deputy Minister admitted that “various propaganda initiatives had gotten out of control”. Not that they were wrong, but just that they got a little “out of control”. Acting Chief of Defence Staff said that “insular mindsets at various echelons” had gone outside of the lines, not that this was wrong, but that they had done it “without explicit” Deputy Minister “direction or authority”.

This is perplexing and alarming on a couple of levels.

The defence department has been in a flat spin for the last 30 years. (There are remarkable parallels to the current state of the RCMP) They have under-resourced and under manned this group charged with the defence of this country to the point that the navy, air force and army are only shadows of their former selves. They have reached an embarassing level of capability in the eyes of the world, all while our Prime Minister was vying for a seat at the big boys table at the U.N. Security council.

The members of the Armed Forces have been relegated to sand bagging in times of a flood, or caring for the elderly in the nursing homes. The distribution of vaccine was the latest excursion into the domestic world, far from anything considered “military.

To trust this group with a nuanced intelligence initiative seems at best ill thought out and foolhardy.

In the last few months we have been witnessing a string of leaders in the DND being named– and then their candidate choices quickly being withdrawn over another allegation of sexual impropriety. This intelligence group is apparently not capable of basic security checks.

This very fragile group of military executives, military game players, decided that they needed to use Canadians as a training exercise. This level of stupidity is hard to fathom yet no one has lost their job.

On another level, the mainstream media for the most part is staying away and staying silent about this story. A Federal government department charged with safeguarding Canadians is instead targeting Canadians and trying to manipulate and control information to the public.

The media silence is deafening, but that is probably just another unfounded conspiracy theory.

“the further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it” -George Orwell.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Commons and PhotographyMontreal- Some Rights Reserved

A few good ones

Posted on by Pete Cross

The white bubbling cumulus clouds form a patchwork quilt on a blue sky that stretches to the limits of your vision; and here you can indeed see a long way. This is 2nd visit to the world of canola, wheat and soy, but it doesn’t make the sighting of the broad expanse of Prairie any less breath-taking in its gloriously flattened girth.

This blog is coming to you from my destination on this trip the town of Gilbert Plains Manitoba, a commonly styled village in Manitoba, surrounded and overwhelmed by the surrounding farmland.

To find this small Manitoba village, having just driven through Edmonton the GPS proclaimed: “Drive 512 kms and then turn left.” It must have been a similar feeling for Magellan or Columbus when told to sail west until you hit land.

In this somewhat lonely part of Canada the dust trails follow vehicles on gravel roads like vapour trails, trailing behind for at least half a mile, not allowing anyone to disguise their approach.

In the late 1800’s when a portion of rocky uncleared land was purchased for $10.00– for a parcel or a quarter “section” of 160 acres. The train brought the colonizers to Winnipeg and then left them to defend for themselves, to travel by horseback and wagon to find their small piece of the future. Ill-equipped and largely ignorant of what lay before them they had a limited ability to defend themselves against the oncoming unrelenting seasons of bitter cold and scorching heat. But, it was a better life than from where they came.

So they settled, encountering hardships that are incomprehensible in todays standards. Homesteads, usually consisting of a square basic white house and maybe a barn or outbuilding began to stoically dot the countryside every mile or so. The minimal socialization revolved around that distant culture from which they came. Their food, their dance, and some language survives to this day, but many of those simple homes have largely melted into the soil.

The human cost of settling this harsh land is marked by the old graves and white tombstones on a treed hillside, but it is the need for a 21st century lifestyle that is largely now killing the small communities. The young now in search for a better and easier lifestyle, less risk with more reward. Uber over John Deere. Young families sell, move away or rent out their land, the decaying homestead knocked down and buried deep in the soil.

The town site once the heart of the village is in effect now a ghost town. Faded white squared buildings shoved together on a bleak main street, one store indistinguishable from the next, and most empty, no longer able to compete.

Everyone seems old here. A few younger females can be seen in front of the local school, often pregnant and pushing a stroller, i-phones clutched securely in their hands and demanding constant attention.

An outing trip could be to the town of Dauphin, Brandon or maybe even Winnipeg for a doctors visit or to watch those Jets or Blue Bombers.

The core subjects of this story though are two individuals I will call E and S; not because of any concern for their privacy or safety, but because they would be embarrassed by anyone writing about them. S is the oldest at 74 and his younger brother E is 72. In hard grinding work they seem to have discovered the secret to health– still scrambling up the sides of a combine or a sprayer with the ease that comes with practised movement and a wiry strength that could never be captured in a Cross-fit class.

The other minor character in this story is the wind. It can not be ignored as part of every Prairie story. It assumes a personality of its own and is part of any narrative. It is both the needed friend and the dreaded enemy. They curse at it or grudgingly talk about a “good” wind. They harvest the fields in accordance with the wind, the wind always has the final word.

E and S started their education in that one room schoolhouse but finished up their education some fifty years later, now having achieved a couple of PHDs from the fields. E and S can discuss varieties of wheat, the type of insects, water tables and the commodity prices on any given day. They could give any botanist, biologist, or Bay and Bloor broker a run for their money. They are painfully humble, forever downplaying the immense knowledge they have gained by simply doing.

As this is being written, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen an election come and go. Have I mentioned that E and S really don’t have time for politicians. The campaign slogans always the same, the same promises, the same types running for office. Their votes rarely count even though they and their families have been founding members of this country. The election results only reaffirmed their beliefs. They pay a lot of taxes but are never consulted. The leaders of the major parties virtually ignore this bread basket for the country.

Almost all living and working here are conservative by nature if not by politics; never quick to judge, but once judged difficult to move away. A fair hours pay for a fair hours work is the parentheses around any economic discussion. This is still part of the country where you can discuss individual liberty or government control without being automatically labelled “red neck”. There is a very logical and fundamental belief in the treating of everyone equally. Your word is a summation of your very being and you will be judged and held accountable accordingly.


Anyone needing help would be helped. There are good people and not so good people. Simple.

In the local five table coffee shop E and S would be surrounded by like characters. Laughter and politics occupy the same air space, curses artfully mix with somber pronouncements on the weather or the latest tax coming down from the learned politicos in Winnipeg and Ottawa. Simple problems like the deteriorating coffee quality at Tim Hortons intermingle with issues arising out of the commodity prices coming out of the United States, or the prices of “inputs”. You will often hear “nobody wants to work” interspersed with stories of an older farmer now battling cancer.

At an appointed time, in unison, they rise from their wooden chairs, and head out the door, their backs slightly curved by hard work. They get into their dust covered Ford F-150’s to resume their often 12 hour day. No Tesla’s will be found here.

It was recently announced that China was blocking imports of canola. Once again they are going to be asked to pay for international shenanigans by political players. They are unable to even voice their concerns, but the shrugged shoulders tells it all. The frustration with the constant threats to their ability to make a living is ever present and expected.

The small family farm where E and S grew up is now unrecognizable from its early days. E and S learned the lessons of 20th century economics and have been constantly expanding their land base in an effort for survival. The old tractors have been replaced by combines of extraordinary value. Air filtered and conditioned cabs have now replaced the open air equipment, but that need to survive has not changed.

There is a dark side to life here. Alcoholism and drug abuse are in every family’s peripheral vision, everyone having been touched by this evil. A local Indigenous reservation is rumoured to supply the best cocaine. There are many stories of drunk individuals freezing to death in their cars after running out of gas in February.

But you are more likely to see a Conservation officer here than a police officer. Most theft and damages done to property go largely un-reported. Every farmer by a dictated necessity has a rifle in the closet nearest the front door. The potential for a case similar to Gerald Stanley’s is palpable and predictable. Don’t ever tell E and S that this is not their land. A hundred and twenty years of nursing a life out of once inhabitable land engenders pride and a very strong sense of ownership.

This agricultural and sparsely populated world is the front line in the ever coming closer clash between the Indigenous movement and the “colonizers”. The only evidence of Federal money here are found in the only two new buildings in nearby Dauphin, which consists of Metis health centre and a new Metis administration office.

Politically, the Metis often are at odds with the First Nations of Manitoba, symbolic of the complicated nature of the politics of the First Nations who are unbounded in their pursuit of Liberal and NDP supported largesse. Still the casinos and marihuana stores seem to be the only feasible go-to economic drivers of these still impoverished communities. This continual feeding of human vices is clearly incongruent to the societal problems. The solution is clearly not in reach or even in sight.

As the politics of Canada swirl around them, the Gilbert Plains will still be here and another harvest is only a few months away. E and S for their part, will likely be farming next year, after all, what else would they do; they intone with a smirk. The problems this year will be the problems of next year and if not them, who?

I do look forward to seeing them again.

They are the good ones.

Character building

Posted on by Pete Cross

You must all be breathing a magnificent collective sigh of relief and be filled with profound gratitude over Ottawa RCMP’s latest policy change.

The RCMP Mounties in Ottawa have announced— wait for it— that they will be conducting “character” checks on “staff”! My heart is racing as must be yours at the prospect of finding some individuals with suitable characteristics to fill the senior ranks of the RCMP. 

Although not wholly familiar or conversant with the Human Resource world of the RCMP, or at least what poses as a Human Resources department; this writer was under the distinct impression that Mounties before you were hired would take a little time to research your character. Remember those spots on the application form where you had to put “character references”. Silly us thinking  they were actually going to check on people before they hired them. Apparently not, well at least not in sensitive senior positions in HQ.

Our long held beliefs on the efficacy of our staffing and recruiting units are now being dispelled by a small unit in the corridors of Ottawa called the National Intelligence Co-ordination Centre or NICC —who toiled in ignominy until their boss became the  now infamous Cameron Ortis. Character values and how he treated fellow workers has now  become a headline and a topic of conversation largely because Mr. Ortis is now going to trial. 

To refresh your memory. Ortis began work at the Centre in 2016 and then, unceremoniously was arrested in 2019, a short three years later.  Ortis has now been charged with several counts of revealing secrets to an “unnamed recipient” and planning to give “additional classified information to an unspecified foreign entity or terrorist group”.  Most of the charges are breaches of the Security of Information Act, a single  criminal breach of trust, and thrown in for good measure, a “computer-related offence”. 

The trial and the subsequent revelations that are sure to come are worrying enough, but in addition this upcoming trial has forced senior management to pay attention to allegations made by employees during Mr. Ortis time at the helm of this unit that “coordinates” intelligence. A review of the complaints was in fact ordered at the time that the complaints surfaced, a usually tried and true stall and deferral plan used by politicos of all stripes. However, now there are even some people drawing a straight line from the complaints not being investigated at the time to the possibility that if they had, black hat Ortis, would have been discovered earlier. That seems like a bit of a stretch but it is a theory that will not hurt the litigants and their legal representatives in this case.

The fact that Mr. Ortis may have been spying and ruined the already tattered reputation of Canada with the Five Eyes is not the only pressing issue now facing the Mountie leaders, who are always firmly encased in that cocoon of inclusivity and sensitivity. The subsequent lawsuit that the employees have now launched has shifted the focus of  Commissioner Lucki and her countless advisors. In their civil action they are alleging that Mr Ortis “belittled, humiliated and demeaned” them in their “workplace environment”. 

The three employees, Francisco Chaves, Michael Vladars, and Dayna Young are now seeking $1.9 million in damages as a result of their “abuse” at the hands of Mr. Ortis and they have filed their claim at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. 

They also allege that Mr. Ortis was “stealing and selling their work” with the overall goal of “sabotaging the unit”. They insist that Mr. Ortis “systematically targeted them”. All of this in an apparent effort to replace them with persons Mr. Ortis would find more simpatico.

A cynic might point out that the more distance the employees put between themselves and Mr. Ortis is at the very least self-serving. They were persons who were in the same unit as Mr. Ortis, and the intelligence damage, whether real or implied, could drift over their way on the winds of suspicion which will be blowing hard from the Five Eyes group.  

Nevertheless, the employees have now been backed up in their lawsuit  by that previously mentioned internal review that was ordered at the time.

The review backfired a bit at least from the Liberal political standpoint.  It was conducted by former RCMP executive, now retired and double dipping with alacrity— former Assistant Commissioner Alphonse McNeil. ( Mr. McNeil had previously been hired to investigate the RCMP handling of the 2014 Moncton police shootings where three officers were killed.) 

Alphonse’s apparently formidable assignment in this case was to  to review the “culture within the intelligence co-ordination unit”.  Sixty interviews later and after having reviewed “policies and procedures” he came to a startling conclusion that there was a failure in “leadership at all levels of senior management”. That the Mountie executive “sought to avoid the situation rather than act”. Who could have guessed that senior executives would rather dodge the bullet than bite the bullet?

McNeil’s apparently profound conclusion said that there was a “failure in leadership and a workplace culture that left employees feeling “broken”. All of this surfaced after the media, through an access to information request receieved a copy of the redacted report.

He writes, “the failure of leadership in this case was noted at many levels and it reveals a need for the RCMP to consider how leaders are selected”. (Would it be crass for me to point out that he could have read this blog or talked to any of the rank and file during the last couple of years he would have saved the taxpayers a bit of money with this recommendation?)

The treatment received by these employees, half of whom have departed for other secret government corridors, created a “feeling of insecurity” and allowed a “lack of confidence” to seep into their workplace. Apparently there is nothing worse than an analyst with no confidence. 

So the lawsuit will continue and it would seem likely that Commissioner Lucki will be recommending that Mr. Trudeau pull out his wallet and commit to another sleight of hand to make the issue disappear. 

It should also be added that the case against Mr. Ortis is going to cause some serious problems for the prosecution which will no doubt result in further headlines and political punditry.  This case is far from proven or won. The need to protect Five Eyes information for example, could prove an insurmountable hurdle in terms of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt. 

So now four months after Mr. McNeil issued his internal report, the Ottawa Mounties are leaping into action. They have been suitably chagrined by their former coffee break buddy and the leaking of the lawsuit into the public eye has forced them into doing or at least appearing to be doing something. They have now decided that they need to begin looking for a “balance of character” in their hiring practises. They have instituted a “management action plan”.  These “changes” include what it calls a “character leadership approach to the human resources processes”.  

“This approach ensures that employees, regardless of rank or level, have the competencies, commitment, and balance of character to make good decisions across a broad range of challenges and contexts”. In case you were not paying attention, they point out that they had already started this practise over the winter months. 

The media spinner, in this case, Sgt Duval  said, “these new tools allow for the assessment and ongoing development of an individuals character, with a focus on judgement, inclusiveness and self -awareness”.  

This is a lot to absorb, but they have also now established a “centre for harassment resolution” in June 2021 as “a sign of progress” and affirmation of their whole hearted commitment. As they say, “Concerted efforts are being made to create a culture focused on prevention through a healthy and supportive workplace”.  

Meanwhile, the possible real damage done by Cameron Ortis is hidden from public view. His bosses at the time; Assistant Commissioner Todd Shean has now left to join the JD Irving oil group in private industry; Mike Cabana, the former Deputy Commissioner to whom Shean reported has now retired; Commissioner Bob Paulson  to whom Cabana reported who was a strong advocate of Ortis has also gone to retirement. The chance for accountability is indeed slim.

It would be hard to argue that searching for persons of distinguished character is not a good thing. There are a couple of obvious traits seemingly in short supply, such as honesty and integrity which come quickly to mind. This drivel that is being put out as some enlightened policy is not only governmental double-speak it is specifically designed to obfuscate. It is at its core dishonest. 

Those familiar with the Ottawa and Federal system will quickly point out that with the RCMP being willingly politically partisan, that this organization has crossed the line where honesty in policy becomes often blurred in favour of political expedience.

That is indeed unfortunate. Bill Shakespeare is the one that said that “honesty is the best policy. If  I lose honour, I lose myself”. There are a few lost souls in Ottawa right now.

Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons by Kieran Lamb – Some Rights Reserved

The Dog Days

Posted on by Pete Cross

Well, we have finally reached that part of the year, the mid-August doldrums; the time of the year that Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fear, mad dogs, and bad luck. Check, check, check, check. These are indeed the dog days of summer. 

During this brief summer sojourn there is a couple of weeks when the news of the world and the torturing headlines which endlessly announce another dilemma, another wrong doing, another catastrophe in the making, all fuse into a gauzy shade of blue. 

All those exclamatory headlines and social media alarms which have been demanding your immediate attention, now flow over and around you, the waves of shouted discontent dissipating in the waves of dry heat. It is as if you are under three feet of water looking up at the refracted light just above the surface. You can hear the voices, you can hear the speakers agitation, but the words are muffled, jumbled into drawled out nonsense. The narrative of continuous pessimism during this past year, miraculously transforms in the sticky humidity into something else, something less important. Whether you sit on the sand, waves a few feet away, or stare aimlessly at the embers of a campfire you enter this neutral state of mind. And it’s ok. 

There is a legitimate scientific reason for the “dog days” of August. This is when the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius (not Siri)  and it is at this time of the year that Sirius is actually the brightest star visible from any point of Earth—part of the Constellation Canis Major; the Greater Dog. 

So as you take comfort in your bliss of unfettered thoughts and guiltless pleasures, it is incumbent upon me —in fact it is my duty to prepare you for the coming months, for the days and months when your stupor will sadly end and you will be forced to re-focus.  

Let’s begin.

Mr. Trudeau, as predicted, only two years into his mandate, has already dissolved Parliament and you will find yourselves at the polling booth lineups on September 20th. The newly appointed Governor General, with her one official language, who has now taken up residence in her fancy digs, has now given him her permission. The story that will be brewing is the raising up of the mailed in ballot, expected to go from 50,000 to 5,000,000 which will cause a delay in announcing the results. Apparently Canadians were not paying attention to the furor in the United States during their last election over mailed in ballots.

You will awaken to a campaign in full swing, a cacophony of practised and unsurprising slogans and issues. Pancakes being flipped throughout the country. The economy, jobs, global warming, the restoration of the middle class, the taxing of the very rich, and of course reconciliation. It will be difficult to tell one leader from the next. Thirty second video and radio sound bites will dominate the air waves; the political managers will insure that every race, gender and relationship will be represented on your television screens. Even though it only constitutes  a four week election campaign you will be numb by the end and likely no better informed.

As you emerge, shaking yourself awake, the Covid vaccine campaigners will be in full force in their fight against the Delta variant. (Just wondering, are the next variants, the Echo and the Foxtrot?) The government will continue to push for further restrictions of your human rights, your ability to travel or attend events throughout the country. The Government is apparently now comfortable decrying that you as a member of Canadian society have no choice. (One government agency was even giving out yellow stars to be worn if you were one of the enlightened chosen.) You must take the sanctioned injection or be barred and banned from participating in society.  So quit pointing out issues such as human rights, show your card or newly minted medical passport and you will be allowed in. After all you are saving lives. 

It being September when you awake, you will find the teachers front and centre. Masks on, masks off. The debate will not likely every involve math or history. It will instead focus on the quality of air filter systems and the teaching of critical race theory.

By the time you rise, there will be another class action lawsuit by the Indigenous. The one currently in seed and should be in full bloom soon will be one concerning the hospitals that were formed in 1945 in the fight against tuberculosis. The Indigenous have started a claim, that they were treated worse than all others when sent to these hospitals. Word of mouth passed over the generations is their evidence and they will never be accused of originality as they are even seeking funds to look for grave sites in and around the hospitals.  

As your eyelids flutter open, you will be quickly alerted to the fact that there has been no progress in the church arsons and no one seems to be talking about it anymore. 

In all likelihood as you re-awaken, soot from the wildfires will still be falling and the wildfires  themselves will still be burning “out of control”.  So depending on where you live some of you may find that your most pressing and singular issue could be your livelihood or your home.

The farmers euthanizing their cattle so they don’t suffer a horrific death and losing their ranches in Westwold and Falkland are not commandeering many headlines, but those that have been greatly affected, contrary to the hope of the NDP government in British Columbia, may not go quietly into the night. There should be some further information on what went on in Lytton. There is a mysterious silence on who or what caused that fire as the police wait for “forensics”.    

As the fires continue, there will be building pressures for the B.C. Wildfire Service to give some accounting as to what happened. Grossly unprepared, under resourced or ill managed?  Questions should be asked.

Afghanistan will have fallen to the Taliban and one of the most inept military and global strategies ever undertaken by the west will be making all foreign policy headlines. The soldiers who died in this losing cause will likely never forget or forgive. Canadians and Trudeau have already agreed to take in 20,000 Afghans (although there seems to be a problem with the logistics of actually doing this) who are being forced to flee in some sort of panacea to an ill thought out and performed military operation. 

Stress will be the mental health issue and the word of the day into the future months. Work stress, school stress, family stress, relationship stress, loneliness stress, financial stress, medical stress, and by the time you awake — the no CRB available stress. 

Unemployment will continue to remain high and inflation once again may be talked about in government circles, unless of course the Liberals return to power. 

We will need more housing for the first time buyers and for the homeless. The homeless have a better chance. 

The opioid crisis will be ongoing and unchanged. People are bored with people dying in the streets apparently.

Bike lanes will continue to grow despite little growth in the number of people riding bikes.

On a more local level, The National Police Federation under President Brian Sauve will continue his political in-fighting with the newly formed Surrey Police Service. His ill thought out and seemingly personal campaign to keep the Mounties in Surrey is reaching new lows, now calling on Ms. Mohan whose son was a victim in the “Surrey 6 ” Mountie case for her support. Apparently she loves the Mounties and is therefore qualified to address the issues of the necessity or sustainability of the new force. “They are like family”. It was during this case, you will remember, that the investigators got caught sleeping or trying to sleep with the suspect girlfriends and almost jeopardized the entire case. Strange case choice for political support.

So, one can only hope that you are enjoying these dog days. They are good days, a chance to re-sort and re-assemble. Time to pay attention to the little  things in life. When these days end you are going to be faced with the new news, which will greatly resemble the old news. The world will be moving forward regardless. 

The policing world will be un-changed, still demanding, still impatient, and still inexorably slow to change. 

In spite of what is going on around the town, around the city or around the globe, policing and the practised art of investigation is a constant, rarely impacted by outside influences. It is virtually un-deterred by pandemic or cries of defunding. The calls will still come in, the lunacy of people interacting with other people will carry on unabated, adrenalin will still on occasion course through your veins, and there will still be the laughs amidst man’s inhumanity to man. 

But by the time you return, another summer will be in the glow of the tail lights, the harvest moon not far off. And once again we will try and make sense of the caterwauling. 

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Commons by William Prost – Some Rights Reserved