With the greatest reluctance and with a feeling of useless inevitably, one feels the need to write about the legalization of marihuana. The Liberal government grasping and pulling that younger crowd to their breast, exhorting them to be free, less anxious,  and to surround themselves with the elixir of swirling smoke and an expanded mind.  Free to be impaired, medically or otherwise. No one to bother you. The big medical experiment has now become law.

We now join Uruguay as the only other country in the world where it is entirely legal., We join the 2nd smallest country in South America, a country now in “economic decline and factional struggles” since its return to democratic ideals in 1985. A country where its biggest problem now is young people leaving the country, not the young people staying home to smoke pot. But we digress.

First it should be stated that there is very little caring on this writer’s part about the pluses and minuses of marihuana use, although clearly the medical good of this drug has been highly exaggerated by the effusive pot community who will regale you with cure-all stories at a moments prompting. It is kind of like listening to alcoholics sing the medicinal effects of having a shot of whiskey before you go to bed. Could be true, but again maybe not, but one needs to consider the source.

However, if you believe the hype, believe the constant bombardment of how good the CBD component of marihuana is, then you’ll understand how the “medicinal use” of marihuana has tripled since 2016.

Meanwhile the august body of the Canadian Medical Association states that “while the CMA recognizes that some individuals suffering from terminal illness or chronic disease may obtain relief with cannabis, the CMA remains concerned about the lack of clinical research, guidance, and regulatory oversight for cannabis as a potential medical intervention”. You should also understand that medical marihuana has not undergone testing such as that used for prescription drugs.

They go on to say in their CMA policy statement that the “Canadian Medical Association has consistently opposed Health Canada’s approach which places physicians in the role of gatekeeper in authorizing access to marihuana”.  In other words, they don’t want to prescribe it. They went further in an editorial saying that the legalization of marihuana was an “uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are pitched against the health of Canadians”. Given any set of other circumstances one would have thought that at the very least comments like this would give one pause before full government endorsement. Not with these Liberals.

Mike Farnworth, BC governments Minister of Public Safety in an interview with the NY Times said: ” its an octopus with many tentacles, and there are many unknowns…I don’t think that when the Federal government decided to legalize marihuana it thought through all of the implications.”

This legislation will likely go down in historic terms as one of the worst prepared, least thought out bills ever passed by Parliament; a shining example of government inadequacy on three different levels.

While it is difficult in this age to find any level of government capable of introducing legislation in any kind of timely manner; with properly thought out enforcement provisions and having anticipated the legal challenges, this legislation is a true standout in terms of lack of preparation. There is a need for not one but three levels of government, in 13 different Provinces, to coordinate and work in unison.

To add to the jurisdictional chaos is that there is significant  medical, legal, political, labour, and business layers to the effects of the legislation, all who want a seat at the three level government dance. All this has been known for a couple of years of course, but clearly not enough time for any government in Canada, or any police agency to be prepared. Most government agencies, including the police need a couple of years to organize a washroom break.

The level and the extent of hypocrisy is overwhelming. Trudeau and company doing the old ‘ole’ as the bull of repercussions slide by with nary a glance. The matador untouched by the horn of the bull, untouched by the numerous and sundry issues surrounding this legislation.

So now the mad scramble is on, while on the judicial side line lawyers salivate, drooling and falling over themselves like a pride of jackals preparing and vying to establish their new found  “expertise” in the criminal and labour laws. This taxpayer legal honey pot should keep legal firms in Canada busy for the next several years.

The government spokesperson for all of this is Bill Blair, the consummate chameleon, a 2nd generation cop who rose to head the Toronto Police Service, who has now had a revelation and has been chosen as the front man for the Liberals.  In an interview with the National Post, he describes how he has gone from from leading the police fight, the knight in shining armour as a former chief of police, to now principles and beliefs thrown aside,  he has been transformed in to the the righteous spokesperson. With the same semi-autocratic demeanour and certainty he displayed as the police chief, he is  now trying to convince us that this is going to eliminate organized crime.

How are they going to do this, according to Blair and his government they feel that because the government is so good at running businesses they are going to compete with organized crime, provide a good quality product, at a good price in a pretty package, and easily accessibility.

So far they claim they are only going to add $1.00 in taxes on a gram of pot, including sales and excise tax. Now considering the new law allows one to carry up 30 gms of pot, enough for 60 joints, that will mean an additional cost of $30 in taxes for your personal stash.

If the average user of pot spends $100.00 a week according to a recent survey, they will now therefore be spending $130 a week. $120.00 extra for a month, just in taxes. The appeal of the legal dispensary may wear a little thin at those prices.

In the home of BC Bud, so far the government has only opened one store in British Columbia; in Kamloops far from the Lower Mainland, far from the most populous area of the Province.

Dispensaries in Alberta have already run out of product.

You don’t need to have an MBA to realize that if you have no products when you open a new store, you may have a problem. But government is good at this right?

So far in the policing world what seems to be garnering the most enforcement attention is the potential for increases in impaired driving. It is difficult to say whether this will be the case, as again, nobody seems to know answers to much surrounding this issue. However we already know that drug impaired driving is increasing, and now exceeds that of alcohol impaired driving (40% of Canadian drivers killed in Canada were impaired by drug, while 33% of those killed tested positive for alcohol)

But to try and win some counter points, the Liberals proclaim  that besides increasing the penalties for impaired driving (which they have done)  they are going further and arming the police with the ability and knowledge to detect and process impaired by drug drivers.

Their two programs are the Standard Field Sobriety Testing and the Drug Recognition Expert Program. (it should be acknowledged that this writer is a former DRE at the Instructor Level). These have been developed and been around since 1979,  in particular, in the United States.  The reason they came about and were developed by the Los Angelas Police Department was that there was no precise drug testing regime in existence and that has not changed.

There is no Breathalyzer equivalent for drug testing.

What was developed in its stead was a 12 step semi- subjective evaluation method.  It has been challenged as being too subjective already in the Ontario Court of Appeal in R vs. Bingley. 

Regardless of how that turns out, what they are not detailing is the extraordinary time effort that will be needed on the part of the police to conduct the tests, as long as they can even find a trained DRE officer in their policing area.(as of October 2018, according to their own government website there were 833 DRE trained officers in Canada–out of the roughly 69,000 police officers).

When confronted with the DRE numbers, Mr. Goodale quickly goes to the fact that they  have 13,000 officers who are trained in SFST.

So what are those tests?  Basically they are eye checks (follow the pen) where the officer is looking for Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN), followed by a couple of physical tests such as walk and turn, or standing on one leg. If you fail, then you are asked to comply with the tests of a Drug Recognition Expert (again, if you can find one) which takes another hour or so, and then the DRE will demand a blood sample, usually a pin prick to the finger.

If all this sounds like an overblown, a time consuming process, it is.

That is why in the desperate search for a drug “breathalyzer”  has been going on for several years, and so far German technology seems to be the front runner in Canada.

The government has just committed $161 million over the next five years to the purchase and training on the officious sounding Draeger Drug Test 5000, which is designed through a simple saliva test determine if you have THC in your system.

But, alas, there are some issues with this magical instrument.

In testing by the Journal of Analytical Toxicologists in Norway they determined that the machine “did not absolutely correctly identify DUID”. In fact there was a 14.5 % failure rate for false-positives, and a 13.5% failure rate for false negatives. The Australians who use this device felt that it was pretty good and reliable, but only in ” two thirds ” of their cases. Bring in the lawyers.

Oh yes, the device only works between 4 and 40 degrees Celsius and it takes about a half hour for the device to work, about 10 times longer than the roadside breathalyzer.

It should be added that a failure of the Draeger test is not an offence. It only leads the officer to have you submit to a DRE evaluation or demand a further blood test.

If you still are unconvinced that there will be a problem with court challenges. Consider this: the Federal government in the legislation has stated that if you have 2 to 5 nanograms of THC in your system you are impaired for three types of offences.

This too is an issue. The central question being the efficacy of measuring cannabis impairment. Expert after expert testified to the government that what constitutes impairment will differ from individual to individual. It depends on the individual and their tolerance. There is little doubt that this will all be eventually chased all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

So as one stands outside the new pot establishment in Kamloops, with its mysterious blocked out windows, as Chrysler Neons roll up with teenagers giggling and pointing to the store as they try to find parking. The bored security guard sits on the iron rail, a beacon of safety, as persons emerge holding their discreet but pretty packages just like at the Apple store, and as the persons in the line shuffle two steps closer to their Nirvana, one wonders where this is all taking us.

Are we better off now as a society with this new legislation? Are we going to be awed by the medical advancements provided by marihuana and its associated products?

Are the groups of organized crime going to wilt away into the sunset, saying sorry you are right, we can’t compete. Walk away from a $5.7 billion dollar industry?  In decades of policing it was never my experience that organized crime groups walk away from money, let alone that kind of money. Evidence the fact that they often kill people for interfering in this gold rush.

Are they going to control the number of underage people using marihuana or is it going to lead to further use? In a survey done by Lighthouse for the Cannabis consumer Update it found that 50% of pot users did so on a weekly basis spending on average $100 per week.

In the age bracket of 18 to 34, 61% had used marihuana, 21% used 2 to 5 times a week, while 19% used it everyday.

Provide a more accessible product, remove the stigma of illegality and it seems to be common sense that the numbers of young pot users will have to go up.

The medical association recommends nobody use marihuana under the age of 25 due to brain development issues.  The Federal government and the Provincial governments have already agreed on a range of ages who can purchase marihuana legally, all under the age of 25.

Are there people going to get rich? For sure. But not you and me, or the casual pot smoker. Brian Mulroney maybe, or those others that have invested in government approved production and distribution centres such as big pharmaceuticals. Of course the big winners will be the lawyers as they begin to clog the courts over the next several years.

But here is this writer’s prediction(s):

In ten years time, we won’t be talking about it, the fad will have worn thin.

There will be more impaired drivers on the road, and minimal enforcement of those laws as the prosecution of those offences prove too onerous.

There will be more young people suffering from mental issues associated with the use of marihuana.

They will determine that pot has some medicinal pain killing benefits, not much else.

They will also determine that pot is addictive.

The government will have more money in its coffers.

Organized crime will be discovered to be investors and have infiltrated into the “legalized” production of marihuana.

Robberies will go up at BC Liquor Branches.

The Indigenous will have opened up their own production facilities and will be able to sell it cheaper as they get to avoid excise taxes, but they will have a difficult time saying it is part of “reconciliation”.

Canada for the next several years will be known around the world, not as the welcoming country to immigrants, not as a forward thinking place to invest, or not as a haven of academic achievement. It will be known as the place where marihuana is legal now.

A police officer will challenge the courts and the policy of the RCMP based on his/her need for medical marihuana. To not allow him/her to work it will be argued is against the Charter of Rights.

Meanwhile ‘Joey” or “Emily” driving around their small hometown at 9 at night in their parents car, wanting some weekend pot, living in small town Canada, will not be able to find or buy at the dispensary. There will be a new generation of “bootleggers”.

But if “Joey” plans a few days ahead, the government retorts, he can order it online.

That is if the Post Office is not on strike.

Photo Courtesy of Evan at Flickr Commons Some Rights Reserved

This is not a reference to vermin, although likely that this is where the mind should first go, unless of course you’re a jaded police officer.

What is being referred to here is the person class of rat, the Donnie Brasco or Watergate “deep throat” types; people who are motivated usually by three broad and not always singular reasons– self preservation, conscience, or self-interest. They are motivated to give over confidential information, in the street vernacular, they are motivated to “rat” on someone.

And for those holier than thou types, who say that they would never tell on someone, you better think again. Everyone, given the right circumstances has the potential to be a “rat”, or if you like the more gentle term, a “confidential informant”.

For instance, the Canada Revenue Agency this year had 32,157 “leads” from their “snitch line” in 2017/2018, a phone line where Canadians can anonymously call on their neighbours and friends and tell on them, “snitch’ on them for cheating on their taxes.

Informants are everywhere, in every facet of society, dwelling below the surface, just out of sight.  They thrive in  the political, corporate, cyber, and the military world.

Donald Trump, exuding his mafia don persona recently called Michael Cohen, his one-time lawyer, a “rat”, for his cooperation with the Mueller investigation.

There are many in the American military who blame the misguided incursion into Iraq looking for “weapons of mass destruction” on the fact that the CIA and NSA relied too heavily on technical resources– that they had allowed human sources to fall out of favour, neglected them and replaced them with the sexier uses of technology such as drones or telecommunications intercepts.

This is all a rather large preamble to the main point.  In policing, especially in the drug, gang and homicide world, the police need informants. It is not the use of forensics, or searches of criminal data bases that in the end usually provide the needed link. It is human informants who prove themselves invaluable; able to solve crimes, or at least put one in a position to solve the crime, often at a fraction of the cost, often saving hundreds of investigational hours chasing links and leads.

The police should be learning from the likes of the NY Times or the Washington Post who clearly have developed informants inside the Trump White House in remarkable numbers, people informing at the highest level of government, possibly committing economic and political suicide if caught.

Effective policing simply can not survive or thrive without informants. They need rats and they need to cherish and cultivate those rats.

The decline and decimation of the solvency rate in IHIT maybe the lack of human informants who are almost non-existent according to this writer’s sources.  In the last number of years, the police have fallen in love with the technical; DNA, video, cellphone call records.  It is where junior and in-experienced officers tend to gather, as they have not had the time or the inclination to pay the time and price of human source development. Homicide investigations conducted over a laptop. Not that these other avenues are not valuable, but they are not comparable to the value of a good informant.

There are a couple of reasons for this, and it can not all be blamed on the officers themselves.

The first is that the politically correct RCMP and the current managers of the RCMP run from controversy, run from anything which could harm or impede their pristine career path. Doing nothing seems to be the historical creed of many a bureaucrat for the last many years. The 21st century of political politeness has created an environ that is loath to the risk taker, the person willing to go out on the proverbial limb, willing to justify a more precarious position in the interests of the better good.

Rather than develop informants with their inherent risks (and admittedly there are a lot of risks) they would rather barricade themselves from it. In extreme cases they have turned away from solving a crime in order to keep their slate clean. Policing is an often risky business in terms of its operations and decision making , whether it is to force entry into a house, or launch an investigation into a high profile agency or business. There is no room for the feint of heart.

Why is there no criticism of this beyond cautious approach? They get away with it because the file investigations are hidden, out of the public view. No one is ever the wiser. The only peek into the effectiveness of human sources maybe when and if you examine solvency stats. In its early formation IHIT had a solvency rate of around 70%, currently in 2018 they are at a staggering 5 or 6%. Surrey and Vancouver are the gun and gang vortexes, making up almost 80 % of the files, solvency is dependent on knowing who are the players, you need inside information.

The RCMP put so many barriers to protect themselves that running an informant, having them approved for use, or paying an informant has become a bureaucratic byzantine nightmare. And if you want to go one step further, and turn this informant into an “agent” then be prepared for a lengthy, paper-intensive, time-consuming, all encompassing questioning of the need for that informant. (An agent is one who is being directed by the police to get involved with a criminal group, such as wearing a “wire”–but in doing so there is a legal responsibility for the informant that makes the police responsible for their financial and physical well-being.)

The second primary reason for this issue, is even a little more unnoticeable. For the formative years of IHIT, the officers becoming part of the group had many years experience, had come up through the ranks and trenches, coming up through the uniform ranks, working on the “streets”. And it is there, that informants are gardened and ripe for picking. It is on the streets, when dealing with the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the gang types that one begins to develop a rapport whether it be through normal interaction, or through arrests and releases. The cellblocks are the Tinder like atmosphere which produces potential informants on a daily basis. Currently the RCMP has told their officers that they are not allowed to cultivate informants who are “in custody” as ludicrous as that sounds to experienced investigators.

Having informants is a dirty job for an investigator. It is a tedious and prolonged effort. The relationships develop over months and years. One does not get a good informant in one meeting, in fact numerous approaches to many people are needed to develop one good informant. (For awhile the RCMP had a unit whose sole job was to parachute into a file, and develop an informant for the investigators–this of course showed an amazing lack of sophistication and knowledge of how informants are built and it ended in failure)

The vast majority of current candidates for the IHIT group are younger, with minimal amounts of service, sometimes less than five years, a situation almost unheard of many years ago. They have not matured as investigators, let alone time to develop those informants. They get parachuted in from Richmond for example to IHIT and they will likely get their first file experiences in in Surrey or Burnaby.

So where does this leave us?  The model has to change, experience and longevity need to count once again in homicide units.  These units need to be a place where seasoned investigators want to go, where one is rewarded for their longevity.

And most of all, there needs to be a realization from the management of the RCMP that if they truly want to be operationally effective, they need to allow their officers the ability to take risks. Recognize those abilities, recognize the value and the time and effort that is required. Realize that there are informants that will go sideways, that will bring negative comment.

It will solve crimes but maybe the question to ask is whether the solving of crimes is a priority anymore.

“You have to bring an informant in, convince him or her that your bed is warmer and safer than the one the informer is currently sleeping in. You have to be a friend, but not too friendly, you have to make promises, but none that you can’t deliver. You have to keep your informants safe, but not hesitate to put them in mortal danger. You have to show them that there is a future beyond this, when you know there probably isn’t.”

– From ‘The Cartel’ by Don Winslow.

Photo Courtesy via Flickr Commons by jans canon Some Rights Reserved

Our newly minted Commissioner of the RCMP is taking a page from her nominal leader, Mr Justin Trudeau, and has begun to fulfill her mandate, by apologizing to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry saying: “On behalf of myself and my organization, I’m truly sorry for the loss of your loved ones and the pain that this has caused you and your families and your community. It is very clear to me that the RCMP could have done better and I promise to you we will do better”.

As has been commented on many times, Canada has become the land of apologists. Each additional apology minimizing the one that preceded it. The now watered down genuflecting continues to work its way through every government agency and department. The RCMP are not alone in this, they are just following the political crowd, each department elbowing out the other in the fight to be the most empathetic, and the most apologetic. It does not seem to matter why you are apologizing, but it is only important that you are apologizing. The Liberals, the Conservatives, and in particular the NDP; each podium apology provided by (pick a leader) with the witless bobbing heads nodding in unison surrounding their leader.

This specific and particular apology is based on the inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and  Indigenous Girls which has been hearing “many” stories of how the police have not taken the cases of the indigenous “seriously”. They are alleging that victims were “written off” as sex trade workers or addicts. They have alleged many times over and over again, that if they were sex workers or addicts as many of these victims were, that somehow that meant that their homicide file was not investigated.

Unlike most of the general public, if one paid attention to this inquiry and listened to the testimony presented to this inquiry for many long, long hours, this apology is based on un-tested, un-verified, sometimes outlandish but mostly unchallenged statements of friends and family of “victims.”

This is not to deny that there is a possibility that a few cases fit into this category, its just hard to find the examples, which seem to be accepted as the gospel truth by this disaster of an inquiry. It is duly regurgitated by the CBC, a CBC who clearly have lost what should be the most innate characteristic of of every able bodied “journalist”–  the ability to question.

After 34 years in the policing world, a great many of them spent on major crime cases, and with a couple of hundred homicides under the belt, if anyone can show me a case that was handled differently because the victim was indigenous, please step forward; including you Commissioner Lucki.

In the future, Commissioner Lucki, please do not be so presumptuous as to apologize for something for which you clearly don’t seem to have any intimate knowledge. It is creating a dialogue of misinformation, misrepresentation, and a warping of the historical record.

Heather Bear, Vice-Chief with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations is representative of what was being said and sold at this inquiry. In commenting on the new training to be undertaken by recruits, said that she will be watching to make sure that there is a change and that the “harassment stops”. She “backs up” her claim by saying that she still gets calls from “Indigenous women who have experience police violence”.

Is Ms. Bear referring those callers to the police for investigation? Of course not. If there is anyone would care to provide some actual details please step forward.  If not, do not make such generalized statements.  It is irresponsible and would not be tolerated if those statements were going in the other direction.

Where is the accountability in making such egregious statements? The 5th Estate have for the most part reneged on their role, and the police management of the RCMP quiver in fear of having to defend their own officers.

Marion Buller,  the biased head of the Inquiry and the standard bearer of all things Indigenous says she thought that the apology by the Commissioner was “heartfelt and sincere”. Ms Buller doesn’t seem to realize that the RCMP, like all Federal departments, has finally mastered the art of the spin, presenting a tear or an empathetic face, some being so practised that they are the envy of Stanislavsky school for method actors. Whether it was heart felt is irrelevant of course, but Buller seems to measure the effectiveness or veracity of a witness with the crocodile tear index. What exactly she was apologizing for, as there were no specific examples given, remains a mystery.

It was noted that in a recent Veterans bulletin, Commissioner Lucki who took a little heat, met with some veterans who were rightfully upset with her “apology”. She of course moon walked  to a degree from her apology, but continued to maintain that cases had been brought to her attention which were biased and not complete. The obvious follow up question would be, when and where, and what have you done to the persons who were responsible for those cases. And please, please,  give us some examples.

These pronouncements are ridiculous and carry no weight if you are not willing to name the cases and expose those issues. Open them up, go after those that you feel that were unprofessional in their conduct.  As Commissioner of the RCMP, should you not be cleaning house of inadequate or racist investigators? Wouldn’t that be more effective and meaningful in terms of proving your claims of wanting reconciliation?

It would be foolish to argue that oversights and sloppy police work don’t exist, and it is unlikely that sloppiness or mistakes  would be specific to the world of indigenous investigations.  Of course careless or lackadaisical investigations are possible. But for that to be true one must know how a homicide investigation is handled. It is not as portrayed by the infinite parade of crime dramas, beautiful people having Sherlock Holmes moments of brilliance. It is more about painstakingly followed processes.

Usually, there is not one person or even two persons who are responsible for an entire homicide investigation.  IHIT in British Columbia for example, works in teams of eight.

On each and every homicide a routine is fallen into; crime scene, exhibits, witnesses, video and on it goes. One rarely recognizes the victim by their race, why would you. The same protocols are followed, the same expectations by supervisors and their bosses. The investigators are driven by fresh cases with leads, fresh cases where there is an operational moving forward, a sense of being on the hunt for the “bad” guy, girl or group. When dead ends are reached, when witnesses turn tail, when DNA can not be found, cases begin to go “cold”; they become stale, harder to generate leads, harder to command resources. That is the natural process, and the natural process does not recognize victim nationality. Long time investigators like the “game”, they get addicted to the adrenaline burn, the feeling of being “close”, the hounds pursuing  the rabbit.  The pursuers do not care about the nationality of the rabbit.

Therefore for an investigation to be hampered by laziness, or inadequate probing, for it to be true, one would have to assume that several investigators on the same file are all lazy or racist, or disinterested in doing the job. Possible of course but not probable.

Not all investigators are created equal, they are humans too. But to tarnish all investigations based on a slim sample is simply wrong, and to base allegations on the verbal subjective history of indigenous who clearly have an agenda and a narrative which they are pushing is also both wrong and dangerous. It could be argued that these misstatements are hurting any attempts at reconciliation by contributing to the divide.

In reading Commissioner Lucki’s resume, there is no major crime background; there is nothing that suggests that she has investigated or been part of homicide investigations. That is not her fault, she rose to the top through a different route, a more political route. But that in itself should make her pause when commenting on things of which she has no intimate knowledge. She has been clearly part of the new wave of appeasement, the political need for survival, the all consuming mantra of most police leadership at this time. A purely political move, by a purely political appointment.

The new Commissioner has not made many public pronouncements, she is being relatively subdued, maybe for good reason. This was not a good way to start.

Many are anticipating the end of the game for the RCMP which continues its seemingly daily endless struggles. Its the bottom of the 9th in many peoples eyes and Commissioner Lucki is up to bat. The officers, to continue the analogy,  are hoping for someone clutch, someone batting .300, instead we got a designated hitter. The Inquiry threw the first pitch.

Strike one.

Photo courtesy of Flickr via Commons and Justin Trudeau. Some Rights Reserved. 

It has been a long, bumpy, and hesitant progression for officers of the RCMP towards possible unionization. Will eventual unionization be the panacea to all that ails?  Or, is it the subtle push over the cliff for an organization which is reeling, staggering under a bloated bureaucracy, inept Federal direction and inadequate financing and resources?

In the last twenty years this stetson and breeches symbol of Canada is quickly becoming just that; a symbol, not a viable operational policing structure; proving itself time and again no longer able to be all things to everyone. A Federal agency not able to admit its shortcomings. There is mounting evidence that it is slipping, has lost sight of its core abilities, no longer able to provide Municipal and Provincial policing, at least not at an acceptable or comparable level to other police agencies.

Its current inflated management struggles with 21st century issues, leaving most of its 179 Superintendents, 58 Chief Superintendents and 26 Assistant Commissioners ill-equipped to handle what is about to come their way; either administratively or from a practical perspective. A colossal ship unable to turn in time, unable to steer clear of modernization, try as it might. They are a struggling para-military organization which seems confounded by the need to absorb and learn about labour law, sexual harassment, grievances, arbitration, wage negotiations and the other policy trappings of policing in the new age.

Until now it has always been a closed shop, promoting and advancing from within, oblivious to the “real world”, often using the RCMP Act to bludgeon officers into compliance and acceptance whether it be an issue of pay, or a grievance.  More often than not the preferred solution was to ignore the problem, often for years on end.

There was at one time an era of independence from their Federal masters, a time when the RCMP still seemed concerned with operational policing,  and tried to maintain at least a perceived distance from political machinations. It was indeed the Mad Men era, where drinking, smoking and making yourself available for “choir practise” was the way of handling dissent; personality clashes often ironed out over rambunctious and censor free talk. It was not necessarily acceptable nor right, but it was the way of the times.

The “old school” group of officers tended to be Saskatchewan farm boys or South shore  Nova Scotians happy to have a steady, exciting, yet blue collar job. You were allowed into the “club”, informally vetted,  became a “member” of the blue line, and that line was inviolate, only allowed to bend, not break.

The vast majority of the officers in the RCMP were ironically, anti-union, with a greater chance of breaking up a strike or quelling demonstrations than voting for or supporting a union.

The officers of those days carried their .38 revolver and cheap yellow plastic flashlights, but they have now been replaced by officers adorned with multiple weapons, body armour, and carbine rifles and who would not be out of place in a theatre of war. They are now better educated, interested in career planning, paternity and maternity leave, isolation pay, and the utopian work/life balance. PTSD has become common place, sometimes seemingly more prevalent than the flu.

This ponderous, slow evolutionary process inside the RCMP has set these two worlds, the old and the new, on a collision course. The old way of doing things are coming to an end, there is no other plausible or possible outcome.

In January of 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada fired the first shot allowing the right to organize within the RCMP and even went further saying that the government needed to bring in legislation and a framework that would clear a path for the RCMP to pursue unionization.

The government was of course late in reaching this court deadline handed to them by the Supreme Court, but finally produced Bill C-7. In its initial form it looked suspicious.  It seemed to be a bit of a trojan horse, and seem designed to provide the legislation while at the same time trying to rip the heart and power out of any future collective bargaining agreement.

The Senate  in their due process found that the bill as proposed by the Liberals were trying to keep normally assumed rights issues such as harassment, code of conduct, equipment and staffing levels excluded from the collective bargaining process. It would be hard to believe that this was just an oversight on the part of the Liberals.  This was a direct attempt to keep away from the hot button issues. And it was a ridiculous attempt to cling to the old world, a brazen attempt that even the dust covered Senators were quick to realize and raise opposition.

Most of what they they tried to exclude were coincidently ones that would also lead to a  monumental increase in budgets.

The Senate proposed amendments to the bill and sent it back to the House. They recommended that these normal bargaining issues should be put back into the legislation, and needed to be included in any possible RCMP collective agreement.

(There were a couple of line items that the Liberals still refused to go along with; the expanding of the Public Service Labour Relations Board to hear RCMP grievances; and  the inability for the RCMP to strike. They also rejected the need for a secret ballot which had been introduced by the Conservatives.)

In May 2017 the Liberals, bending to some mounting pressure adopted almost all of the Senate recommendations. The bill has now received Royal assent and will become law shortly, a bill that would allow bargaining on issues such as manpower resourcing and code of conduct.

As Bill C-7 wound its way through the Senate review process, the Federal government had also moved to make the 3900 “civilian” employees, into members of the Public Service. Workers in the RCMP such as those working in wiretap rooms and at the RCMP call centres were no longer going to be civilian police, they were going to become members of PSAC.

Although this seems like a relatively minor change, this too engendered a small amount of controversy.  As “civilian” officers of the RCMP, some argued that they often indirectly enjoyed greater benefits that accrued to the RCMP as opposed to being a member of the public service. These workers will now be represented by PSAC beginning in 2020 (the delay is because of the boondoggled Phoenix pay system, and the government does not want to make the change until it is confident that the pay system is rectified. ) Their jobs haven’t changed, nor should they, but the very responsibility for their employment standards and pay now rests with a union.

Meanwhile, in April 2017 there were two groups of Mounties who wanted to form a union group and apply for certification. One group of Mounties calling themselves the National Police Federation gained the upper hand and with a sudden influx of memberships were in a position to apply for union certification at the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. They are now seeking to represent the 17,945 officers.

In typical Mountie fashion, this application and the ability of the NPF to represent was not without controversy.

At the time the NPF was vying with another group of Mounties who made up the MPPAC (Mounted Police Professional Association) to be the union group of choice. The MPPAC has a long history dating back a couple of decades where a small vocal group of officers cajoled and hammered away at the RCMP management group. They called for a unionized force years before, and developed a legal fund to assist officers they felt had been unduly treated. Their overall effectiveness was open to debate, but there was little doubt that they were thorns in management’s backside.

The NPF on the other hand are made up of former Division Staff Relations Representatives. In the years before the court go ahead for unionization, there was the the Division Representative program. It was a system clearly which favoured management both in terms of power and outcome.  Although officers voted and elected a group of individuals who were to represent them to management, it was a half-hearted attempt by management to suborn any kind of union talk which was festering and bubbling below the surface at the time. It was of pure government design, one intended to appear advanced and supportive of the rank and file, but in practise somewhat of a slight of hand operation.

The DSRR’s had no real power  (even their assessments were done by their Commanding Officers) so they were often seen as being pawns of the managers and too eager to choose the side of the managers. They were clearly beholden to upper management, some were more vocal than others, but their effectiveness and power lay in the ability to persuade.

So as the deadline approached for filing for union certification the two groups were pitted against each other and seemingly evenly split in terms of support.

It seems that the NPF, the former group of DSRR’s, were allowed to access and use the RCMP email system to garner support. This is contrary to how the system should work as management is not allowed to show favour to one group over another. The MPPAC wrote several emails complaining and have now filed a grievance, which they hope will be expedited by the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board complaining of this favour and demanding retractions.

The NPF also used the management condoned Legal Fund to further their cause. The Legal Fund was a not for profit fund, supported by over 16,000 officers through voluntary pay cheque deductions. The RCMP allowed the NPF to seek support in an email through the auspices of the Legal fund and it also provided a loan to the NPF to get started in their union certification drive.

Both seem unethical to a great many officers and of course the MPPAC.  It clearly reeked of favourites being played, a group of officers who had previously worked for the rank and file but somewhat beholden to the managers of the day were now being supported by management to be the union group of choice. If this process was not tainted it certainly had the appearance of inequity.

Then along came another bump in the road when officers in Quebec  decided that they wanted to form their own union in “C” Division, distinct and apart from the rest of the National police Force. They have launched an appeal of the decision to have one union for all RCMP.  Serge Bilodeau, the head of the Quebec push said that  “the move is justifiable due to the specifics that are applicable to the needs of Quebec’s frontline members”.

Quebec or “C” Division has always been an outlier, fed by a Provincial culture which often identified itself with the labour movement and generally in favour  of unionization.  Its a Division which has always seen itself as distinct from the other RCMP officers in Canada. This has created a chasm between them and their fellow officers in other parts of Canada. The divisive politics of the Quebec region, between the English and the French, has always carried over to the RCMP as well. That being said, it would be difficult to argue that they are unique in their issues to the other officers in Canada.

Nevertheless the NPF group seems best positioned and awaits certification after it  got a major influx of “sign ups”  when they publicly stated their support for the “yellow stripe”campaign.

If one accepts that the majority of officers will vote in favour of a Union (and this is not a sure bet), it will be a long uphill climb with a momentous learning curve but it does seem that the general membership has turned the philosophical corner.  There seems to be a time for union membership to be nurtured, when disgruntled employees reach a breaking point with the big brother attitude of management or with a poisonous work environment. The RCMP officers seemed to have reached that point.

But make no mistake, if it proceeds, it will be the catalyst for significant change previously unseen in the long history of the RCMP.

Historically, the RCMP management kept staffing levels low, and this combined with the discounted municipal contracts offered by Ottawa has always made the RCMP the “cheap” choice. There is little doubt that a collective agreement will alter manpower, costs and salaries will go up, and the overall cost of running the RCMP will increase.

Some estimate a 30% increase in overall costs, which Ottawa would have to try and download to the towns and cities.  (For example: the people in the City of Vancouver for the VPD pay $420 per capita; North Vancouver, an RCMP jurisdiction bordering Vancouver pay $230.00 per capita)  Regional policing in places like the Lower Mainland in British Columbia may be an  inevitable second wave of change, as politicians will vie to have more political control of the now more expensive police officers.

Grievances will still be handled in house, but union representatives will be in place, and the dynamics will change dramatically. There will be no more prolonged or ignored labour issues. A grievance will need to be heard quickly and the outcomes will be measured and set precedents. The lineup for those wrongs will be extensive, and the members should be prepared to recognize that the outcomes may not be to the liking of all officers.

Meal breaks will be monitored, staffing levels will need to be maintained, and supervisors will have a more accountable role. Overtime and promotions will be questioned and there will a need for justification. Seniority will play a bigger role, and early promotions whether justified or not will almost become non-existent.

Shop stewards, union heads and union administrators will all have to learn the job for which none of them for the most part have any experience. All will have to be elected through an internal process. Union monies will need to be collected and charters and budgets will need to be developed. (Union members now pay roughly 1.1 to 1.3% of their salary to dues. For an $80,000 officer, you would be paying at least $1,040.00 per year. That would equate to a union with a budget of over $20,000,000.00.) 

Setting up a the structure needed, communications budgets and all that this entails would be an enormous undertaking for any newly formed union group. As personalities jostle for position in the NPF the members themselves will need to be paying attention. They will now be a political Force.

Will the current RCMP senior management in Ottawa be able to meet these demands?  It seems unlikely. Certainly not in its present format.  The old management guard will be pushed and prodded to adapt, some will and some won’t,  but the RCMP Act will no longer be a hiding place where they can seek shelter. The administrative roles will be pulled away and the freedom to operate within the current vacuum will dissipate, as  new air will be blown in.

As to the membership, the current crop of young officers will adapt, and likely applaud the changes. The veterans will decry the strictures now placed on them, and continue to wax eloquently about the good old days.

There will be bitching about the amount of union dues.

There will be talk about an FBI styled RCMP and the need to get out of uniform policing altogether.

Will it work, will the RCMP officers be better off?  Only time will tell, but you can be assured it will not be the same. There will be a tectonic shift in both makeup and administration of the RCMP.

Maybe thats a good thing. Maybe it needs to start over.

Maybe like the 75 year old wooden house the structure needs to be demolished; no longer practical to save, the planks and cross beams decaying and  unable to support the overall building. This house which has been ignored, uncared for over the years, has made it no longer serviceable.

The proud, historic, and hereditary structure now just a symbol of what was, of a day gone by. It will be lamented but it will never be reversed. Someone should be accountable for the lack of upkeep, but they wont be.

These managers who placed the officers into this point in history are likely to be moving on — probably just before that house roof falls in.

In a recent interview with CTV the seemingly single issue Commissioner Lucki continues to speak in sync with the Liberals, on building a “more tolerant, more inclusive and absolutely more respectful workplace”. These are obvious and warranted goals, but somehow out of sync, secondary needs considering the chaos that surrounds this organization and the chaos which is about to come.

It is analogous to the Band on the Titanic, continuing to play, ignoring the cries to abandon ship, as the water begins lapping at their ankles.  Trudeau the conductor and Ralph Goodale playing the violin. Commissioner Lucki on 2nd violin following their lead, trying to stay in rhythm.

Photo Courtesy of David Whelan via Flickr Creative Commons – Some Rights Reserved