• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Editorial in Calgary Sun on "Puppet Police Force"

paracowboy

Army.ca Veteran
Inactive
Reaction score
0
Points
410
Sun, June 5, 2005

Canada's puppet police force

Don't ask Mounties to get their man if he is connected to the Liberal party

By Licia Corbella

Back in 1998, I wrote how I didn't trust the RCMP as a corporation anymore when it came to investigating anything to do with the federal Liberals.

I wrote the same thing again in 2001 and 2002, each time listing a whole new host of reasons why.

The sponsorship scandal served to tie a pretty ribbon around this statement.

After all, the RCMP is now given the task of investigating its own corruption and that of its politically corrupt benefactors.

Clearly, such an arrangement is an enormous conflict of interest.

It's important to state that individual RCMP officers still deserve and receive my respect -- and that of most Canadians.

But consider what a friend said to me a couple of days ago.

We were discussing the Gurmant Grewal affair.

I said something like: "If it's true Grewal was approached by the Liberals to defect prior to the non-confidence vote in the House for a plum political position, instead of just taping his calls and meetings with the Liberals, he should have got the RCMP to do it, then the veracity of his claims would not be questioned."

My friend's response: "The RCMP would have just tipped off the Liberals as to what was happening. The RCMP is a Liberal puppet."

Example after example appears to prove him right.

What's more, how diligently can we expect the RCMP to investigate AdScam when it's known the RCMP helped launder money for the federal Liberals to help Liberal-friendly advertising companies in Quebec, who then funneled the money back into Liberal party coffers?

Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser unveiled in April 2004 the feds pumped $1.3 million of the $3 million earmarked for the Mounties' 125th anniversary celebration into the coffers of Liberal-friendly ad firms.

In turn, the RCMP deposited its $1.7-million share of the sponsorships in a separate non-government bank account that was discovered by Fraser's probe.

"We were unable to verify the transactions from the Quebec bank account, because some of the supporting documents had been destroyed," the AG report said.

Fraser concluded Crown corporations like the RCMP were used to quietly pour money into the coffers of ad agencies and we've since learned through the inquiry into AdScam, led by Justice John Gomery, that those ad agencies kicked back money to the Liberals by putting Liberal party workers on their payrolls, handing over envelopes filled with tens of thousands of dollars of cash and making "legitimate" donations with taxpayer dollars.

But the RCMP's decline of esteem in the eyes of the Canadian public has been going on throughout the entire 12 years of Liberal rule, long before Fraser's explosive report or Gomery's inquiry.

For 12 years, the RCMP has increasingly flouted the laws of this country and has become the PMO's own private goon squad.

Most of us would be right to assume the Mounties have a mandate to uphold the laws of this country -- not trample them underfoot at the whim of the PM.

However, the investigation into the 1997 APEC summit debacle in which the RCMP abused peaceful Canadian protesters, found the Mounties discarded the rule of law and embraced orders sent from Chretien's office to protect now-deposed Indonesian despot Suharto -- not just from security risks, but from any embarrassment.

Then, in the summer of 1998, the RCMP started building a second road into Chretien's summer cottage in Lac-de-Piles, Que., without obtaining the necessary permits from the municipality.

Even though the misappropriation or stealing of federal money through the feds and Quebec advertising firms was first revealed in 1999, the RCMP did nothing for three years until Fraser asked them to criminally investigate in 2002.

Then, what did the Mounties do?

Instead of using surprise -- though by then you can be sure the players in the scandal had already shredded and destroyed much of the damning evidence -- the RCMP didn't get a search warrant first and then seize all they could.

No, they put out a press release announcing they would look into the $1.6 million in federal contracts awarded to Groupaction Marketing Inc. for writing three virtually identical reports (one of which doesn't even exist) that contained information readily available on the federal government website.

That trial begins this month.

Then there's their investigation into Chretien's Shawinigate scandal -- or, rather, the lack of one.

Documents related to the scandal that implicated Chretien were dismissed by the RCMP, who stated they "couldn't prove the documents weren't forgeries"!

Is it any wonder there's never any real accountability in this country?

Then, as if to prove their bias, the Mounties raided the home and cottage of Francois Beaudoin, the former BDC president who was fired after saying "no" to Chretien and blowing the whistle on the Grand-Mere loan fiasco.

Beaudoin's reputation was restored in a 2003 court case where Quebec Judge Andre Denis lambasted Jean Carle, Chretien's former director of operations who was appointed by Chretien as the bank's senior vice-president of public affairs and Michel Vennat, whom Chretien appointed as the BDC's chairman.

Judge Denis described the testimony of the two men as unreliable and their actions against Beaudoin as "an unspeakable injustice" designed to "break him and ruin his career."

So, the RCMP investigated Beaudoin, but why not Chretien, Carle and Vennat?

Good question, no?

Canadians no longer have much confidence in the Mounties getting their man -- especially if that man has anything to do with the Liberal party.

While we can speculate all day, I'd be very interested in hearing a rebuttal from senior RCMP personnel. If any peruse these boards, that is.
 
No one in Canada is perhaps more blinded by ideology than Licia Corbella. Either that or she is a professional progandist. She has a right to her opinions - but she ever only seems to have one.

Don't ask Mounties to get their man if he is connected to the Liberal party

What about the Airbus Scandal? didn't they kinda not get their man in Brian Mulroney? And wasn't he a Conservative. Wow - the paradigm remains the same. No matter what happens, the Liberals suck and the Conservatives are here to save Canada with their message of the West (aka Calgary). Though the Liberals do suck at present...

However, whenever I read the Sun and her column, all she talks about is how the Liberals are the original devils of Canada, who since 1993 have brought Canada to the deepest Circle of heck, with its people frozen in the sea before Satan, unable to do anything about their suffering, while playing the Conservatives as a combination of Moses/Dante and Virgil, venturing down to the depths of evil to rescue the Canadians, and "let their people go".
 
Zartan said:
However, whenever I read the Sun and her column, all she talks about is how the Liberals are the original devils of Canada, who since 1993 have brought Canada to the deepest Circle of heck, with its people frozen in the sea before Satan, unable to do anything about their suffering, while playing the Conservatives as a combination of Moses/Dante and Virgil, venturing down to the depths of evil to rescue the Canadians, and "let their people go".
all of which I agree with. But, I still want to hear the RCMP side of things. Preferably, senior RCMP pers, as they would have a clearer view.
 
paracowboy said:
all of which I agree with. But, I still want to hear the RCMP side of things. Preferably, senior RCMP pers, as they would have a clearer view.

So would I but if a senior member of the Mounties ever climbed on to this (or any other) public forum and started to talk anything but the party line they'de be investigated and disciplined very quickly indeed...

Slim
 
Zartan said:
No one in Canada is perhaps more blinded by ideology than Licia Corbella. Either that or she is a professional progandist. She has a right to her opinions - but she ever only seems to have one.

Don't ask Mounties to get their man if he is connected to the Liberal party

What about the Airbus Scandal? didn't they kinda not get their man in Brian Mulroney? And wasn't he a Conservative. Wow - the paradigm remains the same.

Okay, that doesn't even make sense - you just prove her point.  Mulroney wasn't a liberal.....
 
I agree with what Slim says, but luckily I am not that senior.  I have always thought that at higher levels, the RCMP is too close to government.  As Canada's federal Police Force, it should be expected that at some point, there may have to be an investigation into activities of a governing body, be it Parliament or something smaller.  You just can't do that and expect the Canadian people to think you have done an honest and thorough job if RCMP senior staff are seen regularly with senior government officials.
 
Sorry, I got carried away.
But what do you mean I proved her point?
Let's just leave this to the RCMP.
 
The Liberals were in power, and did their very level best to get Mulroney implicated in their trumped-up airbus scandal.  Despite their very best efforts, and hundreds of hours of RCMP investigations, it was proven that there was, in fact, no scandal.

The airbus scandal is another liberal pipe dream.  Kept alive by the conservative haters that live amongst us. 
 
As I recall,the Airbus investigation was initiated at the behest of the Liberals, slanderous allegations were made in public by the party prior to any investigation even started, and ultimately a hefty chunk of change (several million dollars) was paid to Mulroney to make amends.
Personally, I vividly recall watching all the footage and controversy surrounding the Summit in Vancouver and being absolutely disgusted at some of the treatment that bystanders (not protesters, just 'Joe Schmoe' walking home from work) received.
I highly respect the Canadians who commit to a career with the RCMP, and know that I would find their vital job an enormous challenge. However, when you consider the points the article raises, it sure makes you wonder just what is going on, at least in the upper echelons.
 
The Air Canada purchase of Airbus commercial aircraft during the tenure of Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney was approved by the Air Canada Board of Directors and Air Canada President, Claude
Taylor, one of the smartest and striaghtforward businessmen produced by Canada. The aircraft
was chosen at the time, over the bid by the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company on the basis
of a degree of technical excellence, cost of operation, price and certain industrial benefits to
Canada. Mr. Taylor was not a man to trifle with, having risen up through Air Canada as a clerk
in New Brunswick, and who knew his company, warts and all, very thoroughly. Cabinet of the
period in any event, did not have the authority to direct purchasing authority or define what
particular aircraft must be purchased in any event, Air Canada then being essentially a Crown
Corporation. Happened to be in Ottawa at an Air Industires Association of Canada on the day
the Airbus contract was announced. Boeing, rather arrogant in those days, were somewhat
annoyed - but they got over it. MacLeod
 
Back
Top