Making Sense of Two Proposals for RCMP Review - Part 1

Briefly, this is the first of three blogs about RCMP oversight. The second and third parts of this series will be posted on Wednesday and Thursday.

Introduction:

On December 14 2007, the Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP released its report, entitled Rebuilding the Trust. The task force was led by David Brown, Q.C., a Toronto lawyer. In a previous but related role, Brown was the Independent Investigator who conducted a review into the RCMP pension and insurance plan scandal. This is important to note, as much of Rebuilding the Trust is framed as a response to the issues and themes that arose from that investigation.

All major Canadian media outlets covered the release of the report, including the CBC, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star.

The Star provides a good overview of some of the main recommendations of the report:

Status: The RCMP should be granted "separate employer" status by Dec. 31, 2009, giving it greater freedom over staffing, finances and contracting. Right now the RCMP operates as a federal agency, subject to cumbersome government oversight and policies that are not appropriate for a police force. In turn, however, the RCMP must speedily upgrade its ability to manage staff and finances.

Oversight: A new civilian Board of Management with strong business expertise should be created in the same time frame, reporting to Parliament through the public safety minister. While the RCMP commissioner would be in charge of policing, the board would oversee finances, staff, property, services, resources and procurement.

Complaints: A stronger, Independent Commission for Complaints and Oversight should be created to deal with whistleblowers, probe wrongdoing and handle grievances.

I have provided a brief synopsis for Justin Piché’s Tracking the Politics of Crime and Punishment in Canada blog, which you can read here.

The report has received widespread support, not least from the Commissioner of the RCMP. We can anticipate that most of the recommendations will be implemented, though the timeline for such action is not presently clear. Expect broad cross-party support for the major recommendations.

It is important to note the general tone of the report. It is characterized by a categorically sympathetic attitude towards RCMP officers on the 'front lines'. Problems are noted, but they are attributed to management deficiencies, organizational structure (particularly bureaucracy), and lack of resources. There is absolutely no commentary on possible institutional-cultural bases for problems with the RCMP. This tone is not surprising, given the mandate and methodology of the Task Force, which focuses on the business of federal policing, rather than the business of federal policing. The report deals with management issues, with an emphasis on efficiency. It is about employee-employer relations, financing, and instituting a new board of directors. And yet, its recommendations touch on the accountability and oversight structure of the RCMP, with potentially huge implications.

Today, I want to focus on a specific aspect of the report – the recommendations regarding an Independent Commission for Complaints and Oversight of the RCMP (ICCOR).

This is of particular importance because it is the second recommendation regarding RCMP oversight that we have seen recently, the first coming from Commissioner O’Connor, in the form of his detailed A New Review Mechanism for the RCMP’s National Security Activities report. This report was ‘part 2’ of O’Connor’s report following the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar (hereafter the O’Connor Commission). Commissioner O’Connor’s report is a 636 page tome, complete with a discussion of review models found in other countries, and an in-depth exploration of the various challenges posed by national security operations from a review and accountability perspective. The Task Force report, by contrast, is 79 pages in length. Bigger is certainly not always better, but the O’Connor Commission report is an important document, and any reasonable efforts to change the RCMP review and oversight structures in the near future will have to engage with it.

Plus, the O’Connor Commission cost the people of Canada a tremendous amount of money. I believe that it was money well spent, but only to the extent that we have the wherewithal and fortitude to understand it as a starting point rather than a conclusion to a scandal, and to take its recommendations seriously as we move forward with police reform.

Note that the Task Force received its mandate on July 16, 2007. The Review Mechanism report of the O’Connor Commission was available in December 2006. It is striking that the mandate given to the Task Force instructs it to consider matters of governance, accountability, and transparency – but makes no reference to the O’Connor Commission, which had just engaged with these issues.

On to the contents:

Part 1: The Task Force Report

The Task Force believes the creation of an Independent Commission for Complaints and Oversight for the RCMP (ICCOR) is necessary. This new body would incorporate both the CPC [Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP] and ERC [External Review Committee - the body that currently handles employee grievances] but provide expanded responsibilities and authorities. It would have the ability to review on its own initiative or at the request of the Minister, the Commissioner or the Board of Management any incident or aspect of the operations of the RCMP. The ICCOR would be the central and single collection and processing point for all complaints against any member of the RCMP, whatever the origin. The consolidation of all at the ICCOR will serve a broader purpose than simply co-ordinating the processing and oversight of complaints. It will allow for the tracking and evaluation of complaints, discipline and grievances in order to identify systemic issues, trends or deficiencies in policies and procedures; once identified, they may be addressed and improved through focused training programs, increased awareness or new policies or procedures. The findings of ICCOR relating to discipline or grievance situations would be binding on the Commissioner. Recommendations relating to policy or police operations would be made public but be for consideration only by the Commissioner or the Board of Management.

The proposed review body would have as its goal the enhancement of public confidence in the RCMP and bring under one independent civilian umbrella:

• a complaints process including an investigations unit with access to experienced investigators with special investigative capacity plus a dispute mediation unit

• a complaint evaluation and data collection unit that would also monitor progress and timelines respecting complaints and publish appropriate reports

• a separate external review function for grievance and discipline appeals, whether or not they arise out of a complaint against the member

• a mandate to review any aspect of policing operations including operational reviews and make recommendations to the Commissioner and the Board of Management

So, to boil it down, ICCOR would consolidate public complaint, policy and operational review, and employee grievance functions under a single roof, under an “independent civilian umbrella”. It would be able to respond to complaints and grievances, and to initiate its own investigations. This sounds reasonable, and it seems like an improvement over the current system.

If adopted as proposed, ICCOR would represent a major new direction for the RCMP. My concern is that the report that outlines this new Complaints and Oversight body recommends that it be mandated with broad review powers, without mentioning how this review and oversight function would handle (1) the specific challenges posed by national security issues or (2) integrated and inter-agency activities. The Task Force report does not recommend any substantive alterations to the RCMP review process beyond ICCOR.

In Part 2, I will review the recommendations of the O'Connor Commission relating to a new review body for RCMP national security activities. Part 3 will present a comparative analysis and discuss similarities and discrepancies between the reports.

- Mike