Inquest into the death of Ian Bush
• Houston, B.C., RCMP Constable Paul Koester shot Mr. Bush in the back of the head on Oct. 29, 2005, after he had been in police custody for just over 20 minutes. Mr. Bush had been arrested for obstruction.
Pension fund scandal
• Government-appointed investigator David Brown concluded that the RCMP's management is "horribly broken" and needs to be fixed quickly. He called for a task force to revamp the force, limiting the absolute power of the commissioner and replacing its "paramilitary" command structure with checks and balances and real oversight by a review board.
Ken Smith civil lawsuit
• Mr. Smith was promoted in 2001 to staff sergeant and was made the head of the RCMP drug squad in Saint John. But in a sworn affidavit, Staff Sgt. Smith said a superintendent tried to force him out of the job to appoint a close friend. An internal board of inquiry in the case found that a group of RCMP supervisors in New Brunswick tried to use "oppressive and vexatious" disciplinary charges against a subordinate officer over four years of harassment. This week, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal ruled that Staff Sgt. Smith and his wife, Corporal Paulette Delaney-Smith, can proceed with a civil suit to seek redress because the RCMP's internal grievance system is flawed.
Air India bombing!
• RCMP fumbling in connection with the 1985 terrorist plot included intelligence-sharing deficiencies between the force and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wiretap warrant delays and the lack of explosives-sniffing dogs at Toronto's Pearson Montreal's Mirabel Airport when baggage was loaded onto the Air India flight.
Maher Arar
• The RCMP alerted U.S. authorities that Mr. Arar was a possible extremist with ties to al-Qaeda, starting a chain of events that led to his deportation and torture in a Syrian jail. Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned as RCMP commissioner after giving contradictory evidence to a House of Commons committee about the case.
Sponsorship scandal
• A report from Auditor-General Sheila Fraser alleged that the Mounties received $3-million from the Public Works Department for 125th anniversary celebrations. Half the money ended up in the coffers of Liberal-friendly Montreal ad agencies. The Mounties received the rest of the cash through a separate non-government bank account and recorded the transaction manually on documents that later disappeared.
Mayerthorpe
• Four Mounties were shot to death in Mayerthorpe, Alta., on March 3, 2005, in a police operation at the farm of a man known to be armed and hostile to police. Questions quickly arose about why a heavily armed tactical unit was not used. A year later, Mounties were still talking about what many perceived as the poor management of the incident by senior officers. Robert Creasser, a 25-year veteran with the road safety unit in Kamloops, B.C., was issued a formal publication ban by his district superintendent when he aired his views in a radio interview. The district superintendent's written order said: "Your comments are somewhat disconcerting as they could reasonably be interpreted as criticism, or in the nature of a complaint."
Dimitrios Pilarinos
• In 1999, the RCMP mistakenly identified Dimitrios Pilarinos, who built a deck for then B.C. premier Glen Clark, as the chief operator of an illegal poker operation at the Lumbermen's Social Club, when he barely knew how to play cards.
Pepper-spraying at APEC
• On Nov. 25, 1997, police and protesters clashed at an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, and 42 protesters were arrested after the RCMP used pepper spray to calm the crowd. The RCMP public complaints commission received 49 complaints by the next February, and an inquiry was launched. The final report of the inquiry said the RCMP incorrectly planned security at the conference and breached the rights of protesters through heavy-handed arrests.
Joseph Ignace
• The RCMP charged Mr. Ignace with attempted murder and erroneously alleged that he was a key figure in the 1995 Gustafsen Lake native standoff against police. Later, the RCMP released details of Mr. Ignace's youth court record in an effort to link criminals to the standoff. A jury acquitted Mr. Ignace after evidence at trial showed he was developmentally disabled and had confessed to crimes he could not have committed.
Calvin Lawrence
• Calvin Lawrence of Ottawa filed a human rights complaint in 2006 claiming he faced "systemic and institutional racism" throughout his 27-year career as a black man with the Mounties. His submission includes examples of racist posters from message boards at detachments and around RCMP buildings.
Airbus
• The RCMP probe into allegations of improper payments in the government purchase of Airbus jets in the 1980s resulted in no criminal charges, cost one Mountie his job and taxpayers millions of dollars in a legal settlement with former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
Source: The Globe and Mail