The only question is: What took him so long?
For some of us, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli's resignation came three months too late. When Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report demonstrated that RCMP incompetence was largely to blame for the deportation and torture of Maher Arar, many felt that Mr. Zaccardelli should accept responsibility by resigning.
When the commissioner evaded questions during his testimony before a House of Commons committee in September, we were disappointed that the government kept him on the job.
But when Mr. Zaccardelli confessed at his reappearance before the same committee this week that he had misled them with his previous testimony, it was clear that his remaining tenure would be measured in hours rather than days. In that respect, the commissioner's resignation was long overdue. In the larger context, however, it is another encouraging sign.
This is the first time the commissioner of the RCMP has been forced to resign over his conduct, the denouement (let us hope) of a drama of dismissals and resignations by senior public officials.
Think of all of those who have lost their jobs over the past three years: information and privacy commissioner George Radwanski (spending abuses); Via Rail chair Jean Pelletier (inappropriate comments about an employee, but really alleged involvement in the sponsorship scandal); Canadian Mint president David Dingwall (alleged expense-account abuses); Canada Post president André Ouellet (alleged improper expenses and contracts); ambassador to Denmark Alfonso Gagliano (implicated in the sponsorship scandal); Ontario's Hydro One head Eleanor Clitheroe (compensation and lavish expenses); British Columbia deputy minister Chris Haynes (an irregular forgiven loan); Quebec liquor commission chair Raymond Boucher (a wine-pricing scandal, believe it or not).
If there was room, the list would go on.
Why are so many senior public officials getting fired? Because the system, despite its many critics, is working better than it has in the past.
In an earlier era, had the police bungled as spectacularly as the RCMP bungled the Arar affair, only a few senior officials would have been privy to the disaster, and they would almost certainly have kept it quiet, "in the national interest." Similarly, expenses were kept off-book or immune to scrutiny. If something unusual came to light, the guilty party was shuffled somewhere where he could do no harm or, at worst, quietly asked to resign.
No more. Auditors and public inquiries root out past abuses and deter future ones. Bureaucrats and politicians are being held accountable. (The list of ministerial resignations in recent years dwarfs that of public servants.)
Mr. Zaccardelli presided over several botched and questionable investigations that have tarnished the image of the RCMP in the eyes of the public, and he misled Parliament. Even the mystique of the force couldn't save him.
The commissioner's resignation coincides with a broadening consensus of the need for reform in the upper ranks of the RCMP. A commissioner's job is always as much about politics as about policing, but public confidence in the impartiality and probity of the force is at a lower level than at any time since the days when the Mounties burned down barns while spying on the Parti Québécois.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper should use this opportunity to consider appointing a commissioner from outside the force, while ordering up a brief but thorough review of its mandate and management structure. There is no need for a witch hunt. But a commissioner has been forced to step down, and that's a sign, if another were needed, that something has gone wrong.
"The RCMP and I depend upon the confidence of Canadians and their elected representatives. Without this we cannot succeed," Mr. Zaccardelli wrote to the Prime Minister. The government, the new commissioner and any independent review should assume that, at this moment, that confidence has been shaken.
But we should not rush to assume that the Mounties, any more than the public service, are corrupt or even unaccountable. They are being held to account as never before.
Just ask the people named above. And add Giuliano Zaccardelli to the list.
John Ibbitson