This week it was revealed that RCMP Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, the director-general of the Canadian Firearms Program, has been conveniently placed on leave because he "does not currently meet the linguistic requirements of the position."
Mr. Cheliak was something of an inconvenience to the Harper government. In May he testified before a House committee that "the Canadian firearms program does serve a very real purpose and contributes to police officer safety and the safety of all Canadians." Such an opinion conflicts sharply with the federal government's long-standing commitment to scrap the long-gun registry. And now Mr. Cheliak is gone, done in by a language requirement that did not seem to matter when he was named to the post a year ago.
The removal of Mr. Cheliak raises many troubling issues, whatever one's position on the long-gun registry. (This newspaper views it as a waste of money.) It seems reasonable that the official in charge of the registry might be something of a promoter of its effectiveness. And besides, police officers ought to have the right to voice an informed opinion on this contentious topic.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says there was no political interference in the move; it was merely an internal staffing decision made by the RCMP. Perhaps. However, the curious circumstances surrounding Mr. Cheliak's departure should serve as yet another reminder of the federal government's failure to repair the RCMP's dysfunctional corporate structure.
The 2007 Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP, headed by the lawyer David Brown and commissioned by the Harper government, made many important recommendations for fixing this "horribly broken" organization.
First, it called for the RCMP to operate at arm's length from the federal government, in the manner of the Canada Revenue Agency or the Bank of Canada. The task force observed that, as it now stands, many staffing and budget decisions at the RCMP are managed directly by the Treasury Board. It is impossible, for example, to move money from one budgetary envelope to another without "obtaining special permission through successive layers of bureaucracy" in the federal government. Ottawa still pulls the strings at the RCMP, despite what Mr. Harper may claim.
Second, the task force recommended that the paramilitary hierarchy of the organization be replaced with a more modern system of oversight and transparency, including a board of management. A proposed December, 2009 deadline for these changes has passed unnoticed.
Establishing the Mounties' independence to manage their own internal affairs, and in an open and transparent manner, would go a long way toward solving the police force's many problems. It would also eliminate debate over the convenience of Mr. Cheliak's departure.