Friday, July 06, 2012

RCMP Still Not Meeting Public Expectations

As the RCMP continues in their struggle to regain the confidence of Canadians, it would appear its internal discipline process has yet to recognize the need to change how it deals with misbehaving members. An initial decision to overlook B.C. RCMP member Cpl. Jim Brown’s questionable behaviour involving naked internet photos in some sex-related torture situation in favour of an opinion which stated in part that “it did not appear to legal services to meet the threshold for a code-of-conduct violation” seems to ignore the provisions of Section 37(h) of the RCMP Act which states “It is incumbent on every member to maintain the honour of the Force and its principles and purposes”.  Canadians will have a hard time accepting that the honour of the Force is maintained when a member engages in the types of activities being reported.

Embarrassed by the public revelations, the RCMP has now re-opened its internal investigation into the matter. The fact that the incident was not properly addressed earlier suggests the RCMP still has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of Canadians.  db

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