Before I begin this post, I want to be clear that I have the utmost respect for the individuals who put their lives on the line to protect their fellow Canadians. As we know from the recent Moncton shootings, working for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) can be dangerous and, sometimes, devastating work.
Unfortunately, the RCMP is also a fallible organization. No matter how great intentions may be, things are bound to go wrong when there isn’t enough accountability. Lately the media and the RCMP itself have been looking into just what can and has been going wrong. It’s pretty disconcerting, and I’ve outlined three of the major issues for you below.
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment often seems to be an issue in jobs that are still socially considered “men’s work”, just look at the military in both Canada and the U.S., for instance. But this is the RCMP we are talking about. This is the organization people are supposed to feel safe reporting their own experience of sexual assault to. How are individuals who have been sexually assaulted supposed to feel safe reporting their case to an organization that has a reputation for harassing their female members?
Over the past few years more and more cases of sexual harassment have been filed against the RCMP by female members. One of these cases is that of former mountie Janet Merlo, who filed a class action lawsuit in 2012. Since then “almost 300 current and former female Mounties have come forward to join [Merlo’s] class-action lawsuit alleging harassment within the ranks of the RCMP.”
In the interview below Catherine Galliford, another former RCMP member who filed sexual harassment complaints against the RCMP, outlines some of the reasons sexual harassment has been allowed to flourish in the force. One contributing factors she outlines is the lack of a union, which meant that she had no one to report the incident to but her superiors (some of whom also happened to be the men harassing her).
Corruption
Corruption is the big story you may have been hearing about in the news recently. Apparently, an “internal RCMP study found 322 incidents of corruption within the national police force over an 11-year period — including a dozen examples involving organized crime.” According to an article by the Star, the report revealed
– Many cases of improperly sharing police information involved misuse of confidential details in police databanks, sometimes to family, friends or known criminals.
– Fraud cases often included doctored expense claims or abuse of government credit cards.
– Examples of interference were ticket fixing, perjury, falsifying evidence or protection of illegal activities.
– Twelve incidents involved organized crime and another 20 included officer dealings with known criminals.
It’s actually an exciting story, because it means that the RCMP themselves are aware that they need to change some of their practices. Unfortunately, it also means that a lot of crap has been happening under the radar for a long time.
Bullying
Both sexual harassment and corruption can be traced back to an internal culture of bullying. The RCMP is one of the oldest bureaucracies here in Canada. As such it has developed an “old boys’ club” mentality that allows senior members to band together against complaints made by less powerful members. After growing complaints of sexual harassment, the RCMP public complaints commission launched an investigation of the organization in November 2011. The report released in 2013 looked at “718 harassment complaints filed between 2005 and 2011, representing about 2.5 per cent of all employees at the RCMP.”
According to Ian McPhail, chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, “about 90 per cent of the complaints involved bullying. Only four per cent of the complaints dealt with sexual harassment. Overwhelmingly the problem was abuse of authority, bullying…”
It can be hard to critique an organization that is supposed to exist for the protection of Canadian citizens, but as we have discovered with the RCMP, accountability is a very necessary thing for any organization. I’m happy that these issues, as horrible as they are, are coming into the light because I want a better national police force. A unit that is defined by respect, not bullying.
And I sure as hell don’t want my country to allow bullies to hide behind the image of respectability created by legitimate heroes.
Culture War Reporters 
Sadly, this scenario plays out every day in offices, in hospitals, universities and in stores around the world. Recent statistics on sexual harassment at workplace shows that 79% of the victims are women and 21% are men.
You can check this research on this link:
http://www.franknicholas.com/sexual-harassment-lawyer-research/
Hi Alice, I was actually in the process of writing a post based on the research you sent us when you made this comment! It’s up now if you want to go check it out. https://culturewarreporters.com/2014/10/22/a-visual-reminder-of-sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace/
Pingback: A Visual Reminder of What Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (Still) Looks Like | Culture War Reporters
The following is not about the 5 to 10 percent of the RCMP who are the shining paradigm of law enforcement excellence and professionalism. The following is about the other 90 percent of the RCMP who are little more than a gut wrenching collection of corruption, criminality and lawless, injurious, lethal vulgarity.
___________________________________________________________________________
Of Mounties and Murder……….Part 2…….
Hello there……its me again……Don Laird….
In short, the RCMP are not your friends. In past years Canadians have suffered greatly at the hands of the RCMP who have become extremely lawless, above the law, incompetent, unprofessional, self absorbed, arrogant, self-serving, criminal and murderous.
If you want an example of that criminal behaviour look to the excesses of the RCMP as found in the murder of Robert Dziekański and many other innocent Canadians. The death of Robert Dziekański was determined to be a homicide by the British Columbia Coroners Office. Injurious obscenity found in the second murder of a citizen by the supervising RCMP officer, Benjamin “Monty” Robinson, who oversaw the murder of Mr. Dziekański. Cpl Monty Robinson was only given 30 days house arrest as a sentence for the murder of two Canadians. Still further threat and obscenity found in the fact that the remaining three RCMP officers responsible for this murder, Cst Bentley, Cst Rundel and Cst Millington, are still on the RCMP payroll and still loose with weapons and authority amongst unsuspecting Canadians. You have much to fear from the RCMP.
Look to the the excesses of the RCMP as found in the grotesque sexual deviancy and criminal actions of RCMP officers like Cpl Jim Brown, Sgt Don Ray, Cst Geoff Mantler, Insp Makar and many many others who, a perjurious, manipulative and self entitled law unto themselves, have decided that the best way to familiarize themselves with the Criminal Code of Canada is to breech and break every law in the Code.
RCMP Cst. Geoff Mantler (look him up on YouTube and the Internet) approached and violently assaulted Buddy Tavares in Kelowna British Columbia. Buddy Tavares had been stopped in relation to his job scaring geese off of a local golf course using blanks in a shotgun. When the RCMP stopped Buddy Tavares he immediately complied with their orders and was down on his knees with his hands interlocked behind his head, he was in a complete position of surrender and was covered by a female RCMP officer who had her weapon trained on him. Mr. Tavares was bum-rushed by Cst. Geoff Mantler and brutally kicked in the teeth casing him severe injury. After many many months Cst. Geoff Mantler was charged and convicted. In spite of Cst Mantlers dozens and dozens of complaints from citizens for violence and assault he was only give 18 months probation, allowed to keep his job with the RCMP and not banned from owning or using weapons. Its sickening but its true.
RCMP Cpl Jim Brown of the RCMP detachment in Abbotsford, British Columbia (Google his name under “images”) likes to subject young women to acts of stomach turning sexual degradation and humiliation, its how RCMP Cpl Jim Brown gets his sexual kicks.
Cpl Brown wraps young women in Saran-Wrap and while he is dressed in portions of the RCMP uniform, he humiliates them with large knives, then he puts dog collars on them and subjects them to the sort of degradation and humiliation that one wouldn’t even subject an animal to. All of Cpl Brown’s activities are filmed and posted to the internet.
This gut-wrenching sickness, this searing sick sexual predation, perversion and depravity was brought to the attention of Cpl Brown’s RCMP commanders and they did nothing, all they said was “What Cpl Jim Brown does in his spare time is Cpl Jim Brown’s business and none of ours”
Consider that little girls are brought to the RCMP after they have been raped and molested. Helpless and brutalized, they have been badly injured and are suffering horribly. Consider that women, our daughters, wives, sisters and mothers are brought to the RCMP after they have been raped, tortured and assaulted. They too, helpless and brutalized, have been badly injured and are suffering horribly. All these victims of horrific sexual crimes have had to endure further humiliation by telling complete strangers of their experiences in graphic and humiliating detail. They have had to suffer medical examination under glaring hospital lights while strangers examine, probe, poke, prod and photograph their most intimate, badly injured body parts. But the worst is yet to come for they will have to stand in public courts and share their utter shame and humiliation with the entire world.
Here they sit, in states of complete emotional and mental carnage, their very lives, their very sanity hangs in the balance. On one side is the remainder of their lives; wounded, crippled, lives of quiet desperation lived in the shadows, unable to have a normal healthy relationship, unable to ever trust again. On the other side, is recovery. On the other side is a life repaired where normality returns and a healthy, happy, fulfilling existence fills their days. A side where these crimes they have suffered fade with distance and the passage of time.
As these raped and brutalized women and children sit on the edge of that abyss, as their lives hang in the balance, who do they turn to? In their hour of need, at their very weakest moment, when they are the most vulnerable, who do they turn to for help? The RCMP.
Imagine that, putting the bruised, battered and raped, the injured victims of sexual predators into the arms of the RCMP, into the arms of a stomach turning collection of sexual predators with guns and badges, into the arms of police officers who are lawless, above the law, criminal, corrupt and incompetent. Putting these victims files into the hands of the likes of Cpl Jim Brown. Putting their files into the hands of sexual predators like RCMP Cpl Jim Brown where he can get his sexual kicks looking through those files. Where RCMP Cpl Jim Brown and other RCMP officers can look at them in their moment of deepest humiliation and agony, where they can look with giggling satisfaction at the photographs of torn anuses and vaginas, at the dripping blood, at the black and blue flesh, at the shattered teeth, at the eyes swollen shut, at the tear stained faces and he and the other RCMP officers can, sexually aroused, having the time of their lives, laugh and laugh and laugh.
Think about that if your wife or a female member of your family is ever sexually assaulted and has to go to the RCMP.
Of course RCMP Cpl Jim Brown isn’t an isolated case.
Look at the actions of RCMP Sgt Don Ray. Sgt Don Ray is a sexual predator. He has a record of drinking on the job, all the time. Sgt Don Ray likes to pressure his female co-workers into having sexual relations on the job. He likes to pull his pants down and ask his female co-workers to play with his penis. The list of depraved sexual behaviour exhibited by this RCMP officer is very long.
Yet when this behaviour came to the attention of his superiors they approved of his behaviour by giving him a posting with better weather and a better view; they sent him to British Columbia. They didn’t fire him, they didn’t demote him, they didn’t criminally charge him, they didn’t isolate him from women, they didn’t identify him to the community as a sexual predator, they didn’t warn his neighbours and the community he lived in of his presence, they didn’t bury him in civil litigation, they didn’t force him to surrender a DNA sample as a sexual offender/predator, they didn’t do any of that, they didn’t do any of the things to RCMP Sgt Don Ray that would have happened to him if he was a civilian. Instead the RCMP rewarded him for his perversion, the RCMP rewarded him for his dereliction of duty. The RCMP encourage their own to commit more crimes, they always do.
In fact, so outrageous is the preferential treatment given Sgt Don Ray by the RCMP that the Premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark, voiced her outrage publicly, hotly condemning the RCMP for using her province as a dumping ground for RCMP garbage. Not surprisingly, the RCMP ignored Premier Clark, as, after all, if you can kill citizens and get away scott-free, whats a whining Premier of a province going to do?
Look to RCMP Inspector Ronald Patrick Makar. Inspector Makar sexually assaulted a young girl 30 years ago and nothing was done. For 30 long years the RCMP had one big long knee-slapping laugh about that one, a real tee-hee-hee around the detachment water cooler. For 30 long years this sexual predator was allowed in close proximity to brutalized women, children and girls and much like RCMP Cpl Jim Brown and Sgt Don Ray, it was all a big joke. It was RCMP business as usual. (Google all these names and read their stories, the stories the RCMP likes to keep hush hush).
Of course you can look to the female RCMP members who think all of this criminality and sexual depravity is a big laugh. These female officers know about this criminality and say nothing, absolutely nothing, in many cases themselves helping to cover up these crimes even through they are obligated to expose and report these crimes. (see Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, Section 37). Think about that the next time a rape or molestation victim is left alone in the company of a female RCMP officer, a female RCMP officer, just as dangerous, just as murderous, just as corrupt, just as untrustworthy as the male RCMP officers.
Look to the murders of Canadians at the hands of the RCMP all across Canada, in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and all of this the RCMP gets away with scott-free. Look at the dozens and dozens of RCMP officers wives and children, families who have been terrorized by RCMP officers, threatened with death and mutilation at gunpoint and still these officers, uncharged, unpunished, unaccountable, have their crimes covered up and are allowed to walk among unsuspecting Canadians with weapons and the powers of search, seizure and arrest.
Look at the crimes committed by the RCMP; the tampering with evidence, the tampering with witnesses, the drug dealing, the theft of evidence, the routine perjury, the robbery, the sexual assault, the fraud, the tampering with minors, the pedophilia, the assault, the drunk driving, the dereliction of duty, the manslaughter, the murder, the torture, the negligence, the corruption. None of it punished as it should be. All of it ignored, all of it excused, all of it mitigated, all of it covered up. Further, in what can be considered nothing less than obscene and injurious, when the RCMP officers are caught committing crimes and acts of murder, they are provided with the best lawyers for their defence and all at the taxpayers expense.
Yet remarkable as when citizens criticize the RCMP for the horrific crimes they routinely commit, when citizens criticize the RCMP for their sexual depravity, for their corruption, for their incompetence, for their arrogance, for their dereliction of duty, those same citizens are labelled with all manner of ridiculous titles. In the words of an RCMP officer from Spruce Grove Alberta, “when citizens write about us, it makes us nervous”
In fact I have been quite vocal and outspoken about the crimes and corruption of the RCMP as have thousands of other outraged Canadians. The RCMP does everything in their power from arresting and harassing their own officers to engaging in a vicious smear campaign against its critics labelling them “police haters”, Freeman-On-The-Land, “violent and dangerous”. These campaigns/vendettas enjoy various degrees of success but they are designed to blacken the character of RCMP critics in the eyes of other, less outspoken, citizens. There is some success in these vicious campaigns of character assassination as conducted by the RCMP, and why not, they have credibility on their side, after all, an RCMP officer wouldn’t lie would they?
If you want truth go to your local RCMP detachment and see just how much truth you will get. Ask them if you can see the disciplinary records of their officers and see what they say. Ask them how many of their officers have criminal records and see what they say. (hundreds of RCMP officers have criminal records for everything from assault to drug dealing). Ask them why they allow RCMP officers with records of predatory sexual behaviour to be in close contact with women and children and see what they say. Ask them why officers with criminal records are still on the Force and see what they say. Ask the RCMP why officers who have committed extremely serious offenses with firearms are still allowed to possess and use firearms.
Ask them to tell you exactly where the officers, Rundel, Bentley and Millington, the officers who murdered Robert Dziekański, are posted, exactly where they are posted, and watch them laugh in your face. Ask them why they are lawless and above the law and watch them laugh in your face.
I am not a police hater and neither are millions of Canadians whose irritation with the RCMP was reflected in the words of, as he then was, Minister of Public Safety, now retired Member of Parliament, Stockwell Day, when he famously said “The RCMP are horribly broken”. The pathetic state of RCMP disrepair continues to this day.
Look to the grotesque and certainly opportunistic conduct of the RCMP as they manage to produce a report into the Moncton/Bourque shootings but have still yet to produce the report into their virtual terrorist actions in kicking in the doors, warrantless and without just cause, to over 2 dozen homes in High River Alberta in 2013 and ransacking those same homes, engaging in theft of personal and private property.
The numbers of complaints about the RCMP are stunning. Between January 2010 and Oct. 10, 2014, the RCMP received just over 24,800 complaints from across the country. The categories with the highest number of complaints were “neglect of duty” (4,341); “improper attitude” (2,204); and “improper use of force” (1,656). Out of 24,818 complaints, only 12,407 were formal, written accusations against officers. Imagine that, 16 complaints per day, every day, over 6000 complaints a year, every year, and all the RCMP can do is laugh and laugh and walk away. This is just one reason why many Canadians are supporting the disbanding of the RCMP.
In fact, many Canadians, and rightfully so, have become extremely distrustful of the RCMP. In short, when you need help, don’t call the RCMP, ever.
In closing, while the RCMP may be pretty to look at in their red uniforms, grinning apishly for photo-opportunities, and while they may be the go-to officials to remedy serial jay-walkers, lost dogs or cats in trees, you can rest assured the RCMP are not your friends. The RCMP are to be feared, they are to be loathed, they are to be kept at arms length, they are to be watched, they are untrustworthy, they are corrupt, they are unaccountable, they are lawless and as such they are extremely dangerous.
Food for thought the next time you are stopped by an RCMP officer.
Regards, Don Laird
Dogtown Bastard
Alberta, Canada
There are far more cases of corruption that the RCMP band together and cover up. They should be viewed as a gang not a police force and the Robert Jakanski case lends to this. There is a case in Nanaimo that involves a prostitute and the RCMP officers that frequent her ” Massage ” Parlor. This woman tried to kill a man here she conned $87k off. She coerced a man in Germany to shoot her husband. She has had a average of 4 court cases a year in Nanaimo all surrounding her predatory behavior, and was able to get Canadian citizenship with all the court dates and trouble she has caused. The RCMP have repeatedly been warned about her but refuse to act due to the fact they use her services. We have this woman recorded stating she gets special police treatment and has special police access and that she is above using 911. She has assaulted numerous people and when she gets caught in her many schemes, she simply calls the police claims shes being stalked or harassed and the police rush in do 7 month long investigations against the men she accuses and the RCMP not once spoke to the accused or even got a statement. She to this day continues to false advertise her Massage parlor as registered she has been chased out of her community due to preying on the week sick and kind hearted. She got off on her attempts a killing a man, due to a lack of evidence, there were people calling in with evidence but the RCMP refused to acknowledge it, the RCMP let the witnesses go without even taking their names. Basic police work tossed out the window all to protect this violent woman. This story is huge but getting anyone to listen has been stressful and frustrating to say the least. Compliants and rock solid evidence that this woman is lying covered up by the RCMP. Generally I would not paint a group with such a broad brush but what I’ve seen witnessed and gathered evidence on for over a year leaves me with no other option than to paint the entire force with a broad brush and claim their all corrupt , until they actually act and investigate this woman who cant even return to her own country for doing the same thing there. As others have commented this police force is corrupt and should be feared.
That’s really crazy. Do you have any articles about this issue you could send us so we could read more about it?
I have experienced a Court of Queen’s Bench Honourable Justice silencing me when bringing forward a claim of the alleged sexual assault of my estranged spouse by a medical Doctor seen partying in her cohort group. Even the Court’s are complacent to sexual assaults.
We’re very sorry to hear about that, Robert. Hoping that justice will eventually be found.