RCMP Call for submissions…into Workplace Harrassment

Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP   c/o Public Submissions, File 2011-3791   PO Box 1722, Stn B   Ottawa ON K1P 0B3

To Whom it may concern,

I am writing this email in response to your call for public input into this problem of workplace harrassment in the RCMP.

I have no personal experience with the issue of harrassment here.  I write as a woman, a voter, a citizen of Canada.

I have been reading with interest on developments within the RCMP for a couple of years now.  The reasons for my interest are multiple.

The Picton tragedy still unfolds, with layer after layer of mismanagement and denial of facts.  Was this tragedy due to unfortunate attitudes towards women in general and native women specifically?  The Highway of tears.  Is that another ongoing case of systemic malfunction within the RCMP allowing genocide to continue?

I have noted many cases of RCMP members breaking the law with impunity.  In fact, I wrote an open letter to BC AG Shirley Bond begging her to reconsider renewing the RCMP contract in BC.  Please find it here.

/2011/11/23/rcmp-contract/

Previously, in September 2010, I wrote further about the subject here.

/2010/09/18/the-horseman/

There is a big problem here with the public perception of the paramilitary culture within the RCMP that is systemic in nature.  Bullies are regularly promoted.

I know this culture from my years in the Canadian Military, where sexism and racism are the norm.  Is this a byproduct of the training process?  Yes, I beleive it is.  Whenever you require otherwise sane people to commit acts they may have moral objections to, you have to break down the ego to activate the obedient soldier, through endless drilling and mindnumbing classes.  Is this necessary for functional police forces?  Absolutely not!  Our civilian police forces should not be a giant SWAT Team that assumes guilt and carries out sentencing and execution.  They are not supposed to be a standing Army, to do the bidding of the political class.  Also, they are too heavily armed.  Violent crimes are down statistically in Canada, yet since the 2010 Olympics, the RCMP and other regional police forces have used every opportunity to build the arsenal at their disposal and to press for the erosion of civil liberties.  LRADs, sound cannon, armoured vehicles and increasingly militarized uniforms and arms.  Surveillance and COINTELPRO.

Your problem here with public confidence is so much bigger than 25 cases of sexual harrassment.  It starts at the top and involves corruption including influencing elections in Canada and BC.  Someone is being blackmailed, the question we need to ask is who is doing the blackmailing, the RCMP brass or the Political elites?  Or is it the Mafia?