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- Shirley Heafey
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- Mounties thwarting complaints
process, watchdog says: RCMP often ignore her, chairwoman adds
By JEFF SALLOT, With a report
from Colin Freeze, March 2, 2005
OTTAWA -- The head of the RCMP
public complaints commission says the national police service
often ignores her, refuses to give her the information she needs
to do her job, and in one case dragged out an internal investigation
for three years to try to conceal improper conduct by an officer.
In the last instance, the Mounties
refused to produce a document showing that an RCMP sergeant in
British Columbia deliberately leaked information suggesting that
an outspoken political activist was under criminal investigation,
says Shirley Heafey, the chairwoman of the complaints commission.
In a candid report that, in
effect, describes her panel as a public watchdog that has been
chained, blindfolded and defanged, Ms. Heafey said this lack
of police accountability is dangerous in a democracy, putting
the rights of citizens at risk.
She said Parliament has given
her a broad mandate to investigate complaints, but has not given
her the authority to force the police to release documents or
to make officers available for questioning.
"As a matter of policy,
the RCMP should not be independent. The notion that the armed
representatives of the state should be vested with extraordinary
powers and then regarded as entirely independent is a notion
inconsistent with democratic principles and the rule of law,"
she said in the 100-page report. Asked whether she feels the
government is using the complaints commission as "window
dressing" to conceal a lack of police accountability, Ms.
Heafey said in an interview, "Yes, I sometimes feel we've
been used in that way."
In parliamentary debates, Public
Safety Minister Anne McLellan and other ministers regularly deflect
questions about RCMP activities by telling opposition members
of Parliament that if they have a complaint they should take
it to Ms. Heafey's panel.
In fact, the federal RCMP Act
says the force operates under the "direction" of the
public safety minister, Ms. Heafey noted in a section of her
report that laments what she says is a lack of understanding
by MPs and others of how the system of accountability works and
what role is played by the complaints commission.
Even some of the most senior
officers in the RCMP seem to be ignorant of the commission's
responsibilities and treat the body like a bunch of "outsiders,"
Ms. Heafey said.
She cited the recent assertion
by RCMP Deputy Commissioner Garry Loeppky that some material
could not be turned over to the complaints commission because
it was classified as top secret and Ms. Heafey needed a security
clearance and safe storage areas for confidential documents.
In fact, Ms. Heafey, a lawyer,
has top-secret clearance -- she is a former chief investigator
of national security complaints for the Security Intelligence
Review Committee -- and all of the safes and secure storage facilities
at the commission's offices meet RCMP standards.
Ms. Heafey said her complaints
commission should have the power to compel testimony and require
the release of documents in the course of an investigation and
to conduct performance audits of the RCMP.
The Mounties are usually co-operative
only in routine "benign" cases, such as complaints
about excessive use of force during an arrest, she said. In a
complaint from the B.C. political activist that she had been
maligned, Ms. Heafey said the RCMP fought disclosure of an internal
e-mail message in which the sergeant admitted the deliberate
leak. "No justifiable reason could support the RCMP's decision
to withhold this highly relevant information," Ms. Heafey
said.
© Copyright 2005 Bell
Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
- Mountie secrets hinder
rights monitor
Arar inquiry gets damning report
System poses risks: Watchdog
MICHELLE SHEPHARD, Toronto
Star STAFF REPORTER, Mar. 2, 2005
Canada needs a brand-new watchdog
powerful enough to make the Mounties and spy agencies answerable
to the public, says the head of the RCMP's complaints commission.
In the wake of the Maher Arar
affair, action must be taken to compel co-operation from investigators
in national security cases, Shirley Heafey said in a report released
yesterday.
Lack of co-operation from the
RCMP has prevented her from doing her job in several investigations,
Heafey said in a submission to the Arar commission.
As a first step in the overhaul
of the watchdog system, Heafey wants the powers of her own agency
- the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP - beefed
up.
In a damning report, she criticizes
the RCMP for withholding information from the civilian review
agency in an effort to cover up wrongdoing.
She cited her frustration at
not having the authority to compel co-operation from the Mounties.
She said she should be able to decide what information is relevant,
compel testimony and require the production of documents.
Her report points to various
cases where her agency was unable to conduct a proper investigation
because of lack of disclosure by the RCMP.
They include:
A 1999 probe into the RCMP's
conduct during an altercation over fishing rights in Miramichi
Bay, N.B.
A current investigation following
a woman's allegation of being singled out for a terrorism case
because her family is Arab.
"There is little doubt
that there are significant gaps in the existing system of review
of RCMP activities, which means that, at this moment, the government
cannot ensure that misconduct within the RCMP is being effectively
monitored," Heafey wrote in the report released yesterday.
But her report goes beyond
offering recommendations on how to fix the problems her agency
experiences when investigating the RCMP.
It suggests the creation of
a central agency called the "National Security Review Commission,"
with the power to conduct investigations of all federal agencies
involved in security and terrorism cases.
"The existing patchwork
approach to civilian review of national security activities poses
significant risks for rights and freedoms, since these are the
principles that may be compromised when national security activities
are permitted to go unchecked," she wrote.
"The increasing occurrence
of national security activities - a reality with which we live
in Canada in 2005 - warrants the establishment of a potent review
body that can peer behind the cloak of secrecy to reassure the
rest of us that things are working as they should."
There are more than a dozen
agencies that are involved in security cases, including the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); the Department of National
Defence; Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada; and
the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).
Both CSIS and CSE are independently
reviewed, similar to the RCMP. Heafey's proposal for a national
review agency, consisting of only three full-time members, suggests
these review committees should report to the central agency,
which would also have the ability to oversee other federal agencies.
Heafey's report was submitted
to the federal inquiry probing the involvement of Canadian officials
in the deportation and detention of Arar, 34.
There are two parts to the
inquiry - the hearings to determine what happened to Arar (which
are being held behind closed doors until May) and a policy review
to recommend models for an arm's-length review mechanism for
the RCMP.
Arar was detained at New York's
JFK airport as a terrorism suspect on Sept. 26, 2002 and held
for two weeks before being deported to Syria as part of a controversial
U.S. practice known as extraordinary rendition.
In December, an official of the U.S. State Department wrote in
a letter to an American congressman that Arar was on a terrorist
watch list because of information received from Canada.
The RCMP's role in security
investigations was greatly diminished with the creation of the
Canada's spy service 20 years ago.
But after the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks on the United States, the Criminal Code was amended to
include terrorism charges, allowing the RCMP to begin investigating
terrorist activity in Canada again and leading to the creation
of RCMP-led anti-terrorism units. One of these units reportedly
investigated Arar.
Heafey said in an interview
yesterday that to effectively monitor the RCMP, her agency -
and not the RCMP - has to be granted the ability to decide what
evidence is relevant, and must be able to conduct independent
audits rather than just respond to complaints.
"Information is the lifeblood
of an effective public complaint process," she wrote.
"Without it, the (Commission
for Public Complaints) cannot do the job entrusted to it by Parliament.
The difficulty of accessing information is one of the main stumbling
blocks to the effectiveness of the current review system."
The RCMP would not comment
yesterday on Heafey's report, but the RCMP's submission to the
Arar inquiry notes the review agency has the power to call an
inquiry and summon any evidence required.
The RCMP submission also suggests
the courts and federal ministers already provide adequate monitoring
of the force's actions.
"The fact is that all
national security-related investigations are undertaken with
the objective of criminal prosecution. While it is true that
some investigations do not end in a prosecution, it is impossible
for an investigator to know, during an investigation, whether
or not his or her actions will later be scrutinized by a court,"
the RCMP submission states.
"The demands on RCMP personnel
to meet the requests of additional review processes may adversely
impact the benefits from having those investigators working to
prevent terrorism, potentially causing investigational effectiveness
to crumble under the weight of review."
Liberal MP Derek Lee, chairman
of an interim parliamentary committee that just finished a study
of how national security is reviewed, said the government should
ignore Heafey's recommendation for new national watchdog agency.
Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River)
blasted Heafey's recommendations as "too simplistic"
and an example of the kind of "empire-building" that
is going on as Ottawa tries to adjust its intelligence-gathering
and counter-terrorism operations in the post-9/11 era.
"She's essentially saying
we need something else here to take a look at all of this stuff.
While it's well-intentioned, I don't think the bald statement
that we need something else here is good enough to fly with."
Lee says a more effective and
less expensive way to review security operations, and make sure
government agents do not break the law or violate civil liberties,
is to create a stronger parliamentary oversight body that can
demand information from security agencies, in confidence, without
endangering operations.
"We have to avoid turning
oversight into an industry and putting obstacles in the way of
good efficient security functions," said Lee. "You
can overdo it. What we don't need is another institution, another
layer and another hodge-podge of oversight.
"I think the Commission
for Public Complaints should stick to its knitting, and I say
that publicly, and I hope it's heard.
"I think they do a reasonable
job of that, but they should not be making pretensions at being
a civilian oversight or a civilian review or a civilian management
body for the RCMP. It's just not going to happen."
Lee said Prime Minister Paul
Martin has already publicly said he wants to increase parliamentary
accountability for national security activities.
The interim committee on national
security submitted confidential recommendations to Deputy Prime
Minister Anne McLellan and expects a formal response before the
end of March to proposals on how a more permanent committee should
work.
Heafey said yesterday she too
supports stronger parliamentary powers but said this cannot replace
a new review body that could look at all federal departments.
With files from Tonda MacCharles
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
