RCMP

Under fire over claims of political interference, Lucki calls for new rules on RCMP’s relationship with Ottawa

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says it’s time to bring in better guardrails between the national police force and the federal government to avoid future allegations of political interference.

“I think it’s time that we put something to writing that outlines the what you can and cannot do from both the commissioner’s perspective and the politicians,” she said under questioning at the Emergencies Act inquiry on Tuesday.

“I think it’s time to clarify, because it’s been a topic of conversation.”

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is useful.

No, not as a symbol of the integrity and independence of the RCMP. To the extent she might have ever served as an authority in that regard was compromised back in June, when the Mass Casualty Commission looking into the shooting that killed 22 people in Nova Scotia in April, 2020, released documents suggesting Commissioner Lucki pushed senior RCMP brass to publicly identify the guns used in the killings, in seeming service of the Liberal government’s planned gun-control policy.

OTTAWA – A confidential RCMP review, conducted after the arrest of a senior employee for allegedly leaking classified information, calls for a fundamental shift in the security culture of the national police force to be led at the highest levels.

The newly disclosed report makes 43 recommendations, including training updates, stricter adherence to federal security screening standards and the possible introduction of random physical searches.

The review “confirms gaps in the security practices of the RCMP that could be closed or at least narrowed,” says a message in the report from the joint chairs of the exercise.

John Nuttall and Amanda Korody came to national attention in 2013 for allegedly trying to bomb the B.C. Legislature. Their case ended up revealing one of the biggest police entrapment cases in Canadian history.

When Charlene Thompson left her home in Surrey, B.C. with her dogs on the morning of June 17, 2013, she noticed a white truck she’d never seen before.

The five-ton hauler was parked in an alley near the door of Thompson’s least-favourite neighbours, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody. Thompson hoped she was looking at a moving van.

“It was right by their place and I was like… Maybe they’re moving. Right on!” she said with a laugh in a recent interview.

Upon returning home hours later with a car full of groceries and two freshly groomed dogs, Thompson found police barricades blocking off her street.

A national class-action lawsuit against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, alleging failure to provide a workplace free from bullying, intimidation, and harassment, has been certified by the Federal Court of Canada.

The class action seeks more than $1.1 billion in damages on behalf of all current and former RCMP members and civilians, special constables and reservists who worked for the national force between Jan. 1, 1995, and the date a collective agreement becomes or became applicable to a bargaining unit to which they belong.

Hours after the arrest earlier this month of a fugitive wanted in connection with the stabbing deaths of 11 people, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hastily called a press conference to announce that Myles Sanderson was “no longer a threat” to the public.

But as RCMP assistant commissioner Rhonda Blackmore described the four-day manhunt, she omitted a critical detail: Sanderson, who had been taken into custody alive, was already dead.

Update – Saskatchewan stabbing suspect Myles Sanderson died from drug overdose in custody: media reports

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is facing declining trust in the force’s performance and questions about the organization’s integrity.

That’s according to internal polling reviewed by Global News that suggests the Mounties face an increasingly skeptical public concerned not only with their job performance but with the national police force’s honesty, integrity and transparency.

The RCMP has an uneven record when it comes to implementing recommendations and guidelines following tragedies, according to a CBC News analysis.

And that raises concerns as the inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting winds down and a probe of the horrific recent stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan gets underway.

Ten people were left dead and another 18 were injured in the James Smith Cree Nation area and in the nearby village of Weldon, Sask., over the Labour Day weekend. Those numbers do not include Myles Sanderson and Damien Sanderson, who were facing charges tied to the rampage before they died last week.

The worst mass stabbing in Canadian history happened Sunday, about an hour before sunrise. The numbers alone are horrendous: 10 people are dead and 15 are wounded as of Sept. 4.

… While we wait for details, one frightening pattern is apparent: the RCMP’s stubborn reluctance to give good, timely information to the public when mass killers are at large. We expect police to tell us when they know a killer is on the loose nearby — especially those of us who live and work outside the big city.

The RCMP feared that serving Mounties sympathetic to the convoy protest against pandemic measures in Ottawa earlier this year might leak operational plans to protesters, says an internal threat advisory obtained by CBC News.

“The potential exists for serious insider threats,” says the Feb. 10 advisory from the RCMP’s ideologically motivated criminal intelligence team.

“Those who have not lost their jobs but are sympathetic to the movement and their former colleagues may be in a position to share law enforcement or military information to the convoy protests.”