The 24/7 Noos

The day after Canada day which should have been restricted to the mundane back to work stuff - reports of weekend drownings, accidents, miracles and drunk-driving charges etc, was thoroughly upset when the BC division of the RCMP clomped into a press conference to announce they nabbed two 'self-radicalized' Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists who had planned to 'Boston Marathonize'  the Canada Day party in front of the BC legislature. Yeppers, Dudley and the Doowrights had nabbed the pair after they had planted three explosive pressure cookers lined with rusted nails and some inert explosive. Canada's proud domain was safe for all the fun and festivus.

Who were the dastards and how did the good guys know?  Well, it seems the male half of the terroristic duo had self-actualized himself into a rabid bout of muslimania. Somebody - probably somebody who was being paid to point out the bad guys- fingered him to CSIS who set the investigatory wheels in motion. That was back in  February.

 Using a "variety of surveillance techniques" the RCMP was able to infiltrate the operation. They found out about the discussion of explosive devices and all the research being done. It only took 6 short months for the plan to come together with a holiday whammy and bloodbath for the People of Victoria. The surveillance techniques included an interesting one that ensured the bomb was as much a dummy as the guy who was planting it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out a surveillance expert went with them to make sure they didn't get lost.

Commenting on it all was the paid informant who helped put the Toronto 16 behind bars. Apparently he feels safe enough from Toronto's peaceful Muslim community to be wandering around the city looking like he'd just come out of the mosque. I guess they don't have fatwas in Toronto. Any way he said it was highly unlikely that a no hope, devil-worshiping white supremacist would be affiliated with Al Qaeda, So that's all good.

And who was the perp? Well he was known to police. According to authorities, he was a lowlife, methadone user who lived in a welfare rental pigsty. Somebody who figured the world owed him a living or at least a career in anarchy rock. In other words, a hopeless loser ex-con with a mad-on about civilization, who liked to spout-off his crazed isms in public. He was aided and abetted by a girlfriend who, it can be hoped, will turn crown witness and tell all.

All that excitement lasted a couple of days to be blasted off the front pages by chapter 12 of the Senate trough scandal.

In counterpoint comes the tragedy of Megantic, a 'natural disaster' the good guys couldn't stop. Seems somebody parked a train with 100 cars loaded with 'volatile' crude oil (volatile?) at the top of a hill for the night. Seems the brakes let go, or were tampered with (terror!!!!). The train, unmanned, rolled downhill into the town of Megantic (in Quebec's eastern townships), derailed, exploded and burned-out the centre of the town.

Apparently railroads full of crude oil wending their way to 'the home of the brave land o' the free etc' are commonplace these days, what with us not building pipelines to safely move the 'prawduct' to its rightful market. This stuff is shipped on the same old railways a former Tory government was all set to scrap. I'm wondering why the guys who need our oil don't ship it across country themselves? That has to cost less than refining it, which they  seem to prefer to do. In actuality I'm wondering why they just don't get oil from where they've always gotten it, their 'real' friends. But then it wouldn't be cheap.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

It is reported that one of the 4 locomotives driving the train had a fire extinguished earlier in the evening before the accident. Whether that was the one the engineer left running to power the brakes when he 'turned in' for the night is still undetermined. That he did 'turn-in', leaving the train unattended until the replacement engineer came on duty the next morning, seems to be standard operating procedure. Apparently one-man trains are a new 'norm' - saves money.

Dudley Strikes/Struck Again

Canada's best loved icons, barring Bucky the Beaver or some of those 'commando' fiddlers from down-east, have dropped themselves in the doo-doo of hubris once again.

This time Canada's singular police force, cum intelligence service, cum embassy guards battalion, cum only cavalry unit, are being pasted in the press for their interference with, and kiboshing of,  the investigation of wee Willie Picton, the pork farmer of Port Coquitlam. It seems that the 'people in red', either ignored the information presented by other police, or dragged their feet on their own investigation enough to allow Willie to ply his trade in up to 30 additional cases of  'rendering'.

willie gets porked

As one policeman testified at the investigation "You can't tell the RCMP anything, they know it all." Well he's sort of half right, being as since they know it all already, it's far better to drop them a few hints and allow them to use the skills acquired from King of the Mounties and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, to come up with the facts for themselves. For anything anybody else might 'know' isn't worth a bridle full of horse saliva to 'those with real horse sense'. It's a good idea to steer clear while they pursue their 'investigations', too.

Bummer is that the Picton investigation went the same way as some other Mounted investigations - i.e. south. This leads one to believe that 'investigating' isn't their strong suit and might be fodder for an different government enterprise - like a Federal Bureau of Investigation, say? On the upside, these 'fodder' spin-offs, like CSIS, are fields for applied Mountyism - places where retiring red coats  can go to be with others who share the esprit, if not the big hat. It doesn't dawn on anybody that making incompetent ex-Mounties the head honchos in some equally important services isn't just letting them breed more of those like unto themselves? That Mountie 'culture' is going with them and this inquiry  points out, again,  that the 'culture' is at the root of the force's problems. It's stopping them from doing their jobs.

So what is to be done? Well changing the 'hetman' didn't work. The 'cossacks rouges' took three years to discover he was a 'pouf' and to work up the gumption to say something about it. They probably weren't in favour of any substantive changes either, especially if it involved not considering themselves commanding the bestest and smartest - if not the most best-looking police in the world. Even then,  they went puling to the Minister, himself a wanker of the first water, before ultimately leaking their tale of woe, anonymously, to the press. Nobody wanted to fall on their cavalry lance and risk a pension for the good of  the force. That there are ponces running the government who are trying to run 'the mounted', is only coincidental.

I think the only way out of the mess, aside from letting them carry on in the 'fine tradition', etc,  is to turn them into a latter day Corps of Commissionaires. Keep the uniforms, they're sharp. But put them where they won't be doing any harm, like at holding doors at public events and citizenship courts, decorating foreign affairs soirees and ambassadorial banquets, checking the bona fides of visitors at Parliament Hill and in the opposition parties' caucus rooms. As far as training foreign police services, well, unless they would like a mounted performance unit - and a lot of places would like one of those,  like the red indians, cossacks or the bashi-bazouks, the Khyber Rifles and the Spahis - lots of opportunities. The Mounties, however, shouldn't be teaching anybody about investigating.

Oops! They've Done it Again

Canada's boyz 'n girlz in red have been earning campaign medals - just like the real sojers - for service in Afghanistan. This continues a fine tradition that saw 'volunteer' detachments of Mounties posted to South Africa to police the Boers and, for a while, posted as an independent unit in Canada's WW1 expeditionary force in Siberia and a separate unit of the Provost Corps - no doubt to 'police' the troops. In Afghanistan the Mounties are supposed to be fulfilling the vital function of turning the Afghans into a bunch of latter-day Dudley Doowrights - sans horses, and striped trous, lacking tasers and mace as well, no doubt.

'Supposed' might be the operant word here, for the Afghans probably have a firmly set idea of policing that stands little comparison to working traffic at Lester B, a booze run in Winnipeg or even Saturday night patrol among the Gleichans. So that leaves the 'postees' with, what, at least 6 months to hang around base thinking up some 'diversions' before they can complete the indent for the gong.

And hence the post. To-day's Star ran another little 'black eye' for Canada's valiant effort in south Asia - the tale of the lesser mortals. It seems our multicultural police force in Afghanistan divided itself into two homogeneous groups - the 'real' Mounties - scions of Wee Georgie French and his pale boys from Belfast - and the 'darkies' - those latter-day Mounties hired as a sop to Canada's multi-ethnic make-up. So in with the Pakis and the Sikhs, the Jamaicans and the Chinese went the original Canadians who might in no way be described as pale in the face, or apparently 'military enough'.

"Afghan Tour Race - based"


A native-born officer complained to his superior about the Team 'A', Team 'B' set-up and some of the high jinx 'A' was playing on 'B' - he was told 'Don't go there.' when he mentioned the race word. I wonder if there were Team 'A' subdivisions for 'dogans' and the loyal believers? What about the 'ladies' assuming female RCMP types get posted into war zones. Two senior officers are suing the force.

I would imagine that having Afghans trained by people who resemble them might be a benefit of some kind in the current situation. I'm pretty sure that the white 'Sahibs' are better viewed though a set of gunsights in the minds of most Afghans, police included. So Canada has a wonderful opportunity to impress upon the Afghans the importance of even-handed policing for which we are renowned and instead the best we can muster is a double ration of mental midgets who might otherwise be engaged in tasering travelers or putting the fear of the lord into another generation of reservation youngsters. This story would have us believe that they've taking their barrack-room bullying overseas.

But what if it's only a 'horsefly in a nosebag'? After all it's an in-house matter, something with which the command echelon can deal. It's notable that the Mounties have been in country going on 6 years now and this is the first it's been noised around. Stuff like this doesn't usually stay unnoticed so long. It might be nothing, but it may indicate something happening with indiscipline, or indifference, over there.

Neither one should be happening here, let alone in Afghanistan.

The On-Going Saga

When negative stuff keeps on happening in regard to an organization, or an activity, it might be time to have an in-depth review, at least. Some sort of cost-benefit analysis.


The government has done this before - like with the Paras - maybe it's time to take hard look at the RCMP. What benefit does it provide for all the deficits it has incurred in recent times?

It's a national police force, like the FBI. True. But it also has local and parochial aspects that the FBI doesn't have, in terms of direct responsibility for policing. The RCMP is also the 'provincial' police in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Theoretically that's supposed to be a good thing, but lately it's just opened the force up to more charges from further afield. If the Mounties in Manitoba have a problem, it's a national problem.

They've acted as Canada's 'security and intelligence' arm. True, and to some extent they still might. CSIS is populated with superannuated Mounties. This aspect of the work has been a 'labor of love', for most Mounties working their way up the ranks gain little experience or knowledge of intelligence work, unless it's from chasing drug gangs. CSIS stands a chance of being effective insofar as something can be made from 'new cloth'. It's highly unlikely that somebody raised in the 'Mounties' way' is going to stray far from the barn.

They are a Canadian 'icon'. True, but what does that have to do with policing? Duddley Doowright could be an icon. You can get an icon from casting central. A good cop is something else.


So are the benefits worth the expense? What expense you might ask? I'm talking about the expense incurred when the force fails to carry out its role(s). The costs incurred by long investigations and law suit settlements. The costs incurred by a series of amateurish bungles and cluster-f*cks caused by the boys, and girls, in red serge.

We're coming off the 6 month judicial inquiry into 3 minutes of RCMP behavior and, to-day, word that even that process has been buggered-up. Within a week of the inquiry starting, the result was etched on that Pole's gravestone, 'death by misadventure' - the police were just doing their jobs. It took millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of testimony. All paid by the same public that pays the guys who caused it. But that was all a sop, for the verdict was already in. Until to-day, when an email from one senior Mountie to another foolishly (honestly?) mentioned that tasering that Pole was the 'game plan' Mounties had decided before they laid eyes on him.

Never mind pointed staplers and failure to follow english orders and hand gestures, that guy was getting tasered if he said 'Boo!' That part took the first 7 seconds of the Mounties' 3 minutes, and that was what they boys has in mind. They didn't think they were going to kill him, but, hey, crap happens. That looks like somebody was lying (not being accurate of forthcoming) to the judicial inquiry, however.

Actually we won't know because this revelation isn't a Mountie problem, they gave the emails to the Federal lawyers. The federal team just 'forgot' to give them to anybody else, or mention them to the judge.

So today we have lawyers tears, explaining that it was no 'intention' to deceive. Just an 'honest error' like that other 'honesty', i.e. performing a duty to serve and protect, that cost somebody his life.

Maybe Federal lawyers need a look, too. Committee of Public Safety anyone?