It would be an understatement to say that the past three plus years have not gone well for Bill Elliott, the veteran bureaucrat and Tory functionaire appointed by Steve Harper to preside as the first civilian commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
It was never going to be an easy fit. Elliott was a square peg trying to fit a round hole but his solution was to keep trying to smash his way in and it didn't work. By all accounts, Elliott went in, not as a leader, but as some sort of prefect. Elliott's failure, compounded by an abusive temperment, was that he felt himself entitled to lead without first earning his commanders' respect. He failed to grasp the distinction between a national police service and a civilian government department. He was it seems, in almost every respect, the wrong man for the job, a terrible choice by a man awash in the very same character flaws. Elliott's dismal failure is Steve Harper's as much as it is the would-be commissioner's.
It will be interesting to see in the next few months before he steps down whether Elliott can make good in his departure the character deficiencies that sabotaged his tenure. That's going to be tough. He's made an awful lot of enemies within the senior ranks of the RCMP.
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