The Terrible Tempered Commissioner

Reports are beginning to emerge that RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott, a.k.a. "Bubbles," has been known for years for his foul and volatile temper.

A number of comments left on the CBC web site suggested someone look into Elliott's behavioural quirks going back long before he was appointed by Harper to head the RCMP.   If the man isn't stable enough to deal with his immediate, senior staff without resorting to abusive shouting tirades, is he really suited to lead an already troubled national police force?   Could he wind up doing more harm than good?

The Toronto Star claims that Harper is reluctant to sack Elliott, perhaps because his own temper is just as foul and volatile.    Harper is well known for kicking furniture and loudly berating staff so it's entirely predictable that one cheap bully wouldn't fire another.   It just wouldn't be kind - bully to bully.   Yet the paper claims Elliott's future with the force may not be salvageable:

 One senior insider acknowledged “Bill hasn’t helped himself in this.”



Elliott’s appointment as the first civilian commissioner was a shock to many within the RCMP, and his main task should have been to “build trust and relationships,” which Elliott failed to do, the insider said.


Elliott, said another source in the security community, was “indeed known for his arrogance and abusive managerial style and the interesting part is that it was widely known within the public service for years.”

The guy has already had one rather expensive round of anger management therapy but it plainly hasn't worked.   Worse yet, one might think that for so many senior RCMP officers to take their complaints public, they may have already lost all confidence in the partisan outsider parachuted into their midst by Harper.


 

Re Dziekanski - Elliott Has Some Explaining to Do

Earlier today I wrote an item about a curious statement RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott made during an interview with the Toronto Star. Here's what Elliott said:

"We will make submissions to the inquiry," said Elliott. "I think it's fair to say that we will say if we had to live life over again, and I'm sure that our members would say – I've never discussed this with them because I've never discussed this incident with them – if they had to live life over again, there are things that they would do differently."

At first I thought that Elliott was saying that he'd never discussed the Dziekanski business with members of the RCMP. That sounded patently ridiculous so I concluded he must have meant that he hadn't discussed it with the four officers involved - keeping his distance so to speak in contemplation of an investigation. Then I got this comment from Dr. Dawg:

"A day after the release of an eyewitness video of the events leading up to Dziekanski's death, the RCMP commissioner called the four officers involved in the incident and expressed his support, according to the partially redacted e-mails.

"I have just now placed calls to all four members. I spoke to three of the four," Elliott wrote in an e-mail dated Nov. 15 to Gary Bass, the RCMP deputy commissioner for the Pacific region.

"I know this is tough on you and all our folks in E Division. Please be assured of my ongoing support," Elliott wrote.

One of the several troubling aspects of the Dziekanski affair has been the persistant efforts of the RCMP to mislead the Canadian public.

The CBC story revealed that, far from not talking to members about Dziekanski, Elliott moved with the speed of a veteran political functionary to bring the controversy into his Ottawa headquarters where he could institute damage control:


Dziekanski died after being zapped with a stun gun at the Vancouver International Airport on Oct. 14, 2007, by RCMP officers who were called to help deal with the Polish immigrant, who apparently became agitated from spending 10 hours at the airport. From that day, RCMP e-mail exchanges obtained by access to information requests suggest the force moved quickly to create a strategy.

The strategy involved all answers being vetted in Ottawa, including ones described by RCMP Commissioner William Elliott as "tough or dirty questions" from the media.

You can read the entire CBC News report from last July, here:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/07/16/bc-rcmp-emails-taser.html

This erases any remaining doubt that Elliott was and is directly and fully responsible for the way the RCMP misled the Canadian public and our media. It's time he moved on.

RCMP Commish Didn't Discuss Dziekanski?

The RCMP's new Tory boss, Commissioner Bill Elliot, gave an interview to the Toronto Star in which he's quoted as making this curious statement about the Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski:

"We will make submissions to the inquiry," said Elliott. "I think it's fair to say that we will say if we had to live life over again, and I'm sure that our members would say – I've never discussed this with them because I've never discussed this incident with them – if they had to live life over again, there are things that they would do differently."

Bill Elliott has never discussed the Dziekanski killing with members of his very own RCMP? That strikes me as quite astonishing in that this one incident has brought international disgrace on his force and has plainly undermined the public's support and trust in the RCMP.
I hope what Elliott is trying to say is that he hasn't discussed the incident with the four officers directly involved.

"Frankly, as commissioner of the RCMP I'm concerned about our officers not using enough force and putting themselves in danger."

Elliott acknowledged he is concerned about the "potential" erosion of public confidence in the RCMP, insisting he doesn't take Canadians' support "for granted."

But, citing anecdotal evidence, he said he does not believe the Dziekanski affair or all the scrutiny on the RCMP's use of Tasers has significantly damaged people's confidence in the national police force.

Asked if part of the problem for the RCMP has been its refusal to admit any mistakes were made, Elliott said: "Well, maybe it is."

If Elliott hasn't spoken to serving members of the RCMP about the homicide of Robert Dziekanski, it's pretty obvious that he hasn't bothered to find out what the Canadian people think either. Throughout this sorry business, Commissioner Elliott has seemed contentedly oblivious, even indifferent. Someone needs to remind him of "the buck stops here" rule. It was very much Commissioner Elliott's RCMP that continued to insist on its bogus account of what actually happened until it backed down and apologized just this past Monday. Elliott needs to figure out that the responsibility for having misled the public is first and foremost his own.