A Question Worth Asking - Has Canada Been Captured?

As analysis and reports stack up laying bare how much we know and everything we don't know about dilbit and Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline, it is looking like this has nothing to do with the "national interest" as claimed by prime minister Trudeau. Instead it looks as though Trudeau is in service to some rather powerful special interests.  Who is he serving?

An article in The Tyee suggests that perhaps we're seeing the face of Canada's own Deep State, the Fossil Fuelers.

It all began with a Greenpeace energy researcher and a bundle of freedom of information documents he received that somehow had briefing notes for Andrew Leslie, parliamentary secretary to Christia Freeland. One set was for a meeting Leslie had with the CEO of a major pipeline company. The other was for a meeting between Leslie and officials of the oil patch lobby, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

...the briefing notes revealed that while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government was presenting itself publicly as a stalwart defender of all things Canadian against the bullying new regime south of the border — on the environment, trade and NAFTA especially — in this instance there was celebration of the fact that Donald Trump and his administration were pro-oil and pro-pipelines.
In particular, they expressed delight over the U.S. president’s decision to approve building the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, which TransCanada is constructing, overturning Barack Obama’s rejection of the project. 

“We support TransCanada’s KXL project and efforts to expand its market in North America” was one of the notes’ talking points Leslie was given, consistent with the government’s public position on the pipeline. The briefing notes omitted any hint that climate change was on the agenda — and CAPP confirms the topic was not discussed during its meeting with Leslie. TransCanada and Leslie refused to respond to questions about these meetings.

For years Stewart has seen this sort of language in internal government memos, with cabinet ministers, MPs and civil servants seeing themselves as allies and partners of the energy industry. 

It’s one reason Stewart believes the oil industry constitutes a so-called “deep state” in Canada. 

“When we’re talking about a ‘deep state,’ it’s usually when supposedly democratic institutions and the will of the people is being replaced by the will of special interests,” he observes. “And I think if you look at the development of environmental policy in this country, the oil industry is so powerful, their influence is so pervasive that I think it’s fair to call it a deep state.”

...to academics, deep state is another way to refer to governments that have been captured by corporate or military/intelligence interests, or both. 

“Captured state is a term political scientists have used for a very long time to characterize the relationship in which the government is essentially under the influence of the dominant sector of the economy,” explains Laurie Adkin, a political scientist at the University of Alberta. 

Has the federal government — along with certain provincial governments — been captured by Canada’s energy sector? 

Kevin Taft, a former leader of Alberta’s Liberal Party (2004-08) believes so. He’s the author of a new book, Oil’s Deep State. “In Canada, the fossil fuel industry has captured really key democratic institutions and in some ways has captured so many of them that it has formed what I call a deep state,” explains Taft. “So democracy stops functioning for the people and begins to function first and foremost for the fossil fuel industry.” 

Those who believe the oil industry has become a deep state point to how the political elites, whether Liberal, Conservative or NDP — from Justin Trudeau to Stephen Harper to Rachel Notley — go to bat for the industry, even if it means Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rise and jobs are needlessly lost. Or how Canada has never forced the oil industry to curb emissions — even as the impacts of global warming become more catastrophic. And why Canada is highly unlikely to reach its targets under the Paris climate agreement.

...Deep states ...emerge in countries that are democracies. “With a captured state, there is a strong heritage of democracy,” notes Taft. A deep state occurs when numerous government departments and regulators are captured and serve specific corporate interests at the expense of public interests. “When that happens, you end up with the appearance of democracy but really you have a state within a state,” says Taft.

...it affects all political parties, no matter whether they’re on the left or right. Hence, elections become less relevant as political parties who win office eventually succumb to the fact so many government agencies are captured.

Oil sand development was largely created by government fiat. After Peter Lougheed became Alberta’s premier in 1971, the sole oil sands operation, Suncor Energy, was producing a mere 30,000 barrels a day. Now the oil sands produce 2.5 million barrels a day. 

While Lougheed encouraged development of the oil sands, he took an interventionist approach with industry, making the oil companies abide by laws, regulators and legislators. When the industry boomed in the mid-’70s, Lougheed raised royalty rates, while the federal government hit it with taxes. 

But by 1993, the balance of power was shifting. Both Premier Ralph Klein in Alberta and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien were desperate to ramp up oil sands production to boost the economy. In return, the oil industry wanted less regulation, oversight and taxation. 

Chrétien and Klein obliged. Royalties were dropped to one per cent and taxes rolled back, while environmental regulations were weakened. 

“From then on, oil sands projects would have fewer standards of accountability to democratic institutions and more accountability to investors,” says Taft. “The system of governing and managing the publicly-owned oil sands had been captured by private interests.” 

The industry boomed. By 2015, one quarter of all business investment in Canada was going to the energy sector, while oil and gas topped Canada’s exports.

The Harper Era.

The impact of this lobbying was visible when Harper was in office. From 2008 to 2012, 27 oil companies and eight industry associations registered 2,733 meetings with federal government officials. During this time, the Harper government withdrew Canada from the Kyoto climate accord, government scientists were discouraged from doing climate science and barred from speaking to the media, while the RCMP, CSIS and Canada Revenue Agency were tasked to spy on and audit groups and activists opposed to pipelines and the tar sands. 

But the coup de grâce were two omnibus bills Harper rammed through Parliament in 2012 that gutted Canada’s environmental laws, most notably the Fisheries Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act, which were viewed as impediments for building oil pipelines.

Think Tanks - Captured

The most famous is the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, which has received funding from the U.S. oil billionaire Koch brothers and long campaigned in favour of the oil sands and pipelines while opposing climate change measures. Its staff produce a relentless stream of oped pieces for newspapers across the country. 

Canada 2020, the Ottawa-based “progressive think tank” closely allied with Trudeau, has been instrumental in shaping the Liberals. It lets industry leaders and lobbyists rub elbows with cabinet ministers and senior government officials. Among the corporate “partners” of Canada 2020 are CAPP and oil industry giants Shell, Suncor and Enbridge. 

The influence of think tanks is not to be minimized: representatives from Canada’s 10 leading think tanks appeared at least 216 times before parliamentary committees between 2000 and 2015 and were cited in the Canadian media almost 60,000 times. “It gave them and their research priceless exposure and influence in shaping government policy,” noted the Globe and Mail in December.

The Media - Captured

The oil industry advertises heavily in newspapers, on television and online. In 2013, CAPP and the Postmedia newspaper chain struck a deal whereby the media company promised to further the industry’s interests. The Postmedia papers are famous for championing the energy sector while belittling the environmental movement. A study published in 2013 by University of British Columbia and Memorial University researchers found that the Globe and Mail and National Post were failing to provide readers with a complete picture of global warming issues and underemphasizing the impacts.

Academia - Captured

The oil industry also pours millions into universities — in particular in Alberta. The University of Calgary has been beset by scandals in this regard. 

In 2011, one of its political scientists, Barry Cooper, was discovered to have transferred research funds to a climate change denial group called Friends of Science. (Cooper was also a long-time columnist with the Calgary Herald, where he poured relentless scorn on the environmental movement and any opponents of the oil sands.) 

But the topper was the Bruce Carson scandal. The federal government spent $40 million to finance a University of Calgary think tank chaired by Carson, a former senior advisor to Harper and a convicted fraudster. The institute worked with the industry on a plan to rebrand the oil sands as responsible and sustainable, and Carson co-ordinated some of his activities with CAPP. 

In 2016, Carson was found guilty of violating lobbying laws in connection with his work at the University of Calgary and fined $50,000.

Canada's Regulatory Agencies - Captured

Some critics believe key elements of the federal bureaucracy are under the industry’s sway — in particular Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) and Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

“I think NRCAN has become the Department of Oil and Gas and I think Environment Canada was converted under Harper from a public service agency to a corporate concierge service to speed along the approval of oil sands projects,” says [Elizabeth] May. 

In 2015, after the Liberal government was elected, Jim Carr, the new natural resources minister, appointed Janet Annesley as his chief of staff. Annesley had spent five years working for CAPP as a vice-president, and nine years at Shell Oil before that. (Annesley was replaced earlier last year by Zoë Caron, a long-time environmental activist). 

When Catherine McKenna became environment minister, her deputy minister was Michael Martin, who had been appointed by the Harper government as chief climate negotiator for the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, which set no firm targets for reducing greenhouse emissions.

May feels Martin pressed the Liberals to stick with the former government’s target. “There was a shift and suddenly Harper’s target was Trudeau’s target.” 

But it’s not just the federal government. Last year, internal B.C. government documents [Christy Clark's Liberals] were unearthed that revealed the province’s climate plan unveiled in 2016 had been secretly drafted jointly with CAPP and its members — in part at CAPP’s offices in Calgary.

The Crown Jewel - Captured

Then there is the National Energy Board (NEB), which has the task of reviewing things like pipeline applications. 

In recent years, the board has been accused of being heavily biased in favour of the oil industry. In 2015, for example, NEB board members met privately with Jean Charest, a former Quebec premier, who was a lobbyist for the pipeline company, TransCanada. This led to the resignation of NEB panel members when the meeting was exposed the following year. 

The NEB is also accused of not upholding the public interest when it comes to pipelines. Unifor, a trade union that represents nearly 12,000 workers in the oil industry, is opposed to pipelines designed to ship raw bitumen out of Canada, arguing it should be refined and upgraded in Canada. Over the past 30 years, nearly 20 refineries have been shuttered in Canada. 

Unifor has argued before the NEB that it should stop this trend. In a brief presented to the NEB in 2016, the union noted that by exporting raw bitumen “Canada will forego the enormous economic and employment benefits of adding value to Canadian resources through upgrading, refining, and secondary manufacturing. Not only does the bitumen export model undermine investment in value-added production over the long term, it actually threatens the security of supply to existing Canadian refineries… Incredibly, in 2014 Canada actually became a net importer of refined petroleum products: with imports of product now more than offsetting our own exports.”

The Biggest Capture of Them All - Justin Trudeau - Captured

As I argued recently, with Trudeau, just like Trump, you have to judge this prime minister by his deeds, not his words. All too often one has no relation to the other.

At the Paris climate talks his government pushed for a higher-than-expected goal — holding the planet’s rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than two degrees. Trudeau also announced a plan to reduce methane emissions by up to 45 per cent from 2012 levels within the next seven years. 

But Trudeau has also undermined those goals by supporting three pipelines the industry desperately wants — Kinder Morgan, Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL. He also approved the $11.4-billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project to convert fracked gas in B.C. 

Prior to the election, Trudeau had promised to cut $1.6 billion in federal subsidies to the oil industry. More than two years later, this has still not happened. While recommendations to overhaul the NEB have been made, they’ve not been implemented. And the environmental laws Harper gutted have not been reinstated, although are under review.

Even the promised carbon tax on industry has been altered to give big breaks to industrial emitters like the oil and gas sector. And regulations on methane emissions have also been delayed. 

Most crucially, Trudeau has refused to place limits on the oil and gas sector’s greenhouse emissions. 

“If you take a look at the climate plan that Canada articulated… it lays out very aggressive and ambitious plan for decarbonizing the nation,” says Abreu of Climate Action Network. “It impacts almost every sector of the Canadian economy — except the fossil fuel sector.”

A Government Wearing Petro-Blinders

Canada’s capture by the oil and gas industry’s deep state is proving ill-timed. 

“The harsh reality is that global warming is real,” says Kevin Taft. “And while much of the rest of the world is moving aggressively away from fossil fuels, Canada is going to get left behind in that transformation if we’re not really careful.”

The Tyee article provides a wonderful backdrop to help make sense of the Trudeau government's energy policy so riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies, outright falsehoods and, ultimately, cognitive dissonance.

It makes sense of the radical transformation from Trudeau 2015 to Trudeau 2018. Liberals, I'm sorry but your boy has been processed, remanufactured, and reissued to someone's liking - just not Canada's.

How Nigel Wright Got a Pass

It's an interesting story but hardly convincing. When the RCMP went after senator Mike Duffy for supposed bribery it left people shaking their heads. How could Duffy have committed the crime of bribery for receiving Nigel Wright's $90-thousand without Wright being criminally responsible for giving the bribe? It became known as the "immaculate bribe."

Newly released documents show the RCMP gave Wright "a pass"  in order to secure Harper's ex-chief of staff's testimony against Duffy. They let the little fish go in order to catch the big fish.

Two things wrong with this story. In the months between Wright's resignation turned firing (remember how Harper changed his story on that?) and the RCMP announcement that he would not be charged, supposedly because he'd done nothing wrong, I kept getting word from a well placed Ottawa conservative that Wright was making the rounds socially and telling the conservative fold that, if he was charged, he would tell all. The message , I'm told, was that he would implicate Harper as not merely knowing everything but as the directing, and hence criminal, mind. The "bribe" was all about making a political problem go away.

Wright hung around Ottawa those several months basically doing nothing but waiting for the "all clear" from the RCMP. Literally the day after he was taken off the hook, he headed for the airport.

Here's something to remember. You can't make sense of this scandal without recalling how it broke in the first place. It began with an incredibly foolish email Duffy sent to his inner circle (seemingly half of Ottawa) about the deal that had been cooked up in the PMO. It unveiled all the essential elements of the deal. Duffy would be given cash to square away his Senate debt. But there was more. He was to immediately cease cooperating with the Senate auditors. And the PMO would see to it that the Senate audit report "went easy on" old Duff.

Duffy's email was sent contemporaneously with the deal. It's the marker. Afterward each and every element of the deal came to pass. It was only well after the plan was implemented that someone leaked the email to CTV's Bob Fife. That critical email did not evidence some bribe. There was no scheme hatched by Duffy. The scheme, quite plainly, was the doing of the PMO - Wright and Harper. Remember these are the RCMP's top investigators and the commissioner who supposedly were blinded to the obvious.

The second problem is that, as Justice Vaillancourt observed, Duffy wasn't bribed at all. Duffy was ordered to take the money, pay off his Senate tab, and make the story die. But Vaillancourt went further. He said that a crime had indeed been perpetrated, just not by Duffy.

Remember that Duffy was acquitted of all 31 charges brought against him. The very number is astonishing. 31 charges, all of them groundless? 31 acquittals, that's not a matter of misjudgment or oversight. That's a political persecution, a deliberate effort to bury the guy. That's what Harper had said they would do if Duffy didn't play ball. And the RCMP were in on it. They had to be.

Wright was taken off the hook because he had to be. When he was off the hook so too were the prime minister, the Senate leadership, and everyone else in the PMO. The RCMP didn't do it gracefully. It was extraordinarily clumsy. They had to invent a new crime, the immaculate bribe. But it staunched the bleeding within the PMO, the Senate leadership and the Tory party. God save the King.

Will Sergeant Horton Please Take the Stand

There's a critical aspect to the Duffy trial that we're not going to get out of Harper's PMO staff or his "loyal unto death" shills in the Senate or the Conservative Party executive.

It's an aspect that goes to what appears to be a political prosecution that, it could be argued, calls justice into disrepute thereby violating Duffy's Charter rights.

It goes from then corporal, now sergeant Horton, the investigating officer straight up to the commissioner, Hank Paulson.  Did they "fix" the investigation of the Wright-Duffy scandal in the only way possible to nail Duffy and take everyone else off the hook?  Was this a setup by the state police apparatus?  Has the national police service become just another partisan political agency doing the bidding of Shifty Steve Harper?

I haven't found anyone who gets the concept of Precium Immaculata, the Immaculate Bribe, in which the person who transmitted the proceeds of a crime, the bribe, is cleared of any offence, leaving only the person to whom those proceeds of crime were transmitted to take the rap.  No one, nobody understands that.

Nobody understood that at the time it was announced Wright would face no charges and now that we've peered inside, through the masses of emails, this thing reeks of a set up.

We need to know just what sergeant Horton did as he amassed witness statements and processed the email dump.  What role did Paulson and his boss, Vic Toews, play in shaping the investigation? Who saw the evidence? Was the prime minister let in on everything? How many times did he meet with Paulson immediately before Duffy was charged and in the months afterward? Was Shifty ever treated as a possible suspect?

There's a very bad smell to this and a lot of questions that need answers.  Call sergeant Horton to the stand.

Of Alchemists and the Apparent Obstruction of Justice.

Where's Vic's Other Hand?

At this point, it wouldn't matter if Duffy went to the gallows. Hank Paulson, Commissioner or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has some explaining to do.

Just on email evidence alone, the Duffy case is emerging as a political prosecution.  A stench fell over the RCMP investigation right from the start when Paulson sent an email to all his senior officers absolutely forbidding contact with MPs and Senators without his (Vic Toews') express approval.

...the commissioner said that meetings or lunches with parliamentarians "can have unintended and/or negative consequences for the organization and the government. Therefore, should you or your staff receive such requests, I am directing that you advise my office and the chief strategic policy and planning officer."

...Toews's office did not respond to a request to explain the new policy. Paulson's office, however, confirmed that it was co-managed with the minister's office.

Some recipient of that email thought it ought to be leaked - to the CBC. It was conclusive of nothing but it did raise a few eyebrows.  Then followed the investigations - of Duffy, Wallin, Harb, Brazeau.  When it came to Duffy it showed that the mounties always do get their man - but just the one.  Cash comes out of the ether - innocent enough - until it reaches Duffy's hands and then it becomes a bribe.  Who says alchemy isn't real? Why it was positively Biblical, in the Immaculate Conception sense.  A bribe with only one criminal, Duffy. There you have it - an Immaculate Investigation followed by an Immaculate Prosecution of an Immaculate Offence. 

It takes a curious mind, perhaps bordering on the unhinged, to abuse logic this badly, to stand it on its head.  And where do we see that today?  In a prime minister who "rejects the premise" of the facts that just keep mounting up, pointing an ever bigger finger right at him. I remember reading about a fellow who was trapped in an underground bunker as enemy troops moved in who rejected the premise of what was happening in favour of magical thinking, imagining divisions of soldiers that no longer existed would come to his rescue and miraculously turn the tables just in the nick of time.  His senior commanders also had to stand by his side, anxiously eyeing the exits as they wondered when he would finally end it.

Meanwhile, in a courtroom in Ottawa, Donald Bayne is just beginning to unpack email and documentary evidence of what really went on in Shifty Harper's underground bunker, the PMO, and it bears no resemblance to the fables spun by the prime minister.  He's got a stack of documents, about 800 in all, mainly generated by Harper's own General Staff, and he's using them to great effect to undermine the credibility of the government's witnesses, Harper's generals, to lay the foundation for impeaching the credibility of prominent generals yet to be called, and to steadily bolster his client's defence that it wasn't a bribe, it was a deal that was forced on the Cavendish Cottager.  It must be dispiriting to Harper's generals knowing that soon they too will have to run the gauntlet of their own words.

Bayne has only gotten into Nigel Wright and a bit of Novak and just a smattering of Perrin and already the PMO narrative is beginning to succumb to inconsistencies and contradictions even concealment of evidence and outright lies to apparently cooperative investigators - the very stuff of obstruction of justice.  Yet no one was charged - except Duffy. It's as though some power from above drew a cordon sanitaire around the PMO, the Tory Senate and the Conservative Party executive.

Seasoned investigators are trained to detect the faintest whiff of these things. Yet this carried the gut-wrenching stench of a tannery and somehow passed the investigatorial smell test.  How? How out of this steaming pile of offal could emerge the theory of the Immaculate Bribe, Precium Immaculata?

Why were none of these others not charged, if not for conspiracy then for obstruction of justice? With these characters you could stage a Wagnerian opera. These are not the sort of insignificant issues that lend themselves to forgetfulness. Not with that many people in on it, not with that mountain of emails. This was a major deal involving a bevy of very powerful, prominent individuals each acting in concert with the other.  If their stories don't match up seamlessly, chances are it's because some of them, perhaps all of them, are lying to manipulate investigators, to obstruct justice, to obtain a perverted judicial outcome.

The alchemists have failed.  Lead (Pb) and Gold (Au) are distinct elements on the Periodic Table. You can't turn one into another.  And if you "reject the premise" then people are going to have to conclude that you're either crazy or hopelessly bent.

The state police must be investigated this time. There has to be an enquiry into these shenanigans that goes straight to the top. It's overdue. It is time for Paulson and company to explain themselves, to answer tough questions with credible, verifiable answers. We need to know if Duffy was made a sacrificial goat and why the others were shielded behind such a flimsy, incredible "premise."

Hmm - Fighting Kiddie Porn or Helping Get Harper Re-elected? Decisions, Decisions.

Yes they are indeed the Royal Conservative Mounted Police.  That issue is put to rest by the CBC News report that the RCMP has been withholding millions of dollars earmarked to fight online child pornography in order to help Harper balance the budget in time for the federal election.

Seriously, you can't make this up.

CBC News has learned that over a five-year period, Canada's national police force Mounties withheld some $10 million in funds earmarked for its National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre and related projects, linchpins of the government's anti-child-pornography agenda.

The cuts, made partly as an RCMP contribution to the government's so-called deficit reduction action plan, have occurred even as the number of child-exploitation tips from the public increase exponentially.

The systematic underfunding is highlighted in a draft report prepared for Public Safety Canada, and obtained through the Access to Information Act.

It makes you wonder how much the Hank Paulson clown car trimmed from its budget for providing intelligence and security service to Canada's mainly American energy companies.

The Tories are dismissing criticism, claiming that the unspent money was "an accounting issue."  That's not what the Public Safety Canada report says.


The document, dated November last year, says the RCMP failed to spend its full $8-million annual budget to catch online child abusers throughout the five-year period ending in 2013.

"RCMP expenditures fell short of allocations by an average of about $2,000,000 (or about 26 per cent) per year," says the partly censored document.

"RCMP program and Finance staff indicated that the RCMP's systematic budget reset and re-allocation contributed to this situation, which resulted in reduced resources available."

The report says the Conservative government's 2011 deficit reduction action plan, or DRAP, an initiative to chop $4 billion from government spending by this year, was partly to blame for the reduced spending to fight child porn.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro said the news came on the same day the government requested an additional $11 million for "partisan TV ads" through the supplementary estimates tabled in Parliament.

Seems like the budget deficit doesn't mean squat when it comes to taxpayer-funded Conservative election ads but its a grand extravagance when it boils down to protecting vulnerable children.

RCMP + CSIS - Add Water and Stir. Voila, the Stasi Lives Again

They were East Germany's dreaded secret police.   They spied on ordinary East Germans, tapped their phones, intercepted their mail, assessed their 'reliability', used informants, kept dossiers on persons of interest and ordinary citizens alike.  

The hated Stasi fell with the Berlin Wall but they live on - in today's RCMP, the Royal Conservative Mounted Police, Harper's personal security apparatus. Today the RCMP, in conjunction with our official spy agency, CSIS, and the Canadian Border Service Agency, operate a domestic spying network called the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, INSET.

And just whose security is INSET enforcing? Yours? Mine? Canada's? Hardly. Don't be naive. They're the taxpayer funded security service of the fossil fuelers and especially the tar sanders, corporations like Enbridge and Kinder Morgan.  Oh yeah, and the Peoples Republic of China.

71-year old Leslie Askin received a "visit" from state security officers.  Why? She had taken some photographs of what she thought were Kinder Morgan storage tanks in Burnaby, B.C.  She wasn't sneaking around.  She wasn't trespassing.  She stood a good distance away and took her photos.  She wanted to show the condition of the 60-year old tanks to the National Energy Board.

Askin was spotted by Kinder Morgan security and they, in turn, set Canada's secret police apparatus on her.

Kinder Morgan says it reports all potential threats to police to "ensure the security and safety of our facilities and the surrounding community is maintained."

"It is our security protocol to record and file an internal report of any suspicious activities surrounding our facilities and to inform the RCMP of the incident," the company says.

Ten days later Askin had RCMP officers on her doorstep demanding answers.

In a statement, a spokeseperson for E-INSET confirms they did visit an individual who was seen taking photographs of Kinder Morgan's storage terminal.

"The protection and security of critical infrastructure falls within the mandate of E-INSET. Any and all tips reported to us are followed up on to the fullest extent." But, in Askin'scase: "there were no issues and the file was concluded with no further action taken."

Askin has filed an access to information to try and find out what is in her police file.

"I am now in the INSET’s database and I will be there, I guess, until I drop dead," she said. 

When dealing with a state secret police agency, they're never entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Never.  They're thugs who operate in the shadows, in service not to the country but to powerful, immensely wealthy corporations who could easily do their own security.  But those corporations lack the intrusive powers of the state, they lack the professional spy apparatus, the very service that INSET serves up to them on a platter.

My father and my uncles went to war, sacrificed enormously, to fight this sort of thuggery.  We're damned poor Canadians if we fail to stand up to it in our own time.

I have an idea.  Let's catalogue Kinder Morgan and Enbridge facilities.  Then let's organize groups of people to individually visit those facilities, monitor them, record licence plate numbers, and take plenty of photographs.  20 or 30 monitors a day, new faces rotated in daily.  Nothing remotely illegal.  No trespassing, no obstruction, no heckling. Just maintain a vigil at a safe and legal distance, letting Kinder Morgan and Enbridge and the Canadian Stasi and our despotic government know that we will not be intimidated and we will respond in kind in keeping with our democratic and constitutional right of dissent.

They want to gather intelligence on us.  We should gather intelligence on them, every scrap we can collect.  To the Stasi, being exposed was like the noonday sun to a vampire.

They can intimidate us, one by one, but they'll have a hell of a hard time doing it if they have 20 or 40 or 100 new names each and every day, a list that could quickly grow into many hundreds, perhaps even thousands.  Watch, we can make them stand down, crawl back into the slime beneath their rocks. 

The RCMP has served notice that it is quite prepared to criminalize democratic dissent.  I won't have it.  No, not in my Canada.  What about yours? 

And if the goons demand your name, tell them "Leslie Askin."

Do You Trust the RCMP to Investigate the Duffy Scandal?

So we're going to let the RCMP get to the bottom of this senate expense scandal that now extends straight to the top of the Prime Minister's Office.

I wish that gave me hope.  It doesn't.

Ever since former and subsequently disgraced Commissioner Zaccardelli conjured up notions in mid-election of a phantom investigation that helped Steve Harper sweep the Martin government out of power, the RCMP appeared decidedly bent.

That worsened when Harper appointed the first civilian Commissioner of the force, a veteran Tory operative, Bill Elliott, who made a complete hash of the job until he too had to go.

From Zac to Elliott, we come to today's Commish, Bob Paulson who was supposedly put in charge to clean up the force - just like his predecessors.   It will be Paulson's RCMP that gets to the bottom of the current scandal.  At this point it's time for a collective, "oh dear."

Paulson, you see, served notice that the RCMP was and remains the Royal Conservative Mounted Police.   He did this by circulating a directive to his top officers putting them on notice that just like the Harper armed forces and the Harper public service, the Harper national police agency is to consider itself sequestered.

In an email dated March 22 from Paulson to more than 50 chief superintendents, assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners, the commissioner said that meetings or lunches with parliamentarians "can have unintended and/or negative consequences for the organization and the government. Therefore, should you or your staff receive such requests, I am directing that you advise my office and the chief strategic policy and planning officer."

And we're supposed to trust this outfit - that won't let even its senior officers communicate freely with our elected representatives lest that have "negative consequences" for the Harper government - to get to the bottom of this scandal?   With a predisposition like this, I don't think so.

They Always Get Their Man. Or Maybe Not. Who Knows Anymore?

The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police needs to explain why it took his officers four years to compile a list of cases of serious misconduct by its members.

The CBC submitted a request for that information in November, 2008 and the list, or at least a list, was delivered up in November, 2012.

Commissioner Bob Paulsen admits no one was tracking these cases.  No one at the top knew how many there were or where the incidents were occurring or what exactly was going on.

It's unfair to lay this entirely at Paulsen's feet.   For the first three of the four years it took the CBC to get its answers, Tory mandarin Bill Elliott was the ersatz Commissioner of the RCMP.   Paulsen inherited the force Elliott left in his wake in November, 2011.

Canadians deserve to know what was done with this request for information during those first three years.   That would shed plenty of light on whether, during Elliott's tenure, the RCMP was operated as a partisan political agency of the Harper PMO, sort of like what has happened with the public service and the armed forces.

Elliott was supposed to reform the RCMP, to clean up the joint.   How could he do that if no one was tracking the miscreants in its ranks?   Just what in hell was he doing?   What else was he doing for "the Boss"?

There's plenty more to this story than the list that the Paulsen RCMP  belatedly delivered up to CBC.   There are many questions that remain unasked and unanswered.

What Do British Columbians Know that the Rest of Canada Doesn't - Yet?

What we know is that the RCMP is rotten, from the top down.   The good news is that an increasing percentage of Canadians across the rest of the country is figuring out the same thing.

Perhaps British Columbians know the RCMP better because we have to put up with a lot more of them - over 10,000 in fact, about the same number as in a WWII army division.    In effect, we're occupied by a gang of federal thugs with some very nasty tendencies.

From the unexplained bullet in the back of young Ian Bush's skull to the execution of Robert Dziekanski, from a litany of acts of brutality to sexual harassment and other peccadilloes, to the failure of the RCMP to track down Robert Picton, many British Columbians have had their fill of these officers and their ways.

Darryl Plecas, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the RCMP is still trying to change the work culture of a force with “so many bullies.”

“There seems to be this incestuous relationship in different places in the RCMP; you look at certain units and they’re filled with people who have been friends forever,” said Plecas. “People have recognized this; you dare not cross them, otherwise they’re going to come after you.”

Plecas said B.C., with several large detachments, has more RCMP officers than anywhere else in the country, which means a larger sample size and therefore more “bullies.”

The anger and distrust we have for the RCMP didn't happen overnight.    The plummeting numbers reported by Ipsos Reid happened during Harper's tenure as prime minister.   There were troubling signs that Harper had co-opted the force when former Commissioner Zaccardelli seemed to wade into electoral politics, with a dubious mid-campaign corruption investigation into Ralph Goodale that he refused to explain afterward.   Who can forget when Harper appointed a life long Tory insider, Bill Elliott, to serve as the RCMP's first civilian Commissioner?   With Harper's hands all over it, it's probably no wonder so much rot set in among the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

 

Steve Harper's Taxpayer-Funded Enemies List

Last evening I wrote of a state security operation on behalf of the Tar Sanders that has been launched by Stephen Harper.  It is a supposed counter-terrorism organization staffed by the RCMP, CSIS, the Calgary and Edmonton cops and the border patrol agency to "defend" the tar sands operations, the proposed bitumen pipelines and of course the supertanker operations that endanger the British Columbia coast.

But for the fact that I decided to glance through the business section of the Victoria Times-Colonist last evening I would have never known of this.   In my view this should have been on every front page, a lead item on every newscast.

Perhaps we need to take this seriously. There are facets of this that are troubling. There is the state security force running covert ops against Canadians in conjunction with our national spy agency... all in anticipation of possible future events.

I don't know about you but I've learned not to trust the RCMP even when they act overtly. When four of them put an innocent man to death in front of bystanders and then lie their asses off about it, why would anyone trust them when they operate covertly? And CSIS has shown no respect for democratic or human rights. Yet these two agencies are to be covertly set upon the Canadian public?

The RCMP has been significantly corrupted by Harper beginning with the defeat of Paul Martin in which Commissioner Zaccardelli interceded with the announcement of an investigation into Ralph Goodale that, after the election was skewed, proved to be without any substance. So shameless were his actions that "Zac" later refused to answer any questions about what he did and why.  The top cop refused to account for his actions. Then Harper appointed a professional Tory fixer and bureaucrat to be an ersatz Commissioner. More recently he had the latest top stooge become a political water carrier to write to provincial firearms officers over a law that had already been rescinded in case provinces might choose to act in that constitutional void. Add all that up and you have enough reason to suspect the RCMP leadership has transformed the national police force into a partisan political security apparatus.

It speaks volumes that Harper has created this agency and set them to work when there has been no cause. Wiebo Ludwig was an isolated situation involving sour gas and he's dead. What this secret state security, STASI-like operation focuses on is prying into law abiding dissidents who have done no wrong whatsoever.

You can safely assume that particularly vocal opponents of the Tar Sands, the Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan pipelines and the supertanker traffic that will endanger the B.C. coast north to south, will be going on their lists, will be kept under state surveillance. Dossiers will be opened, updated, reviewed, collated and carefully filed.  After all, environmentalism is now deemed a precursor to terrorism.  And you can be very sure that information will be shared with Big Oil and, through the PMO, the Conservative Party. It's a great trick to use tax dollars to construct political enemies lists. It's low, even despicable, but that's of no moment to a reprobate like Stephen Harper or those who do his unprincipled bidding.


Update - Maybe I'll be on one of those lists soon.   This post has already been read by people from the House of Commons and Government Services and an earlier post pondering how close are we to irreversible climate change has been visited by the RCMP.

Shouldn't the RCMP Mind Its Own, Long-Neglected Business?

I have found it puzzling that the Commissioner of the RCMP, the federal top cop, is writing letters to provincial chief firearms officers (CFOs) warning them not to start setting up provincial long gun registries.

First of all, isn't this a matter for the guy who oversaw the scrapping of the federal long gun registry, Vic Toews?  If Toews doesn't like what they're doing, don't we have courts to handle that sort of complaint?

I'm not sure Toews would succeed if he took it to court and I'm guessing he's got his doubts too.   When the feds chose to legislate provisions for the registration of long guns, the courts upheld the federal power concluding that the act had a valid criminal law purpose because control of firearms had traditionally been a criminal law purpose.  In that case Alberta was arguing the jurisdiction was theirs, not Ottawa's, under the "property and civil rights" power.

But what's never been tested, certainly not to my knowledge, is today's situation in which the federal government has specifically chosen not to legislate controls over ownership and registration of long guns.   In other words, those matters are no longer what could be termed an "occupied field" which might then give rise to a right on the part of provinces to maintain their own long gun registries along the same lines as the federal registry only without the same criminal law sanctions.   There are other ways to skin that cat.

Yet that's for our courts to decide if Vic Toews really believes he's right.   To me, there's something eerily politicized in the federal top cop jumping into this fray.  It's his job to enforce the law, not meddle in laws that have ceased to exist.

We've had enough politicking by the RCMP going back to Zaccardelli's apparent gambit to skew the election against Martin by smearing Ralph Goodale in mid-campaign.    The level of confidence and trust in the RCMP in my province is at rock bottom, coming in around 30%, and for very good reasons.  Maybe the Commissioner should concentrate on restoring some integrity and public respect in his own force and forget about being Vic Toews' water boy.

Mountie Corporal Monty Guilty of Obstruction

RCMP corporal Monty Robinson, has been convicted of obstruction of justice in killing motorcyclist Orion Hutchinson in October, 2008.  Robinson was one of the RCMP officers at Vancouver Airport who killed Robert Dziekanski in 2009.

After hitting Hutchison with his SUV, Robinson gathered up his kids and walked home where he proceeded to drink hard liquor, supposedly to calm his nerves.   Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillion didn't buy that line, finding that Robinson knew damned well that getting some more booze in him would prevent him from being charged with drunk driving and worse.  Robinson was bringing his kids home from a birthday party where he'd consumed five beers.

Obstruction is a pretty mild charge for a guy who killed a motorist in these circumstances but Robinson knew what he was doing. 

Elliott Faces Withdrawal Under Fire

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.

The Bubble Bursts - Elliot to Step Down as RCMP Commish

William Elliott is packing it in.  He'll resign as Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.   Elliott's resignation takes effect this summer.

Elliott (or "Bubbles" as we called him in law school) has had a controversial, even tumultuous ride as the first civilian commissioner of the force.  The Mounties had their share and more of scandal and disgrace during Elliott's three and a half year reign.   The worst episode was unquestionably the Dziekanski killing at the hands of four officers at Vancouver airport.   Then there were stories of Elliott's reputed hot temper and abusive nature which led to some sort of personality rehab.  Atop that was a near mutiny of top RCMP brass.

Elliott has resisted demands that he step down now, saying it would only leave the country in a state of chaos leading to a takeover by Islamic radicals.

Greenpeace has Hill Mounties Going For Their Guns

Apparently Greenpeace activists so rattled the RCMP last December when they scaled the Centre and West Blocks on Parliament Hill to unfurl banners that someone has decided the Mounties need to pack automatic assault rifles. This bizarre report from the Toronto Star:

Senator Colin Kenny, former chair of the Senate defence and security committee, said the extra firepower makes sense in a scenario where “someone is on a rampage.”

“Bluntly put, it is hard as hell to hit someone with a handgun,” Kenny said.

Someone is on a rampage? Greenpeace? What does Kenny have in mind? Maybe the RCMP pressure washing the rooftops clean of protesters with automatic weapon fire?

Look, if there's a credible threat that warrants Hill mounties patrolling with automatic weapons, let's hear about it. Force is one of those things that really ought to be justified before it's deployed. There should be a clear understanding of what's being used, how it's to be used and in what conditions before it hits the street. Remember, we're talking about the RCMP and we've all seen the video of how trigger happy they can get when the have to square off, four on one, against a fat, middle-aged man with a stapler, right?

Blaming the Victim - Mountie-Style

Robert Dziekanski was derided as a "whackjob" by the lawyer for Kwesi Millington, the RCMP constable who tasered Dziekanski to death at Vancouver airport.

Ravi Hira, the lawyer for Const. Kwesi Millington, stressed witness accounts that paint Dziekanski as a "whackjob" and an "unusual passenger" and made constant reference to potential alcoholism.

"It's relevant to perhaps the cause of death. It's relevant to perhaps his actions. It's relevant to why he acted the way he did," Hira said after commissioner Thomas Braidwood questioned his approach during closing submissions.

All the while, a heartbroken Cisowski twisted and turned in her seat at every remark and had to be restrained at times by her victims' services handler.

"Oh my God," she cried. "Oh my gosh."

Public observers at the inquiry offered their support to the grieving mother, who confessed listening to the remarks was "so upsetting."

So that's what it's come down to. The officers' defence is going to be that Dziekanski got what he had coming to him. His death was his own doing. Isn't that the same thing they said about Ian Bush when they blew his brains out with a bullet to the back of his head while in police custody?

Well Duh! RCMP Shouldn't Investigate RCMP

We needed a report to understand this?

The RCMP Commissioner for Public Complaints, Paul Kennedy, has found it's "inappropriate" for RCMP members to investigate fellow RCMP members when allegations of sexual assault or incidents of serious harm or death come up.

Kennedy cited the Dziekanski fiasco and the case of 22-year old Ian Bush shot in the back of his head in "self-defence" by an RCMP officer while already in custody. There, 'fellow' RCMP officers waited seven months to interrogate the shooter and submitted written questions in advance to the shooter and his lawyer.

It's pretty hard these days to trust the RCMP to carry out their normal policing duties much less to trust them to tell the truth about it later. The idea of officers of this demonstrated character investigating their own is one very dark farce.

It's the RCMP. What Did He Expect - The Truth?

Four high-level drug figures have walked because RCMP officers misled the court when they got their initial warrants and lied again when the matter came up in court.

Mr. Justice Peter Leask, a very sharp legal mind, ordered wiretap evidence obtained via the warrants inadmissible and, with that, the Crown folded its case. Leask didn't mince words. He found the officers misled the judge who granted the wiretap warrants and then lied to his court as they tried to explain away the false statements in their wiretap affidavits.

So the mounties got caught lying their asses off under oath, so what else is new? Sadly, here's something else that's getting old. Responding to the judge's ruling, an RCMP spokesman said the force is very concerned about Justice Leask's findings, so concerned that they're going to close ranks as usual and see if they can appeal. Not a word about taking a hard look at fellow officers who have broken the law, sullied the force and breached their duty to the Canadian public. I mean it's not as though they shot some unarmed kid in the back of the head in self-defence or Tasered some unfortunate to death in an airport.

Cleaning up the RCMP is Harper's responsibility. Seems that neither the prime minister nor the Tory apparatchik he appointed RCMP commissioner has much interest in doing that. Sad, really.

Tasers Worthwhile Sometimes - Well, Duh!

It happened in a park in Surrey, B.C. on Thursday night. Officer responds to call about drunken teenager wielding a knife. Hears an argument. Confronts the 15-year old who has his hands behind his back. Kid brings his hand forward revealing a 15-cm. blade. When the suspect refuses to drop the weapon, cop stuns him with a single taser burst. Problem over.

Afterward, RCMP spokesman Sergeant Roger Morrow jumps all over the incident. "Despite all of the discussion and to some degree controversy over the use of Tasers, they are a very valuable weapon."

Memo to Morrow: the controversy is over the improper use of Tasers, not where they're employed like this as an alternative to a firearm. Please tell me that a sergeant in the RCMP grasps that distinction. Please?

RCMP Commish Elliott Apologizes. Really?

It took almost two years, a bystander's video of a killing, a judicial inquiry and a senate committee hearing but, finally, RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott has apologized for the death of Robert Dziekanski at the hands of four officers at Vancouver airport in October, 2007.

"We are very sorry for Mr. Dziekanski's death, and are committed to learning as much as possible from this terrible event," he told the upper chamber's committee on defence and national security.

"We must continuously strive to learn and to improve."

Somehow an apology from Elliott seems a little late, rings a bit hollow. I suspect Elliott has figured out the mauling his RCMP is about to receive from inquiry commissioner, Justice Tom Braidwood, and he sees a vision of blood on the floor, some of it perhaps his own.

In terms of damage control it's hard to imagine that the RCMP, from the Commissioner's office on down, could have made a worse mess of it. Knowing they had seriously misled the public with their account of the killing and doing nothing to correct their falsehoods until their hand was forced at the inquiry speaks of a culture of arrogance, indifference to the Canadian public and an utter lack of remorse at having taken this man's life. The close look at these officers provided by the inquiry has been anything but confidence building.

No, I think Elliott's apology should be chucked where it belongs - in the circular file.