bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 4 / Vol. 12, No. 1 (1995) — Spring 1995 // Printemps 1995, pp. 90–91
ABOVE THE LAW. THE CROOKS, THE
POLITICIANS, THE MOUNTIES, AND ROD
STAMLER by Paul Palango, McClelland &
Stewart, 314 pp., $29.99.
Reviewed by John Starnes
It is a disappointing, sometimes misleading book. The author leaves the unfortunate impression that he allowed himself to become captive to his sources who, among other things, appear to have tried to use him to settle old scores. The author’s most important failure is to make the case, in the rather breathless words on the dust jacket that, “A once proud and independent police force had been leashed by its self-proclaimed political masters.” There is no documentary or other convincing proof offered to support this statement of the more serious allegation that RCMP Commissioner Inkster and his immediate predecessor leaked sensitive information about police investigations of politicians to cabinet ministers. At times the book reads rather like a 14th or 15th century morality play but with none of the clarity of language or purpose bout de papier characteristic of such medieval entertainment. In a more modern context, the characters and the plots are reminiscent of the TV program Batman; the good guys and the bad guys. In real life, of course, nothing is so simple or black and white. The book suffers from an evident lack of research. I found it especially irritating that there are no end-notes, and there are far too many minor inaccuracies. For example, on page 15 Palango writes: “the RCMP’s Security Service had burned a barn and broken into Parti Québécois headquarters; the McDonald Commission had been set up to investigate; and I was starting to realize just how the commission’s recommendations had really affected the RCMP’s ability to do its job.”
At times the book reads rather like a 14th or 15th century morality play but with none of the clarity of language or purpose characteristic of such medieval entertainment. In a more modern context, the characters and the plots are reminiscent of the TV program Batman.
The specific inaccuracy about Parti Québécois headquarters is repeated on page 193; “There had been break-ins, including one at the headquarters of the separatist Parti Québécois in search of a list of supporters.” Even a cursory study of the McDonald Commission’s reports and newspaper accounts of their proceedings would have shown the author that Parti Québécois headquarters was not involved but rather Les Messageries Dynamiques (Les Éditions Peladeau), a commercial enterprise, one of whose clients was the Parti Québécois. On page 243 there is a more substantial inaccuracy when Palango writs; “on Sep 1, 1987 Norman Inkster became the eighteenth commissioner and the deputy solicitor general.’ (The emphasis is mine). The record shows that on that day the deputy solicitor general was John Tait who was appointed to the position in August, 1986. He remained in the appointment until October, 1988 when he was succeeded by Joseph Standford in November of that year. Any number of reference books could have established the facts for the author. The contention that Inkster was appointed a deputy minister is interesting and perhaps significant given the curious thesis advanced subsequently that Inkster’s ability to act as commissioner somehow was sullied by this. I can find nothing to support Palango’s contentions or his statement on page 203, “The commission’s recommendation was that the commissioner of the RCMP be a deputy-commissioner. Since deputy-ministers are the prime minister’s appointment and directly serve the prime minister, the net effect would be to convert the RCMP from a police force into a government department.” Recommendation 255 (McDonald Commission, Second Report, Vol II) proposed the exact opposite; “We recommend that the Deputy Solicitor General be considered as the deputy of the Solicitor General for all purposes related to the RCMP and that the Commissioner of the RCMP report directly to the Deputy Solicitor General rather than to the Solicitor General as at present.” The author makes no attempt to explain that the recommendations of a Royal Commission are no more than recommendations and to have any force must be approved by the government of the day and, if necessary, eventually must be approved by Parliament. The principal recommendation to separate the security/intelligence function of the RCMP from the rest of its responsibilities was accepted and after some delay resulted in the CSIS Act. By no means were all of the recommendations accepted. It is sheer nonsense to argue that, “since deputy ministers are the prime minister’s appointment they directly serve the prime minister” and that, if the commissioner had been appointed deputy minister, “the net effect would be to convert the RCMP from a police force into a government department.”
The author has a seriously flawed understanding of how the upper echelons of the federal bureaucracy interact and of the delicate, complicated nature of the relationship existing between senior public servants and cabinet ministers. It may explain why the book generally is so far off the mark. Of course there are tensions and differences between cabinet ministers and their senior public servants! Given that they are human, how could it be otherwise? But to claim in an aggrieved tone that the right of the prime minister to make order-in-council appointments somehow made the RCMP subject to his political will is rubbish. Every RCMP commissioner since Confederation has been appointed by order-in-council and there are literally hundreds of other such appointments, from royal commissioners and ambassadors to the chairman of the National Farm Marketing Products Council. I guess that because of Norman Inkster’s personal attributes, the level of his emoluments, his ranking in the senior executive ranks of the bureaucracy and the size of the RCMP (a two billion dollar plus budget and over twenty thousand employees) and the national scope of its work he was recognized by his peers, senior public servants and ministers as having the status of a deputy and was treated accordingly as are certain other senior public servants.
The best parts of the book are the reasonably well-written accounts of various criminal investigations pursued over the years by the RCMP. The worst parts of the book concern unconvincing arguments attempting to show that the RCMP allowed its criminal investigations to be influenced by political considerations and that this trend was the result of recommendations made by the McDonald Commission which was established principally to look into certain activities of the RCMP Security Service. Palango writes that at one point in his career, Rod Stamler, his principal source, considered joining the Security Service. “What it came down to for Stamler was that SS (sic) work had little, if anything, to do with the enforcement of the law.” It is a pity that Stamler did not join the Security Service. Had he done so the author’s comments might have been better informed. Palango ignores the fact that while there are fundamental differences between a security service and a police force there are a great many similarities in operational techniques and in the fact that politicians are no less likely to attempt to interfere in the work of a security service than they are in the conduct of some criminal investigation of particular interest to them or their party, as various documents concerning the security service recently released under the Access to Information Act demonstrate. The only truly effective weapon against such interference which the RCMP commissioner or the head of CSIS possess is to threaten to resign and to make public their reasons for so doing. Such threats have been made from time to time. For example, the ninth commissioner, L.H. Nicholson, resigned in March, 1959 for such a reason.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 4 / Vol. 12, No. 1 (1995) — Spring 1995 // Printemps 1995, pp. 90–91. Read the rest of this issue →
