After three years and more than $25-million, it is inexplicable that the commissioners did not do a deeper dive into how the RCMP was structured.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 3, 2023.

OTTAWA–The final report of the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission came up with 130 recommendations to prevent a future massacre.

Not a single recommendation was costed. Nor was there any advice on whether the current contracting system of the RCMP is effective.

According to the commissioners, it is the job of governments to cost and deliver on their recommendations. It is also the job of governments to review contractual arrangements that provide the basis for RCMP operations in Nova Scotia.

Solutions that have no cost attached to them are going to be somewhat problematic to implement, and refusing to weigh in on the RCMP structure is inexplicable.

There was also much attention paid to gender-based violence and the need for society to tackle it.

The commission chair suggested at the press conference that men need to be humble and seek help.

He spoke about educating the perpetrators. But that is a question that is much deeper and broader than anything that can be accomplished by police forces, and it certainly did not need three years of study to reach a vapid conclusion on gender-based violence.

The commission blamed the slaughter on an inexcusable lack of communication prompted by a systemic failure in the RCMP.

There was a tweet sent out by police during the attacks, but it did not mention anything about the replica police vehicle. It also underplayed the incident, claiming police were dealing with a firearms issue.

The commission also recommended that there should be a national alert system to inform all citizens if, God forbid, a similar massacre should happen again.

Apparently, local police forces knew how to activate an alert-ready emergency, but the RCMP said it did not know how to operate the messaging system.

The commission also focused on changing the culture at the RCMP.

Likewise, this isn’t the first time that an outside body has asked for a change to the culture of the RCMP.

Former RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki made culture change her top priority, and she was knee-capped from within her own organization. Some of her colleagues appeared quite happy to publicly and regularly undercut the first woman to head the RCMP.

One report finding was a criticism that the RCMP didn’t make efforts to alert residents of threat. They were too focused on finding the gunman.

In retrospect, that is an obvious conclusion. But the reality of tracking a killer is that police are supposed to be focused on finding and neutralizing the gunman.

At the time, the police were also dealing with fires that had been set by the gunman, and houses burning down while the assailant moved through communities in a fake police vehicle on his murderous mission.

The communications gaps in the police handling of the massacre were widely documented.

The most glaring error is that the police did not let citizens know that a fake police vehicle was being used by the assailant.

The lack of that information undoubtedly led to many victims assuming that an approaching police vehicle was there to help them avoid the assailant.

Instead, they were slaughtered.

But at the end of the day, the key question is all about the sharing of information. In normal police operations, secrecy is paramount. In many instances, less communication is considered better.

So, it may be understandable that public communication of the situation was not the top priority of those few police officers who were in the field trying to track down the attacker.

The commission did not make any recommendations on changing the system of contract policing under which the Nova Scotia RCMP currently operates.

At the March 30 press conference, they defended that omission, saying that decision was a political one and they felt it should be made by politicians.

But after three years and more than $25-million, it is inexplicable that the commissioners did not do a deeper dive into how the RCMP was structured.

The commission roundly condemned the RCMP and suggested their historical RCMP Depot training system should be replaced by university degrees in policing within a few years. Again, no cost on that.

The messages on gender and domestic violence have been repeated ad nauseum, but do not necessarily lead to solutions.

Asking violent men to “seek help” sounds like a great idea, but when you are dealing with a crazed gunman, he is probably not going to follow that advice.

The commission delivered decent recommendations on bullets and gun ownership changes, but it did little to prevent future massacres.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Foreign interference allegations are not limited to China. Recent reports of Russian interference have also surfaced. Politics is always a messy business. With identity politics, it will get even messier.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 20, 2023.

OTTAWA—Surprise, surprise: the first political casualty of the Chinese interference allegations was an Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP. Vincent Ke resigned last week from the PC caucus, despite characterizing the allegations as “false and defamatory.”

Ke tweeted his departure. “While the Global News allegations about me are false and defamatory, I do not want to be a distraction to the government and take away from the good work Premier Ford is doing for the province of Ontario.”

Global has been at the forefront of leaked stories about financial links between the Chinese government and Chinese-Canadian members of parliament.

Leaks are reported to be coming from inside the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The RCMP has been investigating the leak’s source, according to other news reports.

During last year’s provincial election, the Ontario Provincial Police was asked by the Liberal Party of Ontario to investigate the incorporation of 15 companies or associations associated with Ke.

Ke established the corporations after his election to the legislature in 2018.

At the time, Ontario Premier Doug Ford defended Ke, saying that several incorporations included non-profit cultural associations.

Ford defended his MPP’s exit last week in a statement. “Not proven, they [allegations] are serious and deserve his full and undivided attention as he works to clear his name.”

Identity politics will also take centre stage in upcoming federal investigations into electoral foreign interference.

By choosing former governor-general David Johnston to head a probe into foreign meddling, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has managed to secure an individual with impeccable credentials.

Appointed governor general by then-prime minister Stephen Harper, Johnston managed to secure broad public support during his seven-year tenure.

However, his nomination was criticized by the Conservatives because, after retirement, he volunteered for the Trudeau Foundation.

Johnston has his work cut out for him. Foreign interference allegations are not limited to China.

Recent reports of Russian interference have also surfaced.

Politics is always a messy business.

With identity politics, it will get even messier.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Whatever happens in the RCMP action, Senator Mike Duffy considers this public pursuit of justice the cornerstone of his time in Parliament, which will come to end in the Upper Chamber on May 27 when he retires.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 15, 2021.

Senator Mike Duffy has come to the end of his quest to clear his name, as he lost the chance to take his case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Last week, Duffy and lawyer Lawrence Greenspon visited the top court in the land to make their case for recuperating almost $8-million in lost salary, costs, and legal expenses.

Duffy was trying to overturn an Ontario court decision that ruled Duffy’s Senate suspension could not be challenged as it was protected by parliamentary privilege.

On Feb. 11, the Supreme Court turned down his application.

But Duffy still plans to continue his civil suit against the RCMP because, according to his lawyer, the police conducted a negligent investigation, and refused to allow Duffy to present his side of the story.

Greenspon told the media that the police also refused to allow Duffy to present emails and written evidence that could have prevented him from ever being charged criminally in the first place.

Those charges were ultimately thrown out, and the judge in the case pointedly stated that the Prime Minister’s Office should have been hauled to court, instead of the Senator, since the PMO spearheaded the strategy to discredit him.

And in that respect, the PMO was very successful.

According to his lawyer, “Everyone knows that Mike Duffy’s reputation has been forever ruined.”

Greenspon also argued that the Senate refused to reimburse Duffy for lost salary and legal fees, even after he was declared innocent in a court of law.

The civil suit also targets the RCMP because, according to Greenspon, the police carried out a negligent investigation, refusing to allow Duffy to present his side of the story, replete with emails and evidence that could have cleared his name before charges were ever laid.

Whatever happens in the RCMP action, Duffy considers this public pursuit of justice the cornerstone of his time in Parliament.

Sadly, for most people, the Duffy story is past history and there is too much confusion about the rules to care.

Once a popular journalist, his career spanned more than three decades.

CBC News journalist Rosemary Barton, interviewing Greenspon about the case, characterized the ridicule Duffy suffered as the price to be paid for public life.

In one sense, she is correct. Once Duffy crossed over from the media to politics, he certainly could expect more scrutiny and criticism.

Duffy’s ascendence to the Senate was part of a lifelong dream. Liberal and Conservative governments always jokingly referred to him as Senator, even when he hosted his popular political news show for CTV.

Duffy wasn’t the first journalist to cross the floor. CTV colleague Jim Munson was appointed by prime minister Jean Chrétien. Duffy was also joined by Pamela Wallin, who was also appointed by prime minister Stephen Harper and who also subsequently drummed out of the Conservative caucus.

Other journalists ended up in the governor general’s chair, including Adrienne Clarkson from the CBC and Michaëlle Jean from Radio Canada.

When journalists move into politics, they make a clean break from their former colleagues and might even face more criticism because they have gone from being the hunter to being the hunted.

Had Duffy remained in journalism, he would have joined the ranks of the revered, following in the footsteps of Barbara Frum, Lloyd Robertson and Peter Mansbridge. All three spent their lives in journalism and were recognized for integrity and journalistic clarity.

They never faced the criticism that follows in the wake of every political partisan.

Duffy cannot rewrite the past.

In retrospect, he probably did not realize how rough politics could turn out to be. Observing from the outside, it is hard to understand that an internal party fight can be the most damaging battle of all.

Duffy was welcomed into the Tory caucus as a star. He was a guest speaker in multiple ridings and usually drew a bigger crowd than most of the ministers.

But when the Prime Minister’s Office set out on a campaign to discredit the Senate, it mattered little that he was one of their star performers.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

And Duffy was as big as they get.

He won’t get too many supporters in his quest to clear his name. Of course, most Senators would simply like this messy chapter to disappear.

But the Duff owes it to his wife and family, and many friends across the country, to continue his fight.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Modern technology makes campaigns easier to organize but also easier to infiltrate.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 29, 2020.

OTTAWA—The internal warfare in the Conservative leadership is heating up.

Accusations of espionage surfaced last week when an unnamed student employee of Erin O’Toole was fired for allegedly leaking information to the Peter MacKay camp.

Modern technology makes campaigns easier to organize but also easier to infiltrate.

The alleged offence involved a claim that MacKay’s team secured videotapes of high-level Zoom meetings held by the O’Toole team across the country.

Neither side should be that surprised about a dirty tricks campaign.

Internal party nominations are always rife with malfeasance because the level of outside oversight is non-existent.

Only the party can investigate wrongdoing, and any party is hesitant to bring disrepute unto itself.

So political parties go to great lengths to deny or obscure internal shenanigans.

In the olden days, the strategy was to try and disrupt delegate selection meetings in each riding.

That involved doing your level best to encourage supporters to get to the meetings and doing everything possible to discourage other teams’ supporters from doing the same.

People would use every form of dirty tricks.

Some that have happened in the Liberal Party include disabling old-style telephone booths by plugging gum into the phone, supergluing the door locks of opponents’ offices on the day of the vote, and even bugging an opponent’s office to secure valuable confidential information. Hacking or even theft of computers has also been used to secure clandestine details about the opponent’s campaign strategy.

The new Zoom world makes it possible, even ridiculously easy, to garner information right down to the tiniest organizational detail by simply getting a full video of every meeting.

That security gap is one reason that many companies choose not to avail themselves of the Zoom platform but instead use encrypted offerings to manage the increasing number of post-COVID virtual meeting operations.

But political campaigns do not have the same financial leverage as large corporations. The Zoom platform is virtually free if the meetings end in less than 40 minutes, so they provide an ideal platform for cross country communications.

In the olden days, the biggest part of a campaign expense would-be long-distance phone charges. Now in the world of voice over internet protocol, it is virtually free to connect with all parts of the country.

But that also opens the door to more intraparty espionage.

And as the Conservative leadership vote is going to happen by mail, the opportunity to contact every voter early can be a huge advantage.

The deadline for the postal ballot is Aug. 21 and the opportunity to purchase a membership ended May 15.

From mid-May until voting day, all candidates will be trying to encourage switchers to come onboard.

So, access to information is obviously important in building targeted campaign messaging.

But an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is probably not the sort of campaign messaging that the MacKay team was hoping for.

MacKay’s people insisted the violations were the work of a single individual, and not part of a larger strategy.

But O’Toole’s team countered with a question as to why two internet providers in Calgary and Toronto were involved in hacking and recording more than 140 separate Zoom videos.

The police will get to the bottom of the story. Whatever the outcome, there will be some damage done to the MacKay campaign.

Many party members are ideologues, who believe in the power of Conservative values, but vehemently oppose illegal activity.

Some of them will no doubt be raising eyebrows over the allegations.

MacKay supporters may simply discount the claim as sour grapes from a losing candidate. That is no doubt how the MacKay team will be trying to explain the issue internally.

But the ferocity of the dust-up also shows that Conservatives believe the winner could actually form a government.

The stakes are high, so both sides are baring their knuckles.

Not long ago, it appeared that the Tories were doomed to spend a decade in opposition. With Andrew Scheer at the helm, it was simple for the Liberals and New Democrats to tag Tories as anti-women and anti-gay.

The picture is much different with this leadership race. O’Toole made it very clear during the leader’s debate that he favoured a women’s right to choose and supported the rights of gays and lesbians.

MacKay unsuccessfully tried to cast himself as the only social liberal in the race.

Both are positioning themselves to move to the centre at the end of the Tory convention.

And that could spell trouble for Liberals.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 16, 2019.

OTTAWA—The Justin Trudeau campaign plane being hit by the media bus could be a metaphor for his campaign. Or not.

It depends on the success of what appears to be a campaign by The Globe and Mail to keep the SNC-Lavalin story on the front page.

The first two official days of the race have been dominated by stories of fresh, anonymous claims in the ongoing story involving allegations of undue pressure on former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Globe’s Ottawa bureau chief Bob Fife tweeted that RCMP interviews earlier last week with Jody Wilson-Raybould were “to discuss political interference in SNC criminal prosecution.”

The only person who publicly claimed she participated in a recent RCMP interview is Wilson-Raybould. The Liberal leader’s office issued a statement saying no one on their team has been contacted or interviewed.

Wilson-Raybould had initially testified before the House Justice Committee that there was nothing illegal in the interventions of the prime minister and his officials on the issue of SNC-Lavalin.

But, according to The Globe, she appears to have revised that opinion, now claiming that the ethics commissioner’s report opened new questions. “I believe the public deserves to know and to have full knowledge of this matter.”

She will no doubt have more to say on the matter when she launches her book this week.

The unschooled observer might be forgiven for thinking that an RCMP interview of Wilson-Raybould constitutes an investigation.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer jumped on The Globe story, falsely claiming on television and in tweets that the RCMP has opened an investigation into possible obstruction of justice.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Globe was careful not use the word “investigation.” Instead, it focused on the fact that police went to Vancouver to interview the former attorney general.

But travelling to a former minister’s riding to take a statement is a well-established police protocol.

The RCMP has interviewed me several times during my life in politics. Sometimes, it was at my request. Sometimes the police initiated the interview.

When they come to your office to take a statement, that action does not constitute an investigation.

The RCMP does not take statements by phone. So if the former minister called them to provide further information, after telephone contact, she would always be interviewed in person.

The Globe story did not clarify who initiated the “several telephone conversations” that precipitated the in-person interview.

Some believe, present company included, that The Globe is ginning up the story in tandem with Wilson-Raybould and her advisers, in an effort to do maximum damage to the electioneering Liberals.

It remains to be seen what impact these confusing RCMP claims will have on the election trajectory.

Some polls say Canadians have already made up their minds on the actions of all parties in the SNC-Lavalin deferred prosecution agreement question. Whether they support Trudeau or Wilson-Raybould, the issue has already been factored into their voting intentions.

But the explosive headlines on the first two days of the campaign could change that.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the spectre of an RCMP investigation was used to sow uncertainty during an election campaign.

Back in 2006, RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli faxed a letter to an NDP MP, confirming that the force had commenced a criminal investigation into budget leaks from the Finance Department headed by Ralph Goodale, named in the communication.

Stephen Harper won that election. In the end, Goodale was completely exonerated but a departmental official was charged.

Some say the letter from Zaccardelli literally changed the outcome of the election. Up until that point the Liberals had been leading in voter intentions.

One only has to look at the last election in the United States, where a judicial intervention in the last 11 days of the debate changed the outcome of the election.

FBI director James Comey’s letter in the dying days of the American election had a lasting impact on democracy.

His announced reopening of a stale-dated investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was the likely tipping point in securing Donald Trump’s election victory.

At the time, Comey claimed he acted because polls showed Clinton would win and he did not want to be accused of concealing relevant information.

To avoid undue election influence, the RCMP has announced it will not be investigating anything during the writ period. That fact was buried in The Globe story.

Front-paging a self-generated police interview makes great headlines.

Time will tell whether the story influences the election result.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.