For Your Information

History of RCMP Wrongdoing

In the wake of the release of Justice O’Connor’s report about RCMP misconduct towards Maher Arar, several commentators have suggested that the problem is RCMP lack of experience in intelligence activities. Better training for RCMP members, it has been suggested, is needed now that the RCMP’s responsibilities have been expanded to include intelligence and espionage since September 11, 2001. Improved training is being proposed as a way to “prevent further Maher Arars”. However, presenting this as the solution completely ignores the experience of previous RCMP intelligence operations. The following are some of the most well-known examples of RCMP wrongdoing.

The Samson Affair

In August 1974, RCMP Security Service member Robert Samson blew off part of his hand in the course of planting a bomb near a Quebec supermarket. Testifying in court about his activities, Samson confessed he had been planting the bomb to try and provoke a government crackdown on a strike by supermarket workers. During the course of his cross examination, Samson told the court he had done “much worse” for the RCMP. The scandal which followed included Samson admitting he had broken into the headquarters of the Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec on the night of October 6, 1972, stealing documents and ransacking the building. He also admitted to stealing Parti Quebecois membership lists. After the election of a PQ government in 1976, Quebec established the Keable commission to investigate RCMP activities against the sovereignty movement. In large part to preempt that Keable commission, the Trudeau government set up its own commission to investigate RCMP actions.

McDonald Commission on RCMP wrongdoing

The McDonald Commission into Acts Carried out by the RCMP was established in 1977. Chaired by Mr. Justice D.C. McDonald, the commission investigated over 290 allegations of RCMP attacks and violations against left-wing groups during the 1960s and 1970s. The McDonald commission released its report in 1981. However, one volume of the commission’s report has never been publicly released, with successive governments citing national security concerns. The report stated “no officials should be above the law” and that “the investigation of subversive activity [may] not interfere with the freedoms of political dissent and association which are essential ingredients of a free society.” It was the McDonald commission which recommended that intelligence gathering be removed from the RCMP’s mandate. This led to the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Amongst the published findings of the McDonald Commission:

- RCMP agents had infiltrated political and social organizations, including political parties.

- These infiltrators were involved with the theft of dynamite and other explosives.

- RCMP Security Service agents burned down a barn that was supposed to be the site of a meeting between the Black Panthers and the FLQ.

- RCMP agents were involved in mail theft.

- The RCMP had compiled dossiers on tens of thousands of Canadians.

- Besides engaging in “dirty tricks” to discredit the revolutionary movement, the RCMP participated in and assisted the Central Intelligence Agency “in offensive activities in Canada”.

APEC – November 1997

During the period leading up to the APEC conference in Vancouver in November 1997, the RCMP infiltrated, spied on and tried to incite violence on the part of anti-globalization groups organizing anti-APEC protests. A report published in 1998 in the Vancouver Sun found the RCMP had also assembled dossiers on members of these groups and circulated photos of those they identified as potential threats, possibly to external security and police forces. John Russell and Andrew Irvine of the BC Civil Liberties Association, writing in response to the newspaper report, noted that besides illustrating a “shocking failure on the part of the RCMP to properly appreciate the nature and importance of the free speech and privacy rights of Canadian citizens”, the RCMP’s tactics around the summit “also raise important questions about RCMP intelligence gathering.”

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