Mr. Chair, like a number of the other speakers this evening, I too wish to express publicly on behalf of myself and my party our sincere regrets for the loss of the lives of Peter Schiemann, Leo Johnston, Anthony Gordon and Brock Myrol.
These murders were profoundly shocking to the country. We have not seen this type of overwhelming tragedy and loss in our police forces for well over 100 years. Arguably, any time in the past when we lost this many RCMP officers it was in a military action, not in a police action as was occurring in Mayerthorpe earlier this year.
As I was preparing for this evening I could not help but think of the commemorative service that we had in Windsor. In fact, Peter Schiemann's uncle is a Presbyterian minister in Windsor. He officiated at the commemorative services. He told us in the course of the service, as is so often with our police officers that they act way beyond their absolute responsibilities in doing extra work. In this case, Constable Schiemann was not even on duty. He had stopped by to spend some time with his colleagues. As a result he was trapped and ultimately murdered.
That type of dedication of our officers so often, generally, goes without recognition by our society. We all believe that we do whatever we can to support our police officers. I suppose our responsibility here as policy-makers is to continue that responsibility in that role as policy-makers.
In the last year or so I believe there have been a number of incidents in various ways that have drawn to our attention the dependency that we have on the RCMP and its extreme responsibilities. That was even more heightened after 9/11 and the added responsibilities it took on at that point to deal with the issue of terrorism, both domestically and in our relationships with other countries, particularly the United States.
There have been, quite frankly, a number of criticisms of both the government and the senior members of the RCMP, muted I think most of the time, but it raises questions as to whether it is not a time, and maybe these deaths in Alberta have re-emphasized this, that we may be at one of those periods of time when a broader oversight should be taken of the role that the RCMP plays in our country. Should it in fact be expanded? Should greater consideration be given to the role between the RCMP, the commissioner and the government?
It was interesting to listen to the Deputy Prime Minister earlier this evening discussing that, She was taking, as she has on a number of occasions, an absolutist position, that the present relationship between what used to be the solicitor general and is now the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness should be at quite some arm's length.
I know that this has been a friction point between the minister and the justice committee, and in particular over the closing of the detachments in Quebec. I must say that I could not help but feel on a number of occasions that the minister was misapprehending her responsibility.
It was interesting to listen to my colleague from the Bloc. He was the former minister in the province of Quebec responsible for police forces. He played a much more activist role, without interfering with the day to day operations and nobody is suggesting we do that, in the setting of policy and particularly in combating organized crime.
He and his government brought about some shifts and similar activities are being carried on in the province of Manitoba by the minister responsible for police in the fight that Manitoba is waging against organized crime. Innovative criteria and policy are being put in place, but a good deal of that is being driven by the political master, not left exclusively to the senior administration of the police forces in those provinces.
That comment is in no way a criticism of our police forces. The point being made is that there are times when it is appropriate that the policy-makers and legislators take positions and then see that they are implemented at the policy level.
At this point I am going to speak specifically about the decision that has been made, which occurred in Ontario first and is now in Quebec, to close detachments. That happened to a number of detachments in Ontario. It is clear from listening to the commissioner, when he appeared before the justice committee on a number of occasions, that these decisions were made based on a policy that, quite frankly, we have adopted from another country. I cannot remember right now, but a policy that in effect was saying we would concentrate our efforts in larger metropolitan areas and in effect leave the policing at the local level to local police forces.
The problem with this is that it reminded me of the decisions that were made by local police forces both in Canada and the United States in the mid and late fifties when we stopped community policing and moved police officers into police cars. It was sort of a high tech advance at the time. That policy proved to be a disaster in a number of major cities in the United States.
I cannot help but think that if that decision had been made not based on some of the limited resources that police forces had and not by senior police officers but by political people, they would have been faced with the reality of what they were doing and maybe paid the political price. What I see happen all too often is that we as politicians use our police forces as a shield. Politicians say that it is an operational issue and they have nothing to do with it. It is their responsibility; they make the decisions. They have nothing to do with it.
In fact, what it really is about in most cases is that we have denied adequate resources to our police forces. They are forced to make these decisions, which are oftentimes economic, financial, and limited resource decisions. We blame them and as politicians and policy-makers we avoid any responsibility. Quite frankly, in my opinion, that is reprehensible and an area that we should be looking at and reviewing.
In particular, with regard to the RCMP, it is an issue that has to be addressed. I expect at some point, if the government itself does not do it, that the legislative committee, in the form of the public security subcommittee or the justice committee itself, would be taking this on and making recommendations in that regard.