(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Oct. 7, 1998)
Bureaucrats,
pols don't have a CLEU
By Leo Knight
THIS
week the ability of the police to fight organized crime has
taken another hit.
Once
again, the bad guys win and politicians are behind their
victory.
Last
spring Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh appointed a "blue
ribbon" panel to investigate how we fight organized crime
in B.C. The panel was struck in the face of criticism directed
at the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit (CLEU) following the
arrest of special constable Phillip Tsang on various corruption
charges.
Former
deputy AG and Ombudsman Stephen Owen led the panel. They
reported back to Dosanjh last week prompting him to announce the
total dismantling of the organization. But Dosanjh seems to have
chosen to toss the baby out with the bathwater.
Regular
readers of this column will know I was no fan of the way CLEU
had evolved -- a bumbling, bureaucratic, clique-ridden,
ineffective and ponderous establishment. I have publicly called
for the dismissal of Director Peter Engstad and his cronies, who
are the reason for the failures of the once proud and effective
weapon in the battle against organized crime.
The
panel arrived at much the same conclusions as did I or any other
watcher of CLEU. No doubt it should have been gutted and
re-built and all the civilian leadership re-assigned to more
suitable tasks in the ministry of paper clips and staple
supplies.
The
little cliques and empires painstakingly built in the past
decade should be scrapped and redesigned with competent police
managers at the head.
While
Dosanjh and his bureaucrats sit around agonizing about what to
do about something they know nothing about, the groups engaged
in organized crime have become larger, more insidious and
stronger than ever.
To
add to the problem, the RCMP's division commander, Assistant
Commissioner Murray Johnston, has decreed there shall be no
further overtime expenditures for Mountie units working drugs
and other related sections, including their organized crime
squads.
Johnston's
edicts also affect many other RCMP services, all over a budget
shortfall of less than $9 million.
The
Mounties, for their part, are trying to play "the good
soldier" saying, publicly at least, that services to the
public will not be adversely affected. On the surface this is
true. But it will be the intangibles that will suffer.
How
could a squad conducting surveillance on a targeted crime figure
function without an overtime budget?
Realistically,
what do they do if, say, they have information that a particular
deal involving illicit guns is going to happen on a certain day
involving a particular target and, come five o'clock, the target
hasn't yet moved? (Bad guys are traditionally unreliable and
tend not to keep to fixed schedules.)
Does
the squad leader simply shut down the operation so as not to
incur overtime? Apparently, according to Johnston's
instructions. Now this is just an example, but I'll guarantee
this will happen in a variety of circumstances until the budget
ship is righted.
What
about the regular officers who are scheduled to attend court on
a day off? Do they stay home and allow the accused to walk
because of a lack of evidence? Or do they give up already
precious time off to donate more voluntary overtime out of a
sense of duty?
This
latest blow to the morale of the force comes after Johnston has
already reneged on a negotiated settlement to provide Lower
Mainland members with a special living allowance to partially
compensate for the higher cost of living in the Greater
Vancouver Regional District.
The
budget issues for the RCMP have resulted in many positions
remaining unfilled. The open spots number in the hundreds and
are growing. Inevitably service to the public has to suffer and
through no fault of the police force.
On
this issue, at least, Dosanjh is on the right side, having said
he will lobby the federal solicitor general and the treasury
board to solve the budgetary issues. But I had to scoff when the
AG said on Monday he had been totally unaware of the problems at
CLEU until he received the report from the Owen panel.
On
CKNW's Rafe Mair program Monday, Dosanjh said, "There have
been frictions between the operational wing and the policy
analysis wing, essentially a lack of trust. I had heard about
those issues but not in a very serious way, and I didn't sort of
believe that because I'd heard them in an informal way."
The
problems have been going on for at least the past seven or eight
years. If the attorney general didn't know what was going on,
clearly he should have. His bureaucratic subordinates should
have made sure he was informed. If they did not advise the man
responsible as the province's chief law enforcement officer that
the department specifically tasked with investigating organized
crime was handcuffed by its own inefficiencies, then that person
or persons should be dismissed.
If,
on the other hand, Dosanjh did know and prevaricated on his
responsibility then he should resign.
The
fact that nothing has been done until the Owen report has
allowed the various aspects of organized crime to flourish
virtually unimpeded.
The
upshot of all this is simple really. CLEU no longer exists.
For
the interim at least, the responsibilities will be downloaded to
the municipal forces and the detachments of the RCMP. But
there's no money for them to do anything.
Meanwhile the gangs are making more and more money all the time as the bureaucrats dither.
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