RCMP barge into another election campaign

Tim Harper (Opinion, Toronto Star) – Five years ago, the RCMP turned an election in Stephen Harper’s favour.

This week, with his campaign under fire for booting young voters from his rallies, the Mounties fell on their batons.

For a national police force already in turmoil, it was just another in a string of controversies.

It was also just the latest example of a force that can’t keep itself out of election campaigns and another sign that it desperately needs some kind of hard-and-fast rules of conduct during a five-week period when Canadians are choosing a prime minister.

Any appearance of the politicization of the RCMP should concern voters, but more worrisome should be the question of who is politicizing them.

Harper finally issued an apology to those barred from his rallies as he stood in a Vaughan backyard Thursday, flanked by the face of his law-and-order agenda, former OPP commissioner and Vaughan incumbent Julian Fantino.

“If anybody is kept out of any of our events that’s there to hear our message, then we obviously apologize to them,” Harper said.

The day before, the RCMP conceded overstepping its mandate when it restricted access to Conservative rallies to persons who were not registered to attend.

It is still not clear how far the police force went in vetting those who showed up uninvited.

And, as NDP Leader Jack Layton stressed Thursday, it was still not clear whether this was overzealousness by the Mounties or interference from the Conservative party.

“If there is to be an investigation it probably needs to focus more on who’s telling the RCMP what to do,’’ Layton said.

“I think it’s (Harper) who’s got the explaining to do here.”

As far back as 1988, RCMP behaviour during campaigns was being criticized.

During that campaign, an NDP candidate in Quebec, Phil Edmonston, brought allegations to the RCMP regarding his Conservative opponent, Richard Grisé.

The RCMP began a probe, but delayed it so as not to influence the outcome of the vote.

Then-prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s office became involved.

The RCMP’s decision to remain silent helped propel Grisé to victory, although he resigned three months later after pleading guilty to corruption.

The damage was done. The RCMP was facing charges of influencing the federal election.

More recently, and more blatantly, former RCMP commissioner Giulano Zaccardelli helped destroy the Liberals’ chances in the 2006 election by deciding to name Ralph Goodale, then the finance minister, as the subject of a criminal investigation into the potential leak of information regarding the taxing of income trusts.

That decision was never repudiated by Harper.

Paul Martin, then the Liberal leader, later wrote that he had wondered whether Zaccardelli was inept or malicious.

“My own view is that no one can be that inept,’’ he concluded.

Just before his government fell, Harper tried to buy cover from critics by asking the RCMP to investigate two former party members.

In 2008, the RCMP twice faced accusations that it was blocking journalists from doing their jobs on the Harper campaign.

Every political operative knows that a confrontation with a heckler will hijack any message of the day.

Guarding that message is key, but going too far the other way can have the same effect.

At a 2004 Harper campaign stop in Belleville, private security officers carted off a deaf man who had held up a placard asking why there were no signers available at an event.

Jim Armour was Harper’s communications director at the time.

“We treat all protesters equally,’’ he said that day.

Thursday, he recalled a different reaction.

“I thought, ‘Well, there goes our message of the day,’ ” Armour recalled.

The RCMP is walking a fine line in dealing with potential political dissent.

It needs clear regulations.