RCMP commissioner must be removed from position, says Shandro

Posted November 23, 2022 9:53 am.
Last Updated November 23, 2022 9:55 am.
Alberta’s justice minister is calling on the federal government to remove the RCMP commissioner, saying the province has “lost confidence” in her.
Tyler Shandro is urging Ottawa to “immediately rescind” the appointment of RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki.
“Over the past two years, commissioner Lucki has failed to deal with the RCMP’s history of systemic racism in a forthright and public manner, and has risked the integrity of an investigation into a mass shooting,” Shandro wrote in a statement, referring to reports of systemic racism in the RCMP and the inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting.
“Further, as revealed last week, she failed to inform the federal cabinet of all law enforcement options available prior to the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act,” Shandro continued.
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Justice Minister Tyler Shandro is calling for RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki to be removed as Mounties boss. pic.twitter.com/ZzdB3a5Ohb
— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) November 23, 2022
The night before the Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act, Lucki sent a cautionary email to the federal public safety minister’s office.
She wrote that police had not exhausted “all available tools” to deal with the protests that had taken over downtown Ottawa and several Canada-U.S. border crossings.
But Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, who took the lead on the federal government’s response to the “Freedom Convoy” protest last winter, told a public inquiry Tuesday that Lucki never brought the point she made in her email to his staff with him directly.
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“In two major public inquiries, commissioner Lucki was given an opportunity to take accountability and prove to Canadians that RCMP leadership could make changes to ensure that errors of judgment would not happen again,” said Shandro. “Instead, commissioner Lucki, in sworn testimony, has dodged accountability and excused her actions.”
Shandro says Lucki must be removed as commissioner because the position “must be held to the highest of standards.”
Alberta’s justice minister says Mendicino must act accordingly.
“So far, Minister Mendicino has stood idly by while commissioner Lucki has failed to meet even the most meagre of standards for the past two years,” Shandro wrote. “This is an abrogation of the minister’s core responsibility to Canadians and must be rectified before the RCMP’s reputation as Canada’s federal police service is further damaged.”
—With files from The Canadian Press