Appendix 1: Tories Accused of Using RCMP
In an article which appeared in the Ottawa Sunday Sun (15 May 1994) under the above title, Robert Fife of the Parliamentary Bureau vindicates the main thrust of Mr. Kealey's argument in the interview which we have just published for the first time:
The Mounties under RCMP Commissioner Norman Inkster were 'slyly subverted' by Brian Mulroney's Tories and often failed to uphold law equally for all Canadians. Investigative journalist Paul Palango says in his book, Above the Law, that former top Mounties Henry Jensen and Rod Stamler, who headed a special investigation unit that looked into political corruption, believed the force was co-opted by the Tories.
The fact that the police were being forced to disclose details of their cases up to the command structure and then to their political masters was seriously jeopardizing the integrity of some critical investigations,' Palango writes in Above the Law. He indicates also that Jensen and Stamler 'suspected information of criminal investigations was leaked to the Tories,' and that when Mounties took complaints about alleged interference to Inkster, the Commissioner 'took few or no notes about the complaints and seemed largely unconcerned.
Later, in an interview on CTV's Canada AM (18 May 1994), Mr. Stamler revealed that the reason why he left the RCMP in 1989 was because of the relationship that had developed between the RCMP, the Commissioner of the RCMP, and the Government. It had been agreed that Ministers be briefed about RCMP criminal investigations as the investigation was going on. While the Ministers themselves were often beyond reproach, some of the staff in their offices would secure the relevant information and leak it to the higher echelons of Government. High officials could go up on any charge and no witnesses - police, RCMP, or other would appear on either side. The case would be dismissed. Thus there evolved in Canada, Mr. Stamler stated, something we never had before, a system whereby certain individuals - chiefly government officials - were 'above the law'. This was accompanied by a decline in investigative journalism during the entire period.
The implications are enormous: when police begin to carry out the will of the politicians in power we have the foundations being laid of a police state. Above the Law also confirms one of Kealey's other main contentions, namely the practice of the Mulroney Government of kick-backs to the lobbyist: for example, Palango cites evidence that Mulroney 'pressured Air Canada to pay $5 million to a lobbying firm owned by former New Foundland Premier Frank Moores when the airline purchased $2 billion worth of Airbus jets.'
Appendix 2: Civil War in Québec
Another recent book - Constitutional Crack-up, Canada and the Coming Showdown with Quebec by William Gairdner - confirms another major point in Kealey's trenchant analysis. Gairdner predicts 'an armed conflict similar to the US civil war' if Québec unilaterally decides to separate from Canada. There is a strong possibility, too, of the United States intervening by sending troops and aircraft from bases in northern New York. 'It would not be difficult,' Gairdner argues, 'for America' to justify a brief military peacekeeping invasion to protect its Canadian assets and to stop the bloodshed in the name of international stability' (quoted in The Toronto Sun, 2 May 1994).
Appendix 3: Full Probe of Graft
during Mulroney's Reign Urged
The author of a new book on RCMP investigations of allegedly crooked politicians says a Watergate-style inquiry into Brian Mulroney's years in office would clear up tales of high-level graft.
It's the only way to get at the truth about rumoured multimillion-dollar kickbacks and bribes, Paul Palango, author of Above the Law, says.
'I'm showing you the police couldn't find any evidence of criminality, if there had been any, because they were under the political control of the Prime Minister's Office,' Palango says.
'There needs to be some kind of way of going back and investigating what happened under the Mulroney government. I would think the Canadian public would demand that and will demand that,' said the former Globe and Mail national editor.
Above the Law chronicles investigations by former RCMP assistant commissioner, Rod Stamler, and others who busted politicians on the take. Stamler quit in 1989, dismayed at having his investigations stymied by a government intent on protecting its own, Palango writes.
(This article appeared in the Vancouver Sun, 30 May 1994.)
