Posts Tagged ‘Barn Burnings’
Open Letter to Mr. Paulson
Photos (Web Source)
October 6, 2016: The twenty-five faces above is just a small sample of the 500 female RCMP members who joined in a Class Action Lawsuit against the force. Since the first woman was sworn in as a regular member in 1974, she and many hundreds who followed were subjected to unrelenting harassment and sexual misconduct up to and including rape. In light of the $100,000,000 settlement announced this week, which in effect is Government acknowledgment of that harassment, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson should do the honourable thing and resign.
Releases from government sources state the Commissioner was forced to accept this settlement as well, was required to make an unambiguous apology. The alternative would have been an extremely costly and ugly trial in which the sins of RCMP senior management would be put on full display for all Canadians to witness. Such a trial would have spelled the death of the RCMP in its present form. Will this settlement reform the RCMP, or is it just a means to protect senior officers who were part of the coverup and quite likely a large part of the problem.
We can only hope it’s “Goodbye to Mr. Paulson” and that the next Commissioner
will quickly establish the ways and means to end this shameful period in the history of the force.
Dear Mr. Paulson,
First, we must all thank you Krista Carle (photo right), Janet Merlo, Catherine Galliford (Audio Link) and all those brave women from the RCMP, who stood 
against an old boy’s you lead and whose network had closed ranks against them at every turn (1) since women were accepted into the Force. Mr. Paulson, you condoned this during your career, and as Commissioner you allowed it to continue as no one would dare question your good judgment.
Like the old saying goes about changing a man if it were cast in terms of the RCMP, “you can take the man out of the old school, but you can’t take the old school out of the man.” You are clearly an old school guy steeped in a tradition that viewed women as lesser officers in a force created for men. Times might chance, but many older officers, as well few younger men will to tow the party line, preferred the old ways.
I clearly recall a favourite expression of one of the Chief Constable’s in my early career, a former military Regimental Sergeant Major, when dressing down a junior member in his office: “when I say jump, you just ask, “how high SIR.” Over the course of my career which ran from 1964 – 1994, my force along with the most other Municipal and City forces, changed in hundreds of ways, including fully accepting women as equals. It was a long struggle, but that change was fully accepted at twenty years ago. A few of the old dogs still resisted, but they, not those who harassed, were soon drummed out of the service.
During the same period I worked with a number of members of your force and even by 1994 when I left, those attitudes were still deeply entrenched by the Senior ranked members who controlled the very lives and well being of rank and file members. There are thousands of good women and men in the RCMP who only wish to do a good job, but the top-down, authoritarian approach used by management has resulted in the force facing a crisis of considerable proportion as we move through the first two decades of this century.
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