Full Comment - Canada is a criminal hotbed and the Mounties can’t handle it

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00:01:10.660 The RCMP is a national treasure, an institution. It's beloved by Canadians. It's also a hot mess.

00:01:18.380 Hello, welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name's Brian Lilly. Today we're going to look at

00:01:22.840 one of Canada's foremost institutions, one of the symbols that people around the world recognize

00:01:28.980 this country for, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is both a local police force and

00:01:34.760 a national police force. But should it be that way? Is its structure impeding the ability of

00:01:40.560 the RCMP to go after organized crime, white-collar criminals, the transnational mafia and triads that are

00:01:48.300 moving drugs and other illicit materials through this country? Gary Clement is someone who knows

00:01:53.540 an awful lot about this. He spent 34 years in policing, most of it with the Mounties. Now he

00:02:00.140 is a staunch critic of the organization and says we all, as Canadians, have to figure out what we want

00:02:06.220 from the RCMP. Gary Clement, thanks for the time. Thank you very much for having me, Brian.

00:02:11.400 Before we get into how you think the RCMP needs to change the issues you've seen in your long

00:02:18.100 career, let's establish a bit of your bona fides. You spent a couple of years with the RCMP? Was it

00:02:26.040 one, two, 34? What was it? 30 years RCMP and four years Chief of Police.

00:02:33.500 So my guess is that your career took you to different parts of the country. And one thing

00:02:42.200 that I realized as I talked to people in different parts of the country is we all have a different

00:02:47.860 experience of the RCMP. Where I am right now in Toronto, you don't see Mounties. Maybe at the

00:02:55.740 airport. Do they have them at the airport? Ceremonial duties. In Ottawa, you see them on certain roads,

00:03:02.160 not on others. You see them a lot for government work and ceremonial duties. But in much of the

00:03:07.720 country, it's the local police, it's the provincial police. I know that's part of your issue with the

00:03:15.300 entire system. But what is it? You know, explain how this is a multifaceted beast before we get into

00:03:25.620 why it needs to change if we're going to crack down on things like organized crime. Because I think

00:03:32.140 a lot of people don't have a full sense. They know what the Mounties are like around them,

00:03:37.140 but not across the rest of the country. Yeah, happy to, Brian. And, you know, I was a proud

00:03:44.900 member in the RCMP. I'm a proud ex-member. But I think what has been lost both by, I think,

00:03:52.420 government and senior leaders in the RCMP that we've taken, it's become such a complex world that

00:04:00.540 we all live in today. The RCMP still is trying to be all things to all people. And contract work is

00:04:09.800 municipal and provincial policing in Ontario and Quebec. It's city police forces like Edmonton and

00:04:17.380 Calgary. And so it's very capable, other police servers are very capable of carrying out those

00:04:23.720 duties. The RCMP chose by contract to keep doing that. Unfortunately, what that has done is pitted

00:04:30.980 federal policing against contract policing. And because the RCMP has contracts, they have to, to the extent

00:04:38.720 possible, keep positions filled. So it's very easy to rob from Peter to pay Paul. So taking resources out of

00:04:46.460 federal policing and putting them into contract has been something that's gone on since the formation of the RCMP.

00:04:53.720 And that impacts federal policing.

00:04:56.980 And federal policing would be the white collar crime, the organized crime, things like that.

00:05:04.220 Correct. Narcotics, all of those things at an international level.

00:05:07.820 And as a result of it, what has happened, there has been this tremendous erosion in federal policing.

00:05:14.900 And I believe that is led to the situation that confronts society today. Alls we have to look at

00:05:23.180 is that we've had over 300,000 deaths in fentanyl. And since 2021, all of that is precursor drugs coming

00:05:33.740 out of China into Mexico to the cartels. And there's been a lack of enforcement at the transnational

00:05:40.740 level. And so when you look at that, then you look at the totality of cybercrime and the complexity that

00:05:48.900 that brings in. You look at terrorism today. And I'll give you an example that Canada is sadly a funder of

00:05:56.960 Hamas. And people would say, oh, no, that can't be true. But it is because there's been various charities

00:06:04.260 that continue to fund Hamas here in Canada. We need to. 1.00

00:06:07.740 Well, and we've seen that through the Canada Revenue Agency stepping in at certain points and saying,

00:06:13.800 this has to stop.

00:06:15.420 Correct. But then where is the investigative side of this, Brian? And I use the example of building the,

00:06:21.620 we've got FinTrack, which is, you know, is a financial intelligence agency, collecting all

00:06:27.040 the financial data on money laundering. They disclose about 1,500 to 2,000 documents a year

00:06:34.800 for investigation. Ask yourself how many have been investigated. And the answer is very few of them.

00:06:40.620 There's not been a money laundering charge.

00:06:43.040 So let's talk about this then, because, you know, look, I, Gary, in much of my writing and much of

00:06:52.380 my broadcasting, I've been highly critical of, of the RCMP, not a frontline officers, but I think

00:06:57.240 headquarters is a mess. I think that a lot of their white collar crime, like they've got this unit that

00:07:02.520 is supposed to look into, you know, politically sensitive issues like the prime minister and SNC

00:07:09.640 Lavalin. Well, they went almost four years without updating anyone. And then someone got a, an access

00:07:18.020 to information request and said, oh, they're still investigating the RCMP. Let that sit out there

00:07:23.200 for a whole day. Correct. That there's an active investigation into the prime minister who, I don't

00:07:30.000 want to have to defend Justin Trudeau, but I had to because the RCMP screwed up. They did the same with

00:07:34.320 Doug Ford in Ontario. Correct. They can be ham-fisted on, on the political side.

00:07:38.680 Right. But every time somebody says, well, let's move away from having Alberta be policed by the RCMP

00:07:46.640 and Danielle Smith, the premier there has said that you get voices rising up and saying, oh, we can't,

00:07:52.360 we can't take away the RCMP from Canada. And meanwhile, Premier Smith is saying, look, we have so few

00:08:00.860 resources. She said this earlier this year. She wonders if the federal government is trying to do away

00:08:06.760 with contract policing, as it's called, where they provide the services to BC, Alberta, Manitoba,

00:08:13.280 Nova Scotia, et cetera. She said, I have so few police officers and so little ability to get more

00:08:19.560 police officers that I'm wondering if they're trying to do away with contract policing by stealth,

00:08:24.020 just by not filling the job. So that's kind of the tension that you're talking about. You've got,

00:08:30.020 you've got the fentanyl issue, you've got the terrorism issue, and then you've got the, but who's

00:08:35.700 going to stop the guy who keeps running red lights in Red Deer? Well, the thing is, and I think that's

00:08:42.600 what we have to look at, it's very possible. And let's use the latest example where Surrey is in the

00:08:49.700 formation stage of its own police service. And that's controversial though. It's controversial,

00:08:55.420 but you know, in 1973, when I went out to British Columbia, they were talking about a regional, lower

00:09:01.380 mainland police service. And here we are 45, 50 years later, and they're still talking about it.

00:09:09.840 You know, we've got to take off our rose-colored glasses and look at policing and what the needs of

00:09:16.900 this country are. And because tomorrow you're going to form over time a regionalized police service or

00:09:24.280 provincial police service, you're going to get effective policing. I dare say a lot of the

00:09:30.420 officers that are working in contract in RCMP units today will probably go over to one of those units.

00:09:38.500 Not all officers want to work federal policing. It's a total different beast. And that's why we

00:09:45.380 haven't been able to get that expertise. We need long-term investigators in these areas.

00:09:50.220 When the Nova Scotia massacre happened, we saw the absolute botched handling of that with headquarters

00:10:01.180 in Ottawa getting involved. And that was very much a local policing issue. Should have been handled out

00:10:07.920 of local officials. You had the commissioner getting involved. I mean, so is this one of the big

00:10:17.120 premises of your book, then, is that just separate these two things. You don't need to have the guy

00:10:23.740 in Red Surge doing traffic enforcement. And we do need this national police force, though.

00:10:31.980 Very much so. More so now than ever before. If you look at, as I said, the world's changed in a complex way.

00:10:39.940 We're looking, look at China and all of the problems that we have with China today. The Chinese police

00:10:46.220 stations. I did a number of interviews regarding what's going on with the Iranian community and the

00:10:53.140 Iranian money laundering. And as you know, there was a big case that was exposed. All of that has

00:10:58.840 came out four years ago, five years ago. I wrote intelligent briefs during my time running my

00:11:04.620 consulting firm that I got this information from. Nobody investigated. Those things are dangerous

00:11:11.480 in my mind. And, you know, I really subscribe to what Robert Kennedy said. And, you know, he said that

00:11:17.940 we inherit the world and it's trusted to us from our forefathers. And then we pass it on and we someday

00:11:27.080 will be held to account by the next generation. And history will only tell whether we did a good job.

00:11:32.900 And I, I really want to tell people that we're doing a pathetic job with this whole area of

00:11:38.360 organized crime. We are a stopping point for transnational organized crime. It's an embarrassment.

00:11:44.940 You spent time in undercover work, correct?

00:11:48.940 A lot of, too much time probably, Brian, but yes, I did.

00:11:52.940 So tell me about that because I, you know, I've had off the record conversations with police officers on

00:11:59.820 that. You've got to go in and build trust with criminal organization and basically infiltrate

00:12:08.680 them. That, you know, sometimes that is done at the local policing level in large municipal forces.

00:12:16.160 But when you're talking, as you are, about transnational crime, about, as you say, you know,

00:12:23.340 the triads and the, you know, Beijing approved organized crime groups out of China, dealing

00:12:31.540 with the Mexican cartels and flooding our streets with fentanyl. Well, you need a different level

00:12:38.740 of skill. You, we essentially, you know, to put it in terms that Canadians might understand

00:12:45.760 better. What you're talking about is the need for an FBI type organization.

00:12:52.600 Absolutely.

00:12:53.660 So I, the Americans don't have anything comparable to the RCMP, do they? Where they,

00:13:00.800 you know, they're, they're all things to all people.

00:13:03.980 Correct. They don't. And, uh, you know, I, a good example is, and everybody who remember,

00:13:10.120 will remember Airbus, um, when I became the deputy crime ops officer, that investigation

00:13:17.480 had been going on almost a decade. And I did a review of it. And my reaction was, why are

00:13:24.000 we continuing with something that, first of all, went way back? And it was, as you know,

00:13:29.160 there was a lot of issues right at the outset. Well, you'd never get it through a court of law

00:13:33.620 today. And I, we were spinning our wheels, but the problem was, if you'd look at the turnover

00:13:40.080 investigators that were handling that file over a 10 year period, it's an absolute embarrassment.

00:13:45.760 What do you mean by that?

00:13:47.480 Well, they would start, they'd get promoted and they're removed somewhere else. The most

00:13:52.340 high profile investigation in this country, and we're constantly turning over investigators.

00:13:56.360 So, so the investigators would be on for what, six, 12, 18 months, and then move on?

00:14:01.920 Yep. Correct. You know, doing that for years, Brian, it's wrong.

00:14:08.660 Somebody was asking me just the other day, they said, um, well, what's going to happen with

00:14:14.940 Doug Ford? You know, Ontario's premier is now under investigation because the, the OPP

00:14:20.240 said, well, you know, so that we're, our hands are clean. We have to hand this over to the RCMP and

00:14:25.520 the RCMP, you know, as I said, fuddled with this a bit and then said, oh yeah, we have an

00:14:31.080 investigation. They said, well, what's going to happen? I said, in about four years time,

00:14:36.540 someone will ask them, are you still investigating? And they'll have to decide and they won't really

00:14:41.760 know. And, you know, I highly doubt based on my experience, there will be charges, but I do believe

00:14:49.340 that this will take a long, long time for us to end up with nothing because that's what's happened

00:14:54.860 in the past. And sadly, you're correct. I, this is where you take a look at when normally, not in all

00:15:02.380 cases, the FBI can get caught up in the politics too, unfortunately, but you also have seen where

00:15:07.680 they can go in on a major occurrence, do an investigation, have charges laid within 18 to 24

00:15:14.520 months and have the trial over with within a total combined three-year period. That's unheard of in

00:15:21.080 Canada. And the answer is why? We just got to do a better job. We've got these skills. They're not

00:15:29.120 used correctly. Let me ask you about the politics of this then, because a few people have reproached

00:15:35.660 me and they said, you know what one of the major problems with the RCMP is? It's the political

00:15:41.920 interference, the political interaction. And the fact that the commissioner of the RCMP

00:15:48.500 is a deputy minister in the government. And I don't think most people know that, but the commissioner

00:15:56.500 of the RCMP is a deputy minister is the highest ranking civil servant in a department. So the

00:16:04.600 deputy minister of the RCMP reports directly to the minister of public safety as, as one of their

00:16:11.940 basically assistants. This, this is not a normal policing relationship, is it?

00:16:18.940 No, it's not. And one of the arguments I put in the, I put in my book is it's time it's treated very

00:16:24.920 much like say Toronto police, that you've got an independent police service board that the chief

00:16:30.780 reports to. They are accountable. The board is accountable from the administrative side,

00:16:37.060 but operationally it's 100% the responsibility of the chief in an unfettered role. That is not the

00:16:45.940 case in the RCMP. There is far too much political interference. I don't know if you want to comment

00:16:52.320 on specific recent commissioners, but have there been times when you've looked at decisions that have

00:17:01.340 been made at headquarters and said, Oh, that's getting too close. That, that is, that is the

00:17:08.340 political bosses, either leaning on the commissioner or the commissioner making the decision to either

00:17:14.760 appease or antagonize the political bosses for, you know, their own political reasons.

00:17:22.020 One of the, one of the ones that I, it's in my book, Brian is a sidewinder, which was the

00:17:27.620 intelligence probe on the Chinese, uh, triads and, and infiltration in this country. And that

00:17:34.420 definitely, uh, both for CSIS and the RC, it's RCMP was shut down because of political interference.

00:17:41.420 That was 1997, 98 in that era. Yeah. I've spoken to Michelle Juno-Katsuya about that many times. He was,

00:17:51.620 he was one of the CSIS guys on that. That's correct. And, um, he has been very frustrated

00:17:58.160 at how to, how that turned out. And yet there's an issue that the RCMP and CSIS both tried to deal

00:18:06.700 with. It's getting close to 30 years ago now, and it was scuttled due to politics and we're still

00:18:17.820 dealing with the problems now. In a far bigger way. That's correct. In fact, I was the, one of the

00:18:25.360 liaison officers in Hong Kong for that three year period. I started the intelligence probe with Brian

00:18:30.600 McAdam on that. And, uh, I can remember being asked, uh, uh, when I was back in Ottawa, do you think

00:18:39.660 there's really something here? And, uh, I can remember telling him, yes, it warrants an investigation.

00:18:45.620 What did the RCMP do? They put a, uh, a lower level investigator on it with not a, with no depth of

00:18:53.100 experience in that level of sophistication. And then they closed it down. And, you know, those are

00:19:02.280 the things that are leading to the mess we're in today. I mean, you're hitting on a lot of my

00:19:11.140 complaints about the RCMP, Gary, and I've, I've got a lot of respect for the organization.

00:19:18.360 I don't have a lot of respect for the people out at, uh, the headquarters in the South end of Ottawa.

00:19:25.140 And that's based on experience. Um, you know, I, I, I've, I've been trained into the position that I'm in

00:19:33.580 because of disappointment. And it, it, it sounds similar for you that issues of not looking after

00:19:41.480 organized crime properly, not looking after foreign interference properly, that these things have

00:19:46.680 just, they've tarnished your view of, of, of an organization you'd like to hold in higher esteem.

00:19:54.220 Correct. I give you a good example. And I really hit home for me was I appeared before the House of

00:20:00.520 Common Security Committee. And I appeared with, uh, a deputy commissioner and, uh, I think the other

00:20:06.980 individual was chief superintendent. Anyways, questions were asked. And of course I was told

00:20:12.620 that, that I wasn't that answer or anything. So I sat there like a puppet and all of a sudden an

00:20:18.160 operational question come up and it was deferred to me and I answered and I can't, I apologize. I can't

00:20:23.740 recall who the chair of it was, but I'll never forget it. I answered and I got about three minutes into

00:20:29.280 my explanation. And he said, let me stop you there. He said, thank God we finally got a police officer

00:20:35.820 in the room. And he looked at the deputy and he said, do you guys not get it? We're the politicians.

00:20:43.400 We want to hear from police officers so that we understand what the issues are. And I never forgot

00:20:48.580 that Brian, because I think that's the problem. Uh, people at the higher levels do not want to speak,

00:20:55.100 speak truth to power. They feel they have to play politics. And well, I will warn you that that

00:21:01.960 happens at the municipal level as well to become to a degree. It does to become chief of a major

00:21:08.140 municipal force. You have to be a politician and you know, some of them turn into politicians. Bill

00:21:14.720 Blair did former Toronto chief. Yeah. Um, Mark Saunders has tried twice, uh, who replaced Bill Blair

00:21:22.300 and, uh, I've seen others and, you know, trust me, getting answers out of those guys is,

00:21:28.960 is no better than getting answers out of a deputy RCMP commissioner. You, you ask them what day it is

00:21:34.900 and you get a very long answer that doesn't tell you it's Monday. And that was when I was chief of

00:21:40.720 police. That was my issue with all the chiefs and in Ontario and Canada, stop playing politics. Let's

00:21:46.740 get back to doing what we're hired to do. And unfortunately my view was not popular as you can

00:21:52.380 well appreciate. All right, Gary, let me take a quick break here. And when we come back, I want to

00:21:56.060 ask you about how you would change things, how the RCMP could be restructured and we could have

00:22:02.620 effective policing because we've got many, many issues and problems in this country that are not

00:22:09.480 being addressed because of the structure. So more on that when we come back, Gary, I'd like to ask you

00:22:17.500 what you see as the biggest issue that a federal police force that is just doing federal policing and

00:22:25.500 not, you know, road stops and, you know, everyday municipal issues. If the RCMP were to change and

00:22:32.980 were to, you know, be more like the FBI where they're, they're doing those drug investigations,

00:22:38.800 those white collar crime investigations, the transnational organized crime, what would be

00:22:44.660 the biggest issue they would have to tackle? Well, the first big issue is going to be expertise.

00:22:52.000 There's been such an erosion, Brian, over the last 10, 15 years. So, but I'm asking what's the

00:22:59.180 external issue and you're saying it's internal. Well, it is partially internal to get the issue, but

00:23:05.180 externally? No, I mean, no, you can explain a bit more about the internal problem. I want to hear

00:23:11.300 about it, but it's just surprising to me that you say that's the biggest issue. They don't have the

00:23:16.860 right people anymore. Well, all you do is go to the calling commission and they were asked about how

00:23:21.900 many money laundering investigators were in the province of Bridget, Columbia. They came out and

00:23:26.200 said five. Well, when I was the director and ran the program, I think we had 97, if I'm not mistaken,

00:23:33.680 and I made a proposal to increase it to 137 in British Columbia just because of the demand. And

00:23:40.620 those were people that were supposed to stay in it. And I was able to establish that I could take a

00:23:45.900 good investigator, put them in financial crime, and I needed three to five years to get them up to a

00:23:51.900 level that they could effectively take on a transnational organized crime investigation. Sadly,

00:23:59.220 that wasn't happening because of promotions outside where I had, you know, obviously really talented

00:24:06.660 individuals. Well, they were very promotable and they wouldn't let me over rank positions. I recommended

00:24:13.700 we do away with ranks in federal policing. And that was kiboshed. And as a result, then I would have 0.86

00:24:21.240 somebody one day working with me, getting them up to speed. And all of a sudden they'd receive a

00:24:26.840 promotion in an attachment somewhere in Alberta, and I'd lose that skill and have to start over.

00:24:33.240 But money laundering is a serious issue across the country. British Columbia is where it's been exposed

00:24:40.100 the most. And, you know, the commission was out, you know, there's been a lot of exposés on that.

00:24:49.340 And you're saying we went from 97 down to five? Is that still a current number that five money

00:24:56.000 laundering investigators are in that neighborhood? Well, they've recently gone out and recognizing the

00:25:02.280 situation because of Colin, and they've advertised to get individuals with certain skills, and they're

00:25:08.820 not going to put them through the whole six-month training in DAPL. But again, that's not going to

00:25:13.200 happen overnight. That's, but they're in a building process. And I think that's only a band-aid solution

00:25:20.300 at this stage. It's, you know, you can't go part way. You really need to look at what's it going to

00:25:27.100 take to be effective in this country. And if we're going to be effective, we've got to have a highly

00:25:33.800 trained group of people that are dedicated to that area of expertise long-term.

00:25:43.300 These issues that you're talking about, though, money laundering, transnational organized crime,

00:25:49.680 the drug trade, the fentanyl issue, the opioid crisis that is absolutely devastating our cities,

00:25:57.500 they're all interconnected. I said this during our most recent municipal election in Toronto.

00:26:03.800 People were talking about homelessness, about encampments, about drug paraphernalia everywhere,

00:26:09.620 and I said, about crime. And I said, well, it all comes back to fentanyl. Fentanyl's the issue.

00:26:15.060 But on the policing side, they're all connected because you've got the same people trading the

00:26:20.960 drugs, laundering the money, the organized crime. Is it possible to make a dent in what they're doing

00:26:30.740 to our society? I mean, you go around, you know, whether it's Vancouver or Calgary or Toronto or,

00:26:38.540 I mean, for goodness sakes, five-minute walk from Ottawa or from Parliament Hill in Ottawa now,

00:26:44.200 and you see people sitting like zombies because of what's coming into our country.

00:26:51.220 And you can only do so much treatment. If the drugs keep coming, the treatment, you know,

00:26:59.480 it's going to have to be exponential.

00:27:01.320 Absolutely. And I think what people have to understand, if you look at China, I use the term

00:27:08.820 we're in a disruptive war with China because China wants to disrupt our countries like ours, 0.98

00:27:17.280 like United States. And the fentanyl crisis is doing a great job. I don't believe, having been

00:27:22.520 stationed over in Asia for three years, I don't believe for a minute that if China wanted to shut

00:27:28.160 down the fentanyl problem, they couldn't do it. They have the ability. They don't want to. And

00:27:35.340 that's what we have to understand. The other side of it, I, in 30 years, is I have not seen a politician

00:27:43.720 that is really taking this seriously. And, you know, I've appeared a number of times with Senate

00:27:53.240 committees and House of Commons committees. Where is our politicians that are looking at this?

00:27:58.420 Because it is impacting our society. The amount cost of our society, and this is what I think

00:28:03.860 Canadians have to understand. Our waiting rooms and hospitals are full. Why are they full?

00:28:12.200 It's a drug problem. Friday, Saturday night, there is more people rushed in there because of overdoses,

00:28:18.180 et cetera. And that bogs the system right down and the cost is astronomical. We got a military that

00:28:24.360 can't get people to go into it or they have a shortage. 300,000 deaths. Most of these are between

00:28:30.300 15 and 34 years of age. Prime candidates to potentially join the military. We've lost that

00:28:38.320 and lost other abilities. We are in a crisis. And what I would like to see this, any government do,

00:28:45.200 and I'd love to see first, first of all, a spokesperson take this seriously. We need to

00:28:50.020 do a full gap analysis, including legislative loopholes we've got right now. When we're allowing

00:28:56.180 rapists to walk out because their trial didn't happen in a timely manner, that's bringing justice

00:29:03.120 into disrepute. We've got to close those loopholes somehow, Brian. Well, I think we have the intelligence

00:29:08.860 to do it. Look, I feel your frustration on the people walking free. The fact is that trials were

00:29:19.200 taking far too long. We don't invest in any of this, Gary. We don't invest in our court system.

00:29:25.180 You've got to have the right to a speedy trial. And even after the Supreme Court warned and warned and

00:29:32.040 then brought in the Jordan decision, we're still not putting the money into the court system so that

00:29:37.440 people can get out. Of course, there's always games being played by crowns and more often defense

00:29:42.640 lawyers to try and extend things. But we don't invest in our police. We don't invest in our

00:29:48.880 justice system. And then we, you know, well, we'll watch a mob movie and a mafia movie makes us feel

00:29:56.740 better and that's fine. But meanwhile, as you say, cartels and triads and all these things bringing in

00:30:02.720 a very real, very concrete problem into our society that's wreaking havoc on the hospital

00:30:11.080 system, on police resources, on overdoses. I'm not sure how Vancouver Police Service can

00:30:19.320 deal with this when they're having to deal with so many people on overdoses alongside the paramedics

00:30:26.560 and everyone else. I totally agree with you. We were monopolizing resources in an area that

00:30:33.120 is one reason, one reason only there's been a lack of investment, a lack of will on the part of our

00:30:41.280 political leaders. E.B., I think Premier E.B. is the first one to have taken this somewhat seriously.

00:30:48.240 And a lot, at least he recognized the problem. But if Doug Ford thinks in his province that it's any

00:30:55.600 better, we're dreaming in technicolor because it's bad or worse. Well, I can tell you it's not because

00:31:02.500 just like every other province, they're not investing on their side. There is a federal part to this and

00:31:08.240 there is a provincial part to this. Correct. And I don't think anybody is looking after this properly.

00:31:15.040 You know, everybody, all the politicians, in my view, are just trying to look at the day-to-day

00:31:20.380 and not the long-term problem. And what you're talking about is a long-term problem and a long-term

00:31:27.380 fix. Do you think we have that ability in our politics anymore to say, let's do something that

00:31:34.980 we won't see the results for the next three to five years? We have the ability, if the Canadian public,

00:31:43.440 and this is what I hope shows like this do, and thank you for doing this, Brian,

00:31:47.120 if we can get the Canadian public understanding that this is something we're going to leave a mess

00:31:53.660 to our children and our grandchildren, and it's going to get worse. Do we have the collective

00:31:59.400 responsibility to try and fix this? I believe we do. I believe the time is to call for it now.

00:32:05.360 As you know, the Proceeds of Crime Money Laundering Act is up for review. There'll be hearings starting

00:32:13.660 up shortly. I wrote a paper on it. According to one of the people that sit on the committee,

00:32:20.100 I'll be asked to testify before it. And my final conclusion in that is, we can't wait another five

00:32:27.340 years to talk about this. We need action now. And I believe that sincerely. And, you know,

00:32:34.000 when you're turning 70, you only got so long to keep fighting these issues, Brian. And as long as

00:32:39.080 I'm here, I'm going to push this agenda because it's the right thing to do. And I think we have

00:32:43.340 a responsibility. So rather than just golf, you're going to keep pushing this issue.

00:32:48.620 Hey, I'm still working full-time, so you got it.

00:32:51.000 There's so many interconnected issues here. And you've mentioned Fintrack. You've mentioned

00:32:59.020 Proceeds of Crime. The tools are there, but it feels like on every issue we come back to,

00:33:06.200 it's that nothing is properly resourced or funded. And we can all complain about that in our respective

00:33:12.640 jobs. But in this, we can see the results or lack thereof. And so,

00:33:19.840 talk to me a bit about Fintrack. I knew some of the people that helped set it up. I watched that

00:33:27.320 process happen in Ottawa in the days after 9-11. That was supposed to be there as kind of an early

00:33:36.300 warning system to say, hey, funny things are happening. We should look into it. And what you're

00:33:41.720 telling me is nobody's looking into anything.

00:33:44.340 Well, very few are. They've done, just so you know, I have a pretty strong relationship with

00:33:52.700 Fintrack. And now in the banking world, I obviously have a stronger one because I have to. But

00:33:57.960 in saying that, they have come into their own in a lot of respects. They're putting out some really

00:34:04.380 good material, which I think is beneficial to everybody. But my analogy has always been,

00:34:10.260 you build a Rolls Royce, you need to put a motor in it. And Fintrack is a Rolls Royce. The motor is

00:34:16.700 justice and enforcement and the prosecution, obviously. That's been lacking. So you look

00:34:24.120 around and say, well, we've got one part of the ingredient close to being right. And then it falls

00:34:30.680 off sharply because the other end of it is not working.

00:34:36.520 So let me give you a magic wand. Let me give you an unlimited budget.

00:34:43.960 What does this look like in the end? Do you take federal policing away from the RCMP? Do you get

00:34:48.860 rid of the local stuff and the musical ride? Or how do you do this? I think the cleanest way would

00:34:55.900 be to take federal policing away from the RCMP, establish something new, and resource it properly.

00:35:03.080 But then you've got to resource federal prosecutors properly and everything else along the way. Again,

00:35:10.960 back to the frustration of under-resources. But how would you do it?

00:35:15.560 First thing I do, Brian, and I say that we need a committee of experts. And I'm not talking

00:35:24.780 politicians. I'm saying put a committee of experts. Let's do a full gap analysis. I believe strongly

00:35:32.040 that it will lead to the federal policing being carved out of the RCMP or the RCMP focusing solely

00:35:40.220 on federal policing. That's going to take five years because you can't drop the contracts

00:35:46.620 overnight. But if you've got a plan going forward, you can start working on it. We need to have the

00:35:53.540 properly – and we should be going back to an integrated model that we had a number of years ago

00:35:59.020 where it's a combined law enforcement. It's with tax, with customs, with immigration, prosecutors,

00:36:07.840 all working in one unit. These are complex investigations. You can't afford to do a

00:36:12.860 million-dollar investigation and have it screwed up because of a slip-up of an investigator and

00:36:17.860 the prosecutor finding out in the 11th hour. As we know, a number of these major cases have fallen

00:36:23.560 apart. We need to have prosecutors embedded in these specialized units. And then we have to have the

00:36:30.460 ability – and this is where a federal unit comes in – if you get a high-profile investigation,

00:36:35.540 just like the FBI does today, you can pull those resources because it's under one umbrella,

00:36:41.060 and you can pull them into a central location, and this is your task force, and this is your task,

00:36:46.260 and you've got 24 months to get the job done. Not five years, not six years. You've got 24 months to get

00:36:52.360 the job done with the right resources. And that's possible. It's just we don't put the right resources.

00:36:58.220 As I said, just as it took almost four years for Justin Trudeau and SNC, I think in four years,

00:37:05.100 we'll find out what happened with Doug Ford in the green belt. And it's a sad setup now. I hope for

00:37:14.040 a better future, Gary, and you've laid that out in your book. And hopefully some people, maybe the

00:37:20.060 right people, are listening going forward. Thanks so much for your time today.

00:37:23.540 Thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate this.

00:37:27.480 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced

00:37:32.640 by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe

00:37:38.820 to Full Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Listen through your app or Alexa-enabled

00:37:45.520 devices. And help us out. Give us a rating. Leave a review. Tell your friends about us. Thanks for

00:37:51.680 listening. Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - December 04, 2023

Canada is a criminal hotbed and the Mounties can’t handle it

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