Reid: Remember the income trust affair? Here's why you should
"Canada is not the kind of country where the head of the national police force intervenes arbitrarily to alter the course of a federal election. We’re not Pinochet’s Chile. Or North Korea. The very suggestion is tin-foil hat territory.
All the more reason that an important anniversary should not have gone by unnoted just a few weeks ago.
December 28th marked one full decade since former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli blasted his way into the middle of the 2006 election campaign by announcing a criminal investigation into the so-called “income trust affair.” Those with long memories will recall this concerned allegations that Liberal government operatives had illegally tipped insiders about tax policy changes (one person, a mid-level, non-partisan civil servant, was eventually charged). It was an explosive move that Paul Kennedy, Chair of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission later characterized as “a departure from past practice” that caused some Canadians to question “the motives of the RCMP and its Commissioner.”
But the fact remains whether you believe Zaccardelli was justified or not, whether you remember the 2006 campaign or not, whether you love the Liberals, hate the Liberals or care not a fudge about politics at all, this entire episode was lousy with stink. And Zaccardelli has never been compelled to explain his actions or justify his conduct.
As stated by the Kennedy report, “In light of his refusal to provide a statement, it is impossible to determine what factors former Commissioner Zaccardelli may have considered in support of his decision to write the letter of Dec. 23, nor the particular urgency to communicate to Ms. Wasylycia-Leis the change in status from review to criminal investigation.”
Isn’t that odd? Isn’t it maddening that a fully functioning democracy such as ours would be content to just abandon the matter? Can you imagine such a subject being dropped cold in the United Kingdom or the United States or any other nation of the Western world for that matter?
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