It took an inordinately long time to get a commission of inquiry set up to investigate corruption in Quebec’s construction industry, which available evidence suggests is rampant.
Initially the resistance came from the provincial Liberal government, which was worried – with what would appear to be some reason – about the damage that revelations before the commission would do to the government’s repute and its chances for re-election.
Such resistance was perhaps understandable, if not justifiable. Less understandable, and equally unjustifiable, is resistance by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to collaborating fully with the inquiry headed by Justice France Charbonneau.
The commission has subpoenaed RCMP documents compiled during Operation Colisée, the anti-organized-crime initiative of the last decade, the largest such operation in Canadian history. It involved the RCMP in conjunction with Quebec’s provincial police force as well as the Montreal force. It resulted in the arrest of local mafia boss Nick Rizzuto, along with a number of other mob figures.
The operation was largely focused on underworld drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations. But it seems that investigators also discovered connections between organized-crime figures and some in the construction industry that were not fully pursued at the time. These are the leads that the commission hopes to follow up on in the course of its inquiry.
But the RCMP is seeking a court ruling exempting it from complying with the commission’s request for the evidence it has in its files. It is doing so on constitutional grounds, maintaining that as a federal agency it should not have to submit to the jurisdiction of a provincial commission.
Both legal precedents as well as common sense suggest that the RCMP petition to be exempt from full co-operation with the Charbonneau commission should be firmly rejected.
The Supreme Court of Canada was called on to adjudicate just such a dispute some 30 years ago, when the Parti Québécois government of the day set up a commission of inquiry to probe RCMP tactics in investigations of Quebec’s separatist movement. The commission was called after certain illegal activities by members of the force, including theft of PQ membership lists and the burning of a barn, had come to light.
At that time the highest court ruled that the federal force enjoys no immunity from co-operation with provincial inquiry commissions, as long as the inquiry does not target the actions and administration of the RCMP itself. Because in that long-ago case the inquiry would indeed have looked into the actions and administration of the force, the RCMP was granted the immunity it sought.
But in this case the inquiry is not targeting the RCMP in any way, just seeking evidence the force has in hand from an operation jointly conducted with police forces in this province. Surely, since the investigation was a shared operation, the evidence should equally be freely shared.
There is no question that construction-industry corruption and infiltration of the industry by organized crime are major problems that must be attacked with all the resources that can be mustered. That includes any input the RCMP might have to offer.
It has already taken too long to get this inquiry under way. There is no justification for the RCMP to be stalling it further with spurious jurisdictional quibbling.