Royal Canadian Mounted Police. - Blamed and broken: the Mounties and the death of Robert Dziekanski

Copyright Curt Petrovich, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Cover image: istock.com/Carnegie42
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Petrovich, Curt, author
Blamed and broken : the Mounties and the death of Robert Dziekanski
/ Curt Petrovich.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-4293-2 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4294-9 (PDF).-
ISBN 978-1-4597-4295-6 (EPUB)

1. Dziekanski, Robert. 2. Dziekanski, Robert--Death and burial. 3. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. 4. Police--Complaints against--Canada. 5. Police misconduct--Canada. 6. Police brutality--Canada. 7. Law enforcement--Canada. 8. Stun guns--Canada. 9. Governmental investigations--Canada. I. Title.

1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Lan dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de lart dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

Printed and bound in Canada.

VISIT US AT

dundurn.com

@dundurnpress

dundurnpress

dundurnpress

Dundurn
3 Church Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5E 1M2

For Yvette, Eliana, and Daniel,
who graciously, sometimes grudgingly,
but always selflessly indulged me with the time,
space, and support to finish what I started.

THE STORY THAT UNFOLDS in the pages ahead is a formidable reminder that things are not always as they seem or as they are reported. Daily life is fast moving. Reports of injustices and tragedies in cases such as the Vancouver Airport (YVR) incident in 2007 inhabit our minds for a few minutes. Then, we get back to our lives until the next report comes out. Most of us dont have the luxury of stopping time to learn what lies beyond the headlines. News reports rarely disclose the breadth of a story. Most assuredly, Mr. Dziekanskis death was a tragedy. But, this book will allow you to see the tragedy did not end there.

I know something of injustice and the tendency of police and governments to practise obfuscation and misdirection. For the better part of a decade ending in 2005, I lead the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. As chair and CEO of the civilian agency charged with holding the Mounties accountable, combating the dysfunction of the force was my job. In my years as a lawyer especially those spent as an investigator with the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which oversees Canadas spy agency CSIS I have been at the nexus between human rights and national security cases. For a dozen years I was an advisor to Abdullah Almalki, the Canadian who was detained and tortured for two years in Syria based on false information supplied by the RCMP. It was an unconscionable abuse made worse by the complicity of successive federal governments. Injustice whether deliberate or symptomatic of bureaucracies can occur in many ways. The author of Blamed and Broken has been a patient witness to that.

The most vivid recollection of my first encounter with Curt Petrovich was when I was chair of the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP. In 1998, I called an inquiry infamously known as Peppergate. RCMP members were accused of a multitude of serious misconduct against demonstrators who protested against the presence of Indonesias President Suharto, a cruel dictator who attended the Asia Pacific Economic Conference in Vancouver. Demonstrators and the media were very critical of Prime Minister Chrtien for inviting Suharto. A political frenzy developed and media labelled me a puppet of the Prime Minister because I made it clear that my legislative mandate was to oversee the RCMP and not the Prime Minister. It was my first encounter with paparazzi-like journalism. I was besieged daily by reporters levelling accusations, putting words in my mouth and asking questions that were irrelevant to my duties as civilian overseer of the RCMP. I was completely unaccustomed to dealing with the media. I felt like a deer in headlights as reporters followed me home, to my office and in airports. I resolved to stop giving interviews.

One late evening, alone in my Ottawa office, my phone rang and I instinctively answered it. The voice on the line introduced himself as Curt Petrovich, a CBC journalist. I really wanted to hang up immediately but my strict French-Catholic upbringing would not allow me to be so rude. Unlike numerous other journalists I had dealt with before him, Curt was courteous, respectful, and already well informed on the matter. He was looking for truth and accuracy. You may think thats the job of every reporter but that had not been my experience up to that point. His calm manner immediately made me feel comfortable. He was thoughtful, well-prepared, and meticulous. I never forgot it. It is that approach that produces a great story in the hands of a journalist like Curt, that has allowed him to uncover so much on the ongoing Dziekanski tragedy.

It takes time and patience for journalists to dig deep to report on the scope of such a story. In the more than ten years since the YVR tragedy, Curt has worked tirelessly investigating, researching, interviewing witnesses, meeting with sources, analyzing videos, attending court hearings, and documenting everything he uncovered from those involved and those who had knowledge of the circumstances at different times along the way. Many troubling questions arose questions that challenged the concept of justice, as we know it. The weight of the truth you will find in this book is heart wrenching.