Photo Credit: Canwest News Service

On January 18, the Harper government announced the appointment of a new chair to the Commission for Public Complaints about the RCMP (CPC) – the organization tasked with conducting investigations into complaints about our national police force. Ian McPhail, a lawyer specializing in wills & real estate and a long-time contributor to the Conservative Party was appointed to the position despite having no previous experience in criminal law. In an interview with Colin Freeze of the Globe & Mail, Mr. McPhail told Freeze “you probably know more about the background [of the CPC] than I do”.

Paul Kennedy, the outgoing chair of the CPC expressed concern over McPhail’s qualifications, as well as the seemingly partisan nature of the appointment. Both he and Shirley Heafey, the previous CPC chair, had extensive experience working with federal security and regulatory bodies before taking on the role as chair of the CPC. McPhail’s only experience working with a federal security agency was his week long appointment as vice-chair of the CPC just prior to the January 18th announcement.
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Once upon a time, many years ago, Canada was a leader when it came to human rights. We helped create the UN, the Geneva Accords, and even adapted many of those accords into our own legislation. We took pride in being the protector, the one who stood up for the little guy, damning the consequences. However, this recent torture debacle involving our military has my recent suspicions that Canada is in a bit of an image crisis confirmed. Like a teenager that has emerged from puberty a little different, Canada is not the peace-loving, torture-hating nation we all thought it was. Between the adjusting of our voice and the ridding of our pimples, we changed.

Torture has always been a no-no. But we all know it happens. It happens in Guantanamo, it happens in Iraq and it sure as hell happens in Afghanistan. At the very least, our job is to not take part in it, and certainly not solicit and most definitely not condone it. Handing over a detainee when one knows he/she will be tortured is not doing our job correctly. Now I know that in the atrocities of war, worse things have happened. However, this begs the question: is this the only time something like this has happened? Because chances are, it isn’t. War makes many people do things they would not do under normal circumstances, no one is questioning or berating that. We have been putting our military on such a pedestal from past peacekeeping accomplishments we thought our soldiers were immune to such cruel behavioural traits, but clearly they are not. They are after all, only human.
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"Lest We Forget"

To my family and my forefathers whom sacrificed themselves and their futures for all that I have enjoyed in my life, I hope you hear this as my words; defending your gifts:

Remembering our dead and actually learning form their suffering and sacrifice are not the same things. Remembering Canada’s fallen, although sentimental and poignant, is one thing; I have lost family in all the great wars of Canada’s history since 1831 defending our world from those whom would impose their beliefs at the point of a gun or tank turret, a principle for which my grandfather fought and spent four years as a German POW in Bavaria, leaving his infant sons and wife to cold fortune and hope. Remembering these men’s sacrifice, however, (there were no women in combat roles at this time) without “learning” from their sacrifice makes their deaths, their solitude, their pain and the emotional agony they endured pointless.
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