Daily BrewB.C. Mountie Karen Katz launches new sexual harassment lawsuit against the RCMP
If we're fair about this, most of us don't know all the facts behind the seemingly unending stream of allegations about the conduct of some individual RCMP officers.
But the pattern of revelations about sexual harassment of female officers and one Mountie's alleged predilection for sado-masocistic sex play that degrades women suggests some personal character weaknesses in the ranks of Canada's Finest.
The Canadian Press reports the Mounties have been hit with yet another lawsuit from a women officer.
Const. Karen Katz's statement of claim filed in the B.C. Supreme Court alleges she was subjected to "offensive, humiliating and demeaning comments."
The 20-year veteran Mountie said she was called fat, was asked to perform oral sex on male colleagues and was accused of being a security risk because of her research into biker gangs, which produced four books.
Katz already has a lawsuit in the system, filed last January against fellow officer Baldev Singh Bamra and federal and provincial officials, the Toronto Sun reported.
In that suit, she alleged Baldev subjected her to verbal and physical abuse, including slamming into her chest, putting her in a tight bear hug and grinding his genitals into her knee on night shifts when they worked alone together. She said her complaints about his conduct were ignored.
None of Katz's allegations have been proven in court and RCMP Supt. Ray Benoties declined comment.
"The RCMP has not had the opportunity to review these unproven allegations but at some point all the facts will be known and all statements will be made under oath in court," he said in an email to The Canadian Press.
But the Mounties know there's something deeply wrong within their ranks.
Commissioner Bob Paulson, reacting to earlier revelations, promised he would root out "dark-hearted behaviour" inside the force.
The pledge came after the media exposed the quiet transfer to British Columbia of Donald Ray, who'd headed the polygraph unit in Edmonton after an internal disciplinary process that saw him demoted for drinking and having sex on the job with a woman under his command.
[Related: Is B.C. a dumping ground for misbehaving Mounties?]
The RCMP is also facing a class-action suit filed by a former Nanaimo, B.C., officer. Janet Merlo alleges 20 years of sexual harassment, sex-oriented pranks, lewd comments and double standards from her male supervisors, CBC News reported.
Merlo's lawyer says papers have been filed with B.C. Supreme Court to have the suit certified as a class action, and that 150 women have come forward to join it.
Cpl. Catherine Galliford, the high-profile face of the RCMP during the Air India bombing and Robert Pickton serial-killer investigations, went public last fall with her allegations of sexual harassment, filing her own suit.
Paulson told CBC Radio's The House last month that he didn't like seeing these allegations aired in the media.
"One of the trends that I have seen is this propensity to go public on every sort of beef that happens in the workplace," said Paulson, reacting to the leak of allegations of bullying by Supt. Bruno Saccomani, who commands the prime minister's security detail.
Paulson conceded the fact aggrieved officers don't trust their superiors to deal with these problems is behind the public whistle-blowing.
"I suppose you could argue that is a result of having no confidence in the internal processes and systems, but the fact is that the RCMP is very central in the public discussion these days," he told CBC News.
"Any sort of issue relating to affairs within the RCMP is noteworthy and people exploit that."
There's no question Mounties accused of misbehaviour should receive due process.
Cpl. Jim Brown of the RCMP detachment in Coquitlam, B.C., is facing a code-of-conduct investigation after photos appeared on the Internet that purport to show him in sexual bondage activity. They included an image said to be of Brown holding a butcher knife to a bound woman's throat and another with what look like someone in a Mountie-style boot planted on the back of a kneeling woman.
QMI Agency reported there's some question the burly, shaven-headed man in the photos is actually Brown but his superiors evidently knew about the images as far back as 2010.
No investigation was opened until last March, a few weeks before the photos reached media outlets, because it didn't pass the threshold of what's deemed as misconduct.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.
[ Related: Just what do you have to do to get fired from the RCMP? ]
