RCMP officer fosters public mistrust in CBC interview
Staff Sergeant conflates traditional values with extremism...
I couldn’t believe a cop would say something so ignorant.
Was this the kind of person I’ve been trying to stand up for all these years? Someone who despises what I believe?
I’ve defended police in Canada more times than I can remember.
I’ve made online petitions, written effective letters of commendation for officers wrongly attacked, and used social media as a platform to support police when they were at their most unpopular, in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
I’ve never been asked to do it, but I do it for Canadians. It’s generally a thankless task, but this is hard to stomach.
As I discuss in my book, the biggest mistake in the whole “defund the police” movement is that police literally are the line between the preservation of civil society and laissez faire anarchism. Removing police will lead to the loss of innocent lives and you can kiss any kind of public safety goodbye.
You can argue until you’re as blue in the face as that thin blue line, but without that intangible barrier, North Americans are asking for a repeat of the CHAZ/CHOP’s anarchism. A lawlessness based on nothing but the hope that men are at heart “noble savages,” as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) postulated.
As any police officer knows, men are rarely proven to be noble, but quite often can be savage, regardless of gender, race, colour or creed. Thugs come in all hues, shapes and sizes. Experience busts Rousseau’s “noble savage” as fantasy.
The world — and Canada — needs law and order.
In many regards, law and order are based in traditional values.
Traditional values mean an obedience to the law and a respect for the authorities who properly enforce it. Such practices are entirely crucial for a free society, including a liberal democracy like Canada, to function. Police rely on these practices by citizens every day, so they are respected, obeyed, and not contested or attacked for upholding the law.
To have an RCMP officer, regardless of gender, rank or personal beliefs, say:
As RCMP Staff Sergeant Camille Habel did on the CBC, is greatly concerning. It suggests there could be a similar ignorance of ideology among her fellow RCMP officers.
Habel demonstrates a shocking lack of understanding of what exactly traditional values are. Traditional values include respect, obedience and even support for law enforcement. To suggest otherwise is completely false, and in complete discord with the history of traditional conservatism.
The RCMP offered a rationalization for Habel’s comments when contacted by the Western Standard, a news site which frequently espouses such traditional values, and where I contribute as a guest columnist.
The link to that WS article and the RCMP’s response has been scrubbed for reasons unbeknownst to me.
The RCMP’s excuse for the debacle, which I read before the article was scrubbed, was to deny any implication against traditional values. According to the Mounties’ brass, the misinterpreted dialogue in Habel’s CBC interview was meant to explain a rapid change in ideological orientation could be related to a turn toward extremism.
But if that really was the case, and the Staff Sergeant meant no slight against anyone, then Habel should know how to express that concept without demonizing traditional values. It doesn’t take a mastery of the English language to be able to do this, either.
If Staff Sgt. Habel, or any RCMP officer for that matter, cannot do this, in whatever language they speak in public, then they shouldn’t be in public relations. They should be assigned other duties that do not give them the opportunity to worsen relations with the Canadian public, which the RCMP clearly continues to struggle with.
I’ve been trying to make things more amenable between law enforcement and the public, even in the West, where there is a marked distrust for the RCMP.
I’ve been asked during personal phone calls to say whether I trust the RCMP, and, at those times, I said “yes.” Thank you, Staff Sgt. Habel, for making me look the fool. Should I have said something different?
People continue to be scared and mistrustful because of the RCMP’s portrayal in the media and repeated claims of sexual harassment, police brutality, and systemic racism. More rarely, people will have individual experiences that underlie such beliefs.
I’ve been called all sorts of names for sticking up for cops, whether municipal, provincial, or national. I will continue to stand up for them. But I’m a social conservative, and my values are indeed traditional values. I have respect for law enforcement, I obey the law, and I support the police.
However, I cannot support the police when they openly attack not only who I am, but part of the very foundational values that makes law enforcement who they are.
Do the RCMP even understand the history of law and traditional values?
This officer needs to know where their profession comes from, and the people who are responsible for the support police receive today. Until this officer understands those (very basic) concepts, she should not be conducting public relations.