As the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Conference convened in Edmonton on Sunday evening, an absent RCMP Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak was honoured for his work as the director general of the Canadian Firearms Program.
Toronto police chief William Blair, the association president, presented the award in absentia to Cheliak, who is on leave from the national police force.
"He made the program work and I cannot overstate the enormity of his contribution to helping all of us in law enforcement and all Canadians understand better the value of that information," Blair said during the presentation.
The award follows Cheliak's removal as head of the program by RCMP Commissioner William Elliott.
Cheliak originally was supposed to present a report on a national firearms strategy at the conference, but was told by the RCMP that he would no longer be attending.
Yeeheehee. And no, of course Cheliak's removal was not, no-way, no-how political. He just developed an urgent need for a brush-up on his irregular French verbs.
Here's a link again to the excellent website Truths and Myths, set up by a by bunch of supporters of the registry, including cops, medical professionals, mental health activists, and the YWCA. More truthy-facty stuff can be found here and here. You know, for those times you're arguing with the shrieeekers at places like this for whom the debate is over once they've sneered: 'Oh yeah? Well, how many criminals are going to register their guns? Hmmmm?'
Another of their talking points is the MASSIVE poll done by a cop magazine. Now that we've all had the crash course on voluntary, self-selected truthy-facts versus the more rigorous kind of sampling a properly done census produces, let's see if we can see what's wrong with this:
Kuntz, a 22-year EPS [Edmonton Police Service] veteran, says 2,410 of the 2,631 officers from across the country he surveyed in Blue Line magazine since last spring believe “inaccurate” data from the registry is affecting police safety in every province and territory.
Officers 'believe' the data is 'inaccurate'. Oh. Well, then. Kinda like Shelley Glover, also an officer, believes that crime is rising despite what StatsCan says. And like this guy, who believes that nasty soap bubbles amount to assault.
3 comments:
Who am I gonna believe? I wouldn't believe any of them about anything -- they've all got their own agenda, and it doesn't include being any friend of mine.
That said, I wonder what this Cheliak guy had to say that was so explosive that he was (apparently) removed? That's pretty disturbing. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, more information should always be welcome.
I can't even begin to describe how much I hate it when Harper successfully launches a divide and conquer tactic. The politics of distraction are well in hand. Sigh :-(
The usual suspects didn't even miss a beat after the groups were reported to be in favour of both the census and the long gun registry.
The sock moppets immediately turned on the police chiefs and police boards as not being 'real' police, but effete, out of touch *LIBERALtm* elites and simply went into a denial death spiral that 'frontline' cops would EVER support the registry (nevermind having it pointed out that the association representing the rank and file supports things too -- that's just communistic union leadership apparently).
Kathump kathump, tiretracks on the back of the uniforms.
They've even thrown in yelps of police state.
And yet, these are apparently the same folks that were blindly supporting police actions against protestors at the Olympics and G20. But that was ok, but this is Liberal coup d'etat, but but but...
Talk about some classic rightwing follower split-brain triple luxes. Oh..and projection. I think some Harper defenders in the article commentaries literally had synapses short out mid-sentence.
The money quote is Harper's though, where he pits his five MPs against "some officers". I don't know. Maybe he believes cops can't vote any way but Conservative. Maybe he's right.
I guess I'm a nanny stater. I like Ignatieff's compromise. I also want to see REAL oversight of police services in the country, with national standards and negotiation for provincial and municipal levels standards.
The prospect that our rough tough cops can't stand objective scrutiny and being held to an ethical quality because they'd fold up and quiver in a corner from the criticism, yeah, that's really the kind of people I want with that much authority over my day to day life.
But then, that's pretty much the government of the day, innit. What's more shocking to me right now is that the police orgs are breaking ranks with Harper on these two items. I wonder if he saw that coming? Was Cheliak a tipping point, or a coincidence?
I wonder if copies of Cheliak's presentation are circulating amongst a small crowd? It's not the sort of thing he could have someone else read out?
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