Friday, March 23, 2007

[canadian mounties] taken for a ride

This one was as interesting to me for the editor's disclaimer at the beginning as for the story itself. Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, wrote a long foreword:

The article that follows is incomplete. That is not normally something we do. Usually we make our work as complete as possible. In this case, we are hobbled by legal restrictions. The story is about a man who became an RCMP informant and was eventually enrolled in the Witness Protection program in spite of ample warning that he was an unreliable liar.

This individual went on to commit a heinous crime. We can neither describe the details of the murder nor the current identity of the killer. The Globe and Mail publishes this story today in conjunction with The Ottawa Citizen, a highly unusual act in itself, and one which speaks to the importance the editors of the two newspapers place on this matter.

Greg McArthur and Gary Dimmock researched and wrote this story at The Citizen. Greg is now a reporter with The Globe and Mail. For legal reasons it was modified jointly with The Citizen after he left. Both Greg McArthur and The Citizen have been waging a legal battle to publish it for the past six months. A court ruling yesterday allowed us to tell this part of the story.

But this is more than just the story of an individual gone bad. It is an issue of public policy. But the blanket legal requirement of the Witness Protection Act against ever disclosing the identity of a person accepted into the program — no matter how awful his subsequent actions — inhibits our efforts to not just tell this story, but to examine the RCMP's role in this affair.

Isn't this as neat an indictment of behind the scenes manoeuverings to suppress the truth as you're ever likely to see? As for the story itself, here it is.

By the way, while we're still in Canada, it looks likely Steven Harper will finally get his majority and that will make Halls of Macadamia happy.

1 comment:

  1. *
    actually james... happy is not a strong enough word.

    as the numbers climb, i listen to the hysterical whine of the leftbot media, as they attempt once again, to conjure up images of... bodies stacked like cordwood, gulags for the foreign, the otherwise sexually inclined and anyone remotely connected to a union... it's all music to my philistine ears.

    my star is rising... and peace will soon descend upon this troubled land.

    *

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