by Ian Parsons
As is so often the case in life, the day-to-day functioning of the college was fraught with irony. Widely known throughout the Canadian police universe, CPC was regarded as the veritable Mecca of contemporary police management theory, yet the college’s treatment of its staff did not always reflect participative management. Whereas Inspector George Carter, our immediate superior, was an eloquent, university-educated man and in many ways an inspiring leader, his superior, the assistant director, as well as the college’s director, leaned toward the traditional autocratic RCMP leadership style. Inspector Carter was frequently caught between his subordinates and superiors. By the very nature of the curriculum, freedom of thought and innovative approaches had to be encouraged. The dichotomy existed in the rather despotic management environment established by college leaders. Our incoming director had assured his new faculty that the potential for career advancement at the college would be limitless, and he foresaw many of us attaining commissioned rank. But after several years, not one senior NCO instructor had been invited to compete in the officer candidate program.
The faculty at CPC was exclusively RCMP. In order to have the college appear non-partisan, instructors were encouraged to wear civilian clothing while working. In spite of this being an implied requirement, no clothing allowance was granted, even though such allowances were routinely paid to other RCMP members when civilian clothing was deemed an operational necessity. These factors, along with other minor irritations, came to the fore during a staff meeting with our inspector. As the meeting wore on, participants became vocal as their frustrations began to surface. Inspector Carter, obviously feeling the pinch in his position as intermediary, finally retorted, “I might teach this management shit, but I don’t have to practise it!” The comment was meant humorously, but he would live with it for the rest of his days as our manager.
The assistant director was a large, bombastic superintendent who was given to bullying. In spite of this, Inspector Carter had the temerity to confront him with our concerns and made some headway. We were fortunate in having Dr. William Kelloway, a renowned and respected psychologist, seconded to the college. In his civilian capacity, he could speak to upper management with candour. His observations about the sometimes toxic management environment at the college had considerable impact on our leaders. They responded to Kelloway’s suggestions, changing their approach and improving communication.
CAUGHT WITH THEIR PANTS DOWN
The director of the CPC was an educated, upwardly mobile executive. At the time, there were even rumours of his eventual ascendancy to the commissioner’s position. Perhaps aware of this possibility, he seized opportunities to ensure his high profile. Ottawa was hosting a worldwide symposium on policing, and part of the itinerary of the international candidates was a tour of the Canadian Police College. One of the showpieces of the college was the 100-seat auditorium with a large stage, retractable video screen, sloped floor and comfortable tiered seats.
Coincidentally, a group of American and Canadian police had gathered at the college for an organized-crime seminar. During the ’70s, the shocking pornographic movie Deep Throat was being shown in movie theatres in the USA, and one of the investigators had a copy of the movie. Strictly for “investigative reasons,” the candidates wished to view the controversial flick. The course coordinator arranged to gather his flock in the auditorium for an after-hours viewing. Unfortunately, the CPC director was escorting the police leaders through the college at the same time. One can only imagine his shock and that of his guests when he proudly opened the door of the auditorium to be greeted by Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems performing sexual gymnastics on the big screen. The following day, the coordinator of the crime seminar incurred considerable wrath. The CPC director never did reach the dizzy height of commissioner. We often mused with some humour that perhaps this racy choice of after-hours viewing had tipped the scales against him.
While teaching at CPC, I had the good fortune to participate in an instructor exchange program between the college and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. CPC instructors presented their routine sessions at Quantico for a two-week period, and were replaced by an FBI lecturer at CPC. Personnel at the FBI Academy were extremely receptive and went out of their way to make us feel at home. The contrast in educational qualifications between the two agencies spoke volumes. At a minimum, FBI personnel needed a master’s degree, and many of them were working toward their PhDs. In contrast, few RCMP faculty members at CPC had completed a bachelor’s degree. Nevertheless, the FBI personnel were impressed by how well RCMP members presented sophisticated material. The content of subject blocks such as management systems, motivation, perception, counselling and interviewing were almost identical at each training centre. The primary difference was the level of formal education of the presenters. When these disparities were reported to RCMP management, efforts were made to upgrade the faculty’s educational levels to achieve parity with institutes such as the FBI Academy, but even today very few CPC instructors possess advanced degrees.
While I was serving at CPC, the position of chief academic instructor at the RCMP Academy in Regina became available. The job offered a promotion to staff sergeant. I was approaching 20 years’ service in the Force and hoped to be located in the western half of the country when the time came to retire, so I applied for the highly sought-after position, as did many of my peers. My comprehensive background in RCMP training at all levels, together with my field service and recently acquired bachelor’s degree, contributed to my attaining the post.
CHAPTER 11
DÉJÀ VU
IN THE SPRING of 1980, I returned to Regina to take up my new position. The Academy had continued its transition to more sophisticated methodology since my tour of duty as an instructor in the 1970s. The recruit experience of the 1980s was light years ahead of my own experience in 1961. Externally, the trappings and appearances of Depot remained the same. Recruits still moved about in troop formation, marching smartly. Foot drill was still a part of the curriculum, and noon parades were priorities. The fundamental differences were in the classroom and the gym, where the emphasis was on simulation and scenario training and physical conditioning.
In my new position, I supervised over 30 junior NCO instructors working out of five distinct academic units. The instructors’ immediate supervisors were sergeants, who reported to me. It was the most complex management structure I had encountered thus far. The academic section had its own modern building designed for contemporary studies. It was a dynamic, exhilarating environment. The instructors were highly motivated and self-directed, which made my job an easy one. The esprit de corps and morale within the section were high, with the possibility of hijinks never far from the surface.
BILINGUALISM?
The sergeant major in an RCMP training division occupies a high-profile position. He literally “sets the tone,” metes out discipline, supervises the instructors and is generally involved in all decisions pertaining to training. One such sergeant major who presided at Depot was a man who typically turned himself out impeccably. Accompanying this attention to detail were somewhat unique expressions of pronunciation and vocabulary. We never knew whether these peculiarities were intended humorously or done unintentionally.
When referring to the aggregate of classical musicians in downtown Regina, the sergeant major referred to them as the Regina Sympathy Orchestra. The bass drummer of the Depot bugle band wore the skin of an exotic cat as an apron over his uniform, as is the custom in military bands. When not in use, it hung in the sergeant major’s office. He proudly described it as the leotard skin.
Another example of his occasional lack of verbal acuity occurred when one of the troop supervisors prepared a letter of resignation on behalf of a departing recruit. The recruit in question was homesick and was determined to be full of nostalgia. Upon reading the memo, the sergeant major enquired about the young man’s condition of “nostaleegia,” wanting to be sure that he received the proper medical attentio
n for his affliction.
During this senior NCO’s tenure, there had been a series of rumours circulating in the training division. After a daily noon parade, the instructors formed up in troop formation, as the sergeant major wished to address all personnel. Everyone stood at attention. He paced up and down the ranks, and in a stentorian voice lectured on the evils of spreading untruths. As he reached the climax of his message, he roared, “There’s been a whole lot of allegations going around here, and if I ever catch the ALLIGATORS . . .” There was silence from the troop, followed by snickers, then peals of laughter. The division disciplinarian had lost his audience in the blink of an eye.
This man was also renowned for his discomfort around technology. The training division had recently acquired a paper shredder, which was located next to the photocopy machine. The commanding officer had just prepared a memo and was about to make a duplicate. The sergeant major, anxious to illustrate his newfound skills and accommodate his superior, took the freshly typed original memo from the hands of the CO and promptly put it through the shredder.
Although his mangling of the Queen’s English and penchant for gaffes were well known, this man was fondly respected for his humanity, lack of airs and good spirits. He continued in his position of sergeant major for several years, and retired after a full career of training RCMP recruits.
My own tour of Depot as an instructor had concluded just prior to the introduction of female recruits. When I returned in 1980, the changes were obvious, even though the co-ed academy was still a recent development and the first female instructor was yet to arrive. Perhaps this was the reason for the occasional regression of attitude on the part of the male instructors.
Reg Potsby, the sergeant in charge of the law unit, viewed himself as a “liberated man,” but his occasionally lascivious comments during lectures clearly displayed a chauvinistic bent. One of the older and worldlier female recruits had a curious artistic ability; she could fashion the most life-like human penises from nylon stockings. While not a skill in great demand, it was a source of hilarity among the female troops. The corporals assigned to the law unit learned of this talent and asked her to fashion a gigantic one. Unbeknownst to Sergeant Potsby, an elaborate suspension system was fashioned along the upper portion of the chalkboard at the front of his classroom. While the sergeant was waxing eloquent in front of a female class, the large penis, controlled from outside the classroom, was pulled across the room on the string, coming to rest above him. Potsby’s audience fell into hysterical laughter, gesturing toward the object sitting just above the sergeant’s head. Even though he appeared to enjoy the stunt, Potsby lost control of the class and had to dismiss his students early. His mischievous corporals had second thoughts in weeks to come when they encountered drawers glued shut, false memos indicating their transfers to Inuvik and phone calls from a local escort service. As is so often the case in such situations, the boss always wins; however, in retrospect, I can see that the incident prompted the sergeant to reconsider his demeanour with female students.
EACH SPRING SAW a new crop of instructors arrive from the field as senior members rotated back to operational duties. The arrival of a constable from Montreal exemplified how unprepared the RCMP were in dealing with members surfacing from undercover duties. Brad Dalton had been performing undercover work in Montreal for about two years, participating in a large and complex drug operation. There is perhaps no other duty in police work that takes such a psychological toll. While undercover, agents must eat, live and breathe in the most primitive conditions. Their lives are constantly in danger, particularly if their true identities are discovered. When undercover members surface, they are dirty, dishevelled, disoriented and traumatized. After Dalton’s undercover assignment ended, it was felt that his life was in danger, so instead of having the opportunity to debrief and rehabilitate, he was immediately transferred to the training division.
Dalton was expected to present himself as a squeaky-clean role model for recruits, but his classroom demeanour soon revealed how unsuited he was for a training environment. His mannerisms disturbed his recruit students. While he quickly assumed all the physical requirements of an ideal instructor, dressing smartly, replete with gleaming leather and impeccable grooming, his language was coarse, sometimes peppered with obscene street jargon. Senior management members were shocked by Dalton’s behaviour and moved to intervene. When they made preparations to remove him from his teaching role, I spoke on his behalf, reminding them of the young man’s background and outlining the trauma of protracted undercover operations. Although his promotion to corporal was deferred, Dalton was permitted to remain on staff. He was closely supervised and tutored over a period of time. He eventually curbed his raunchy tongue and slowly began to behave in a more acceptable manner.
I realized some years later that I had overlooked symptoms of post-traumatic stress manifested by another instructor, Grant Lortie. But I wasn’t the only one. Trained psychologists working in the academic section, along with many of the man’s peers who had training in human behaviour, also failed to identify what Lortie was experiencing. Lortie had been stationed on a municipal detail in Nanaimo, British Columbia. One evening while he was assigned to the detachment complaint desk, a co-worker had arrested an individual for impaired driving. When released, the citizen went home and returned to the detachment with a 12-gauge shotgun concealed under his overcoat. He entered the office and stood at the complaint counter. When Constable Lortie approached him, the man pulled the shotgun from his coat and fired, striking Lortie in the abdomen. Seriously injured, Lortie managed to talk the assailant into dropping his gun. After a brief exchange, the shooter seemed to regret his actions and even drove Lortie to the hospital for treatment. He was quickly taken into custody and arrested for attempted murder.
Lortie arrived at the Academy some years later, having physically recovered from his wound. He was the epitome of a policeman—six foot three inches tall, well built and very impressive in uniform. He was also a capable instructor and considered to be one of the comers in the section. Although he projected well in the classroom and was highly respected by his troops, Lortie was closed and uncommunicative with peers and supervisors. I monitored each instructor annually, attending one of their presentations and then debriefing them. It gave me an opportunity to question them on their careers and aspirations. During my interviews with Lortie, he was tense, answering questions in a terse manner and offering little from his personal perspective. It was obvious that he wanted to terminate the interview as soon as possible. When I talked about his potential and the possibility of his pursuing extra education, Lortie’s responses were muted, making it difficult to establish any rapport with him. He continued to perform his job in an exemplary fashion and rotated out after his three years at the Academy.
Corporal Lortie returned to operational duties in British Columbia, and the occasional news I would receive about him was not favourable. Several years later, I learned that Lortie’s marriage had failed. He had also been subject to a service investigation after refusing to wear his sidearm on duty and been found derelict in responding to a public complaint. The details related to me seemed highly out of character. Lortie subsequently retired, never rising above the rank of corporal. It was a most disappointing end to a career that had once appeared so promising. Following his retirement, Lortie settled in a remote community and became reclusive. I later learned that one of his daughters, a registered psychiatric nurse, always suspected her Dad was concealing unresolved issues. She finally persuaded her father to release his demons, and he disclosed that he was haunted by the shooting incident. No therapy or counselling had been offered to him after the event, as the Force was just becoming aware of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and little assistance was in place for shooting incident survivors. Corporal Lortie finally received some psychiatric help and a disability pension. In retrospect, it was obvious he was a casualty of a stressful occupation that failed to provide the necessary compassi
onate attention. This unfortunate history emphasizes the absolute necessity for supervisors in high-risk occupations such as law enforcement to be proactive when it comes to dealing with the trauma their employees are experiencing. In recent years, the Force has implemented many positive changes in the debriefing of members returning to uniform duty from undercover work and in the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.
IN TODAY’S RCMP ACADEMY, computers are ubiquitous and instructors engage in animated classroom exchanges with students, who are encouraged to debate and doubt. Spearheaded by a cadre of talented, educated junior NCOs, the human-relations program has grown from the modest 18 hours first proposed in the early 1970s to over 200 hours, with successful candidates receiving university credits from the University of Regina. It is gratifying to know that I was involved in introducing this vital facet of police training, and it was icing on the cake to return to the Academy a second time and expand the program further.
Cynical veterans still denigrate the human-relations program and training in general, as they have done since the inception of the Force in 1873. Each successive generation seems to believe that current basic training is never as tough or as good as that experienced by the previous old guard. Even after the physically cruel experience of my own era, we encountered veterans who assured us that their horses were tougher and their instructors meaner than anything we had to contend with.