It’s Time To 86 Zaccardelli!
December 5th, 2006 | by MadHacktress |Okay, so apparently Canada’s so-called Top Cop doesn’t understand the concept of a timeline. On Monday he gave a very different telling of the Maher Arar tale than the one he gave in September in front of Parliamentary Committee.
This new (fictitious) timeline has Zaccardelli coming in to the Arar info after a public inquiry in to the matter had reported that Canada’s RCMP has passed bad information to American authorities. When pressed on the matter, he insists that this jives with his former statement: “I personally became involved in the file after Mr. Arar was detained and sent to Syria [...] I asked for the file and I asked for specific documents relating to what happened.”
I hate temporal mechanics.
It seems as though our time-traveling RCMP has managed to both receive the file and specific documents after Arar was sent to Syria, and only hear about it after public inquiry to the matter, that public inquiry for those who are interested was published 18 September of this year.
To throw a little timeline at you:
- 8 October 2002 - Arar is deported to Syria; around this same time Zaccardelli asks for details about the case.
- 5 October 2003 - Arar returns to Canada after months of torture.
- 21 January 2004 - Huge brouhaha when Juliet O’Neil’s apartment is sacked by the RCMP looking for information regarding leaks of Arar case information.
- 28 June 2004 - Arar’s wife (very publicly) unsuccessfully runs for office in Ottawa during the Federal election.
- Year of 2004 - TIME friggin’ magazine names Arar Canadian Newsmaker of the Year.
- Sometime in between - Zaccardelli awakes from a sudden, massive head-trauma induced amnesiac coma.
- 18 September 2006 - Zaccardelli learns about all this stuff again for the first time.
Now, I’m not a doctor or anything, but just looking at that timeline I see a slight flaw. My main problem with his new tale is this: The Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States sat down and chatted about the Arar situation in January of 2004.
As the RCMP Commissioner I have a pretty significant concern with regard to your effectiveness if issues such as the wrongful deportation of Canadian citizens to dark, dank Syrian prisons where they’re thumped in to submission slips by you. It is also of concern if you had no idea that this was going on, but the Prime Minister did. Was your secretary out sick? Did you miss that memo? Who the heck told the PM if not you?
Shouldn’t it be the RCMP Commissioners job to know damned near everything that’s going on with Canada’s federal police service? Ain’t that your job, my friend?
Zaccardelli is going back in front of the Parliamentary Committee (which I just like capitalizing) tomorrow and I look forward to hearing what he has to say about this new hands-off timeline that he has invented.
The man has got to go. Not that Stockwell Day has the berries to ask for his resignation, but a girl can dream…
Entry Filed under: In The News
So are you going to write stockwell day a letter telling him he has berries now? My question though yes the RCMP commissioner may have a mental block about things and not understand time lines; but what about the prime minsters office?? What did they know I am sure they knew a lot but more importantly what did they not do.
Ha! Heaven’s no I’m not going to give Stockwell Day credit for that! He didn’t do anything at all. Zaccardelli resigned of his own accord (though with pressure); had he been fired by the Gutless gentleman from Okanagan—Coquihalla, then I would have sung his praises.
As for the PMO. As reported by the Globe & Mail, Prime Minister Paul Martin met with George Bush in Monterrey, Mexico, on 13 January 2004 to discuss the issue and come to an accord which obliged the United States to notify Canada before deporting Canadian citizens from the United States.
That meeting in Mexico was window dressing nothing more nothing less. The PMO has gotten to become surprisingly powerful. Mr. Chrétien or members of his staff new something and to what extent we will not know as MR Chrétien feels he is above being questions. I am not a Chrétien fan or for that matter a wet suit wearing Day fan either lol. What happened to Mr. Arar was dreadful and I do not wish it on anyone but I am willing to error on caution rather then the other way. I do think he should have some kind of compensation as well but not sure 31 million is the right number, I would hate for Canada to become more like the US in this regard where throwing money is the answer. What is wrong with 1 million 31 just seems a bit greedy.
The excessive compensation thing just drives me crazy. My thought on the matter is to give him, sort of like, the “1000$ per week for life” lottery winnings. Enough money for him to live and make a nest-egg for his kids, but don’t give enough enough money such that his great-great-great-great grandchildren will be set for life… that just doesn’t make sense.