Stockie in Charge, Part Duhx

Why does the Harper government keep giving this bozo such important assignments? Here's another one that sounds like it should work out well:

"Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he has taken the first major step in reforming the RCMP, announcing the creation of a new council to oversee the overhaul of the force.

"It's one more step toward the changes that have to take place to make this organization even stronger than it is today," Day said Thursday morning.

The appointment of the implementation council, chaired by David McAusland, a top executive at Alcan Inc., is one of the key recommendations laid out by a task force that was asked by Ottawa to investigate structural problems plaguing the RCMP."

If anyone wants the top secret details on the re-organization, I guess they can be found in the dumpster behind Hy's Restaurant, in the file labeled "Top Secret Security Stuff and Junk Like That".

Law & Order Stockie is on the job, chumps!

It doesn't get any dumber than this. (Please! Don't let it get any dumber than this.) Today Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (also known as one of the guys who's in ur gubmint, trashin ur principles) dropped into Vancouver for a !surprise! visit to the Vancouver Cops:

"Vancouver police investigating another stabbing in the city's Downtown Eastside had a surprise visitor Thursday morning: Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

The minister's unexpected appearance on a street corner in Vancouver's grittiest neighbourhood surprised police and reporters who were already at the crime scene.

After emerging without notice from his official car, Day spent a couple of minutes being briefed by Sgt. Anne Drennan, the former VPD media liaison turned beat cop, before talking to reporters while his two handlers looked on.

"I'm here doing business in Vancouver and just happened to be down here, saw the scene, like to talk to officers on the scene," Day told reporters. "It gives me an idea of what's happening on the ground.""

Stockie surfs right into the middle of a crime scene... for a photo-op! Of course! This is just the kind of thing that cops absolutely love -- some government gonad interrupting them to grab a photo-op while they're busy trying to do police work. And in the Downtown Eastside, no less! The DTES is a notoriously busy area for the cops -- I'm sure Sgt Drennan, a beat cop, had nothing else on to attend to this morning than an impromptu briefing of the Stockmeister.

But gee, I wonder if seeing "what's happening on the ground" in the Downtown Eastside gave Stockie pause to wonder about the wretched conditions there, and how to help improve them. Ya think?

Me neither.

(h/t: Impolitical)

New RCMP Commissioner

Stockwell Day lit up my TV screen awhile ago, announcing the appointment of a new RCMP Commissioner. This is a weird one:

"OTTAWA -- William Elliott is the new commissioner of the RCMP, taking over as Canada's top police officer at a time when the Mounties are under fire from external critics and even within their own ranks.

Elliott, a senior bureaucrat in the Public Safety Department which oversees the RCMP, is the first civilian to take the reins of the RCMP since the force was created in 1873."

The appointee, William Elliott, has some background in the Coast Guard and security, but technically he's a career civil servant -- a civilian, definitely not a cop. He's never done a cop's job or understands cop issues. I can't see him being able to command much respect from most of the rank-and-file cops he's been appointed to manage.

It's kind of an odd appointment in another way, too. The RCMP is supposed to be an organization apart from the government, giving it the independence to investigate the government itself if necessary. The appointment of a non-cop, government insider makes that relationship a little closer, which doesn't bode well for the upcoming cleanup of the RCMP. I'd rather let the mounties clean their own house than do it under the direction of Stephen Harper.