December 03, 2005
WHY THE MOUNTIES RARELY GET THEIR WHITE-COLLAR PERSON
Some thoughts from the no-longer confidential Stevie Cameron.
Eagleson’s powerful friends prevented any serious examination of his fraudulent conduct in the hockey world for decades and only after he was charged by courts in the United States did Canadian police begin to take action. They were years behind the Americans; in fact, only one RCMP officer worked on the case for most of the time. It was the Americans who seized Eagleson’s property in Florida and New York and even succeeded in freezing assets in London. Finally, in a plea bargain in both Canadian and U.S. courts, Eagleson pled guilty in both countries and went to jail in Canada for a few months.
Then there are the charges against Conrad Black in the United States. Again, the Americans were well ahead of the Canadians; in fact, the RCMP has said here that officers looked at the case against him for a few weeks and decided there was no reason to proceed. Oh, really?
What is wrong with the RCMP? What is wrong with our justice system? What is wrong with our journalism? Why have so few news outlets gone after these stories? Are we living in a gulag?
I disagree about the RCMP. What failures to prosecute in Canada point out is the need to have such complex white collar (and "political") investigations run--as is done in the US by cities, counties, states and the feds--by attorneys acting themselves as investigators (with police help).
Prosecution then follows.
But in Canada investigation and evidence gathering is a police responsibility, with the police ill-equipped for and unskilled in such cases. Crown attorneys only become closely involved once the prosecution phase begins.
As long as that is the Canadian procedure an independent federal Director of Public prosecutions--as proposed by Stephen Harper--is essentially irrelevant as the evidentiary goods will be missing (not to speak of the fact that Criminal Code prosecutions are within provincial jurisdiction).
Note the Eagleson and Black cases mentioned by Cameron.
As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Fitzgerald serves as the district's top federal law enforcement official. He manages of staff of more than 300 employees, including approximately 161 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, who handle civil litigation and criminal investigations and prosecutions involving public corruption, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, white-collar fraud and other federal crimes...During the last four years, Mr. Fitzgerald has provided leadership and played a personal role in many significant investigations involving terrorism financing, public corruption, corporate fraud, and violent crime, including narcotics and gang prosecutions.
Ben Clements led the Eagleson investigation.
...While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he was responsible for the investigation and prosecution of a wide range of federal crimes, including public corruption, major commercial and government fraud, civil rights violations, homicide and other violent crimes... Among many other cases, Ben successfully prosecuted...the former head of the National Hockey League Players Association, Alan Eagleson, for various schemes to defraud the NHL players...
I wonder if Damian has any views on the question of who should run such investigations.
Does anyone believe that if the massive Bre-X mining fraud had occurred in the US that there would have been no criminal prosecutions? There has not been one in Canada. One civil case brought by the Ontario Securities Commission has been dragging on for five years.
Posted by markc at December 3, 2005 11:36 AM | TrackBack