Pubdate: Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source: See Magazine (CN AB)
Copyright: 2000 SEE Magazine
Contact:  http://www.seemagazine.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2367
Author: Andrew Hanon
Note: about 2/3 down, Chief Wasylyshen discusses his opposition to the 
legalization of drugs

MEET THE NEW BOSS

Bob Wasylyshen Talks About Corruption, Drugs And Gun Control

Bob Wasylyshen rarely closes the door to his fourth-floor office. The 
29-year veteran of the Edmonton Police Service wants to stay as connected 
as possible with the 1,100 officers under his command. It's precisely that 
hands-on style that assured his confirmation last month, from interim to 
permanent chief of police.

The Yorkton, Sask. native, who's known affectionately as 'Woz' by the 
rank-and-file, has the unenviable task of restoring the force's morale 
after two years of intense, humiliating scrutiny over allegations that some 
EPS members were too cosy with gangland criminals and that the previous 
chief, John Lindsay, had sat idly by while it happened. Since the 
allegations were made, three separate investigations have been conducted, 
the final one by Wasylyshen himself, immediately after he replaced Lindsay 
last January. All have cleared the department of any corruption allegations 
and Lindsay of any wrongdoing.

Wasylyshen presented his report to the Edmonton Police Commission last 
month, just weeks after his confirmation as chief. That presentation will 
likely set the tone for his tenure as the city's highest-ranking cop. He 
pointedly told reporters the case is closed and it's time to refocus on the 
job of policing the city. Since then, he has steadfastly refused to 
publicly release his report, saying the public will have to trust him and 
the appointed police commission and that with exception of one lingering 
criminal investigation, the matter has been resolved.

SEE Magazine caught up with Wasylyshen a week after he closed the books on 
one of the EPS's darkest chapters.

SEE: On Oct. 18 you explained at great length why you couldn't release the 
report, but surely there are parts of it that could help clear up any doubt 
- an executive summary, for example.

BW: The presentation that I made to the police commission represents an 
executive summary. That was given to the media and is still available to 
the public. The reason that we did not release the report, first of all, is 
because there's a tremendous amount of third-party information where a 
number of people were accused of things that ended up being unfounded. It 
certainly would be unfair to their privacy rights to go ahead and allow the 
public sift through issues that the people in question were subsequently 
found to have done nothing wrong.

The second thing is through our very extensive investigations we dealt with 
sources of information and investigations that are going on in other areas 
of our organization and other police organizations which would be 
jeopardized if that information was to be made public, even if you were to 
take out the information such as names and so on. From the position of 
having a good conscience, I couldn't do that. Nor do I believe it's 
necessary to do that.

Under the provisions of the Police Act the legislators of Alberta have said 
that we have these oversight bodies called police commissions, which are a 
representation of the community. Let's let the system work. One would ask 
themself the question, if the police commission is not able to fulfil their 
function by being that oversight body, and by the way I think they fulfil 
it very well, then what is the purpose of having a police commission if the 
things that the police do are thrown to complete public scrutiny all the time?

SEE: So they're the public's representatives.

BW: Absolutely. And I want to reiterate that those who are suspect of the 
report have not read it, yet those who have read the report, the police 
commission, who represent all of those people, are saying we're not suspect 
about it at all. We have read it, we're aware of what the contents are and 
we're satisfied that it's been done right. Meanwhile those who aren't are 
saying we don't think it's right. Well how do you arrive at that? You 
should talk to your police commission and have that discussion to reach 
that comfort level that you need to have.

SEE: But you can see the catch-22 . . .

BW: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Certainly, when people are expressing their 
thoughts that there should be a public inquiry, there always in my view has 
to be basis to that, (there's) some substance to it. It's not enough to 
say, I think we should clear the air and have a public inquiry. Do you know 
what a public inquiry means? It's extremely expensive and it would 
jeopardize the safety of other individuals.

SEE: When the allegations were first made, it was national news for months. 
It must have been a serious blow to morale.

BW: This has caused an extremely difficult time for the police service. 
You're looking at a police service that has enjoyed an international 
reputation for years. These allegations and the ensuing investigations and 
the public debate certainly have caused us to suffer a blow to our 
reputation, right or wrong. The years of bad publicity that we got from all 
of this certainly had a detrimental effect on morale. It was certainly hard 
on the chief of the day, in all fairness to John Lindsay; it was extremely 
hard on him and, in my view, he was undeserving of some of the things that 
came his way.

SEE: There is a growing movement toward relaxing drug laws. Does the EPS, 
or do you, have a particular stand on drug legalization?

BW: Yes I do. I don't favour drug legalization. The movement toward the 
legalization of drugs is, I believe, largely motivated by frustration. 
People think we're spinning our wheels, wasting taxpayers' money and the 
courts are not providing the kinds of penalties we want, so what are we 
doing? Let's legalize it and get it over with. Is that a reasonable 
position? It may be, but I suggest the issue is much deeper than that. I'm 
certainly open to discussion on it but if we're going to legalize drugs 
because we're frustrated, then that's not a good reason.

Secondly, we need to understand that perhaps legalization could be 
extremely detrimental to the entire country. Imagine if drugs were legal 
here how that might invite people to come from other countries who are 
interested in drug use. What will that do to us as a nation? Would it put 
pressure on our social network? How would it affect families? All those 
complex questions would need to be answered.

No matter how many suppliers we bust there's always another coming up to 
replace them. Why is that so? Because there's a demand. That's the other 
half of it that nobody ever talks about. It's like everything's OK on the 
demand side. Let me tell you something. The people who use the drugs and 
the people who supply the drugs are equally responsible for the problem.

SEE: When you're talking about attacking the demand side, you're talking 
education.

BW: Absolutely. Enforcement always needs to be there, but if enforcement is 
not accompanied by a process that's equally as hard driven on the education 
side, it won't work. Do we need to plug this education into the schooling 
system? Is it more important to learn the alignment of the planets or is it 
more important to learn about the wiles of drug use?

SEE: In regard to Bill C-68, the new Firearms Act and the gun registry, 
some chiefs across the country are opposed to this. How do you feel about it?

BW: First of all, police services around the country have long been put in 
a situation where government will make police assume additional 
responsibilities without any corresponding support. And as these additional 
responsibilities are placed on us there comes a time when you say there's 
too much. That was what happened with Bill C-68. The federal justice 
minister of the time was Allan Rock. He secured the support of the police 
community by making a promise. He promised that the Firearms Act would not 
take one single police officer off the street and based on that promise, 
the police community generally supported him. We found later on that was 
not going to be possible.

The registration part of Bill C-68 seems to be the problem. We simply do 
not know how many firearms there are in Canada. That's very difficult when 
you set out with a registration system because what's your goal? Obviously 
your goal is to register all firearms, but there's a moving target. The 
whole system depends on every firearm being registered, but how will we 
ever know for sure? So we're really in no different position than before 
there was a registry. I can only imagine if we had poured $400 or $500 
million into fighting organized crime, we might have made some really big 
inroads. There might have been better ways, but it's not for me to say.