RCMP

John Nuttall and Amanda Korody came to national attention in 2013 for allegedly trying to bomb the B.C. Legislature. Their case ended up revealing one of the biggest police entrapment cases in Canadian history.

When Charlene Thompson left her home in Surrey, B.C. with her dogs on the morning of June 17, 2013, she noticed a white truck she’d never seen before.

The five-ton hauler was parked in an alley near the door of Thompson’s least-favourite neighbours, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody. Thompson hoped she was looking at a moving van.

“It was right by their place and I was like… Maybe they’re moving. Right on!” she said with a laugh in a recent interview.

Upon returning home hours later with a car full of groceries and two freshly groomed dogs, Thompson found police barricades blocking off her street.

A national class-action lawsuit against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, alleging failure to provide a workplace free from bullying, intimidation, and harassment, has been certified by the Federal Court of Canada.

The class action seeks more than $1.1 billion in damages on behalf of all current and former RCMP members and civilians, special constables and reservists who worked for the national force between Jan. 1, 1995, and the date a collective agreement becomes or became applicable to a bargaining unit to which they belong.

Hours after the arrest earlier this month of a fugitive wanted in connection with the stabbing deaths of 11 people, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hastily called a press conference to announce that Myles Sanderson was “no longer a threat” to the public.

But as RCMP assistant commissioner Rhonda Blackmore described the four-day manhunt, she omitted a critical detail: Sanderson, who had been taken into custody alive, was already dead.

Update – Saskatchewan stabbing suspect Myles Sanderson died from drug overdose in custody: media reports

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is facing declining trust in the force’s performance and questions about the organization’s integrity.

That’s according to internal polling reviewed by Global News that suggests the Mounties face an increasingly skeptical public concerned not only with their job performance but with the national police force’s honesty, integrity and transparency.

The RCMP has an uneven record when it comes to implementing recommendations and guidelines following tragedies, according to a CBC News analysis.

And that raises concerns as the inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting winds down and a probe of the horrific recent stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan gets underway.

Ten people were left dead and another 18 were injured in the James Smith Cree Nation area and in the nearby village of Weldon, Sask., over the Labour Day weekend. Those numbers do not include Myles Sanderson and Damien Sanderson, who were facing charges tied to the rampage before they died last week.

The worst mass stabbing in Canadian history happened Sunday, about an hour before sunrise. The numbers alone are horrendous: 10 people are dead and 15 are wounded as of Sept. 4.

… While we wait for details, one frightening pattern is apparent: the RCMP’s stubborn reluctance to give good, timely information to the public when mass killers are at large. We expect police to tell us when they know a killer is on the loose nearby — especially those of us who live and work outside the big city.

The RCMP feared that serving Mounties sympathetic to the convoy protest against pandemic measures in Ottawa earlier this year might leak operational plans to protesters, says an internal threat advisory obtained by CBC News.

“The potential exists for serious insider threats,” says the Feb. 10 advisory from the RCMP’s ideologically motivated criminal intelligence team.

“Those who have not lost their jobs but are sympathetic to the movement and their former colleagues may be in a position to share law enforcement or military information to the convoy protests.”