Friday, December 22, 2006

Jack be nimble

I'm left even more puzzled by the explanation provided by Calgary Police Chief Jack Beaton for his trip last week to the People's Republic of China.

Beaton told Calgary listeners of QR77 that he was amazed that members of the National Police didn't speak English. He said that going over, he expected about half the force would speak English. No, really, he actually said that.

So, what other reason could there be for saying something that blindingly naive?

He says he was over there on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Okay. Who paid? The Chiefs or the taxpayers of Calgary?

The trip was, ostensibly, having to do with "community policing" and Beaton was going to do some recruiting and "spreading the message" while in the most populous communist country on Earth.

Community policing huh? That to me sounds as dubious as recruiting for a Canadian Police Service in a corrupt, communist country with a largely peasant population that is for the most part, uneducated and monolinguistic.

In China, the National Police are the enforcement arm of a totalitarian state whose citizens are not allowed to exercise any of the basic freedoms we cherish in Canada.

Community policing? Give me a break.

So, what is this really all about? I don't know, but it smells a whole lot like a poorly thought-out justification for a public servant globe-trotting on a meaningless junket.

Leo Knight
leo@primetimecrime.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Jack knows that a simple phone call to find out whether or not the communist police service in China spoke English would have been cheaper!I would much rather fork the bill for that one.But then again, I'm sure the fools at Silly Hall aproved Jack's hunt for foreign, English speaking, cops.
Community Policing?? Don't we have a community of citizens,in our own city,that already represents China?I know for a fact that alot of them can speak English.
Hey Jack! NASA has already found out that there's water on Mars.Please don't get any more bright ideas about my tax paying dollars!

From:
A Tax paying Citizen of Calgary.

Anonymous said...

Chief Beaton's China charade has provided some insight into the high level of ARROGANCE this man possesses - Does he really think that all countries around the world speak English???

Anonymous said...

Oh please, you can't be serious, yet again, Jack. Did you do any due diligence including crime element infiltration before you wasted yet more of our tax dollars and potentially put our city at risk? What were you thinking?

For his PR spin people to say that the out of country screening process for entry into CPS is so intense that it was likely that Chinese hopefuls wouldn't pass it was beyond stupid.

In a word, I read that to say, "Jack needed an international holiday (since it would likely be his last opportunity) that would prove fruitless so he opportunistically went anyway". This is truly one for the Darwin Awards! Well, at least he's consistent in building his legacy.

Please tell me that the Commission isn't entertaining extending his contract. Clearly, his judgement is suspect!

Yet again our tax dollars at work in a city that doesn't think. Hmm, wonder how much our taxes will increase as a result of this and other wasted poorly thought out ideas?

Disgusted again and yet ironically not surprised in Calgary.

Anonymous said...

Why don't they hurry up and fire the guy already?

Anonymous said...

Because his bum-chum "Burrows" won't allow it to happen.Maybe the next chief won't flex to his every desire.

Anonymous said...

I got a copy of this letter sent to me this week from a close friend. Although this is kind of a "Funk and Wagnalls dump", it kind of makes you think about where the CPS priorities truly are:


"
"1 February 2007
Chief Jack Beaton
133-6th Avenue S.E.
Calgary, AB
T2G 4Z1

Dear Chief Beaton:

I would like to take this moment to extend my gratitude for your unrelenting care and concern for members of your police service and their families. Your timing could not have been better.

As you are aware, given our telephone call to Staff Sergeant Parhar reporting that we had to leave the country urgently on January 16, 2007, my family and I were emotionally distraught after learning that my mother was hospitalized and not expected to survive. While en route, members of your professional standards section ordered us, by phone, to pull into a nearby Tim Horton’s parking lot with our four children and wait there to be served with charges related to an internal disciplinary hearing involving my husband Constable Taufiq Shah and the StandFirm Website.

What was to take only a few moments, lasted over thirty minutes. This amount of time may not seem like much, however, at the time, it seemed like hours. My mother passed away a short time later that day. Clearly, I do not blame her passing on the manner in which he was served; however, I cannot help but question whether or not such a proceeding could be better handled considering the gravity of the situation.

It is precisely this lack of sensitivity that flies in the face of management’s rhetoric that “family is the first priority” of the Calgary Police Service. It is beyond cruel that after having waited two years to be served in this matter you picked the precise day of my mother’s passing and hit us at our lowest ebb. Further, knowing that our family would be out of town a minimum of two weeks you set his hearing date to February 2nd, giving him two days to recover from the funeral on our return to Canada.

Knowing this, I now understand why you travel abroad to find applicants willing to work for your beloved service.

Yours truly,

Rhonda Shah
c.c. Fred Lindsay (Solicitor General)
Ian Wilms (Chairman Calgary Police Commission)
Suzanne Wilton (Calgary Herald)
Licia Corbella (Calgary Sun)
Leo Knight (Prime Time Crime)""
"