70 Replies to “Broken Trust – The High River Gun Grab”

  2. A few decades ago, a certain Gov Dep in transportation lived up to the “Service” portion of their name. Something changed, however, and they became a sort of bylaw force.
    It seem to me that C68 was the trigger (pun intended) for the RCMP to see law abiding gun owners as felons, cleared on a loophole in the law.
    The fact remains, as stated above, that someone gave the order. I don’t beleive for a moment that Alice the Red’s senior minions were not complicit.

  4. Great documentary, stayed up late to watch it.
    As above the critical question, who gave the order?
    Did anyone question this order?
    When this gets to a court of law,which it will have to, given the current state of our bureaucracies, this question will collapse the dishonesty of the RCMP.
    Pretty simple, either the members on site were obeying what they took as “lawful orders” or they knowingly committed criminal acts.As a criminal organization.
    After the inquiry into the manslaughter of the Polish gentleman at Vancouver Airport, it is pretty apparent that the official channels are not functional, did any of the members involved there, go to jail for perjury, collusion to coverup a crime?Rhetorical question, NO.Did any heads roll in management? Not that I saw.
    The other part of the story is emergency response, that mayor of High River?? When did such incompetents get to prevent and impede people from salvaging their own property?
    High Level ran the risk of being like Christchurch NZ, were 2 years after the devastation, rebuilding is still severely hampered by bureaucratic incompetence.
    Emergency response needs closely remained, who comes first? Stores and convenience or salvaging private property?

  5. The trouble with the comparison to Vancouver is, although the RCMP were certainly guilty of misconduct, why was the Polish gentleman allowed to remain in a supposedly secure area for so long? the TSA/Customs agents should be held responsible as well. They should have had enough common sense to realize something was amiss if he was still hanging around hours after his plane had landed.

  6. As a young fellow i was taught to trust a cop, but nowadays I wouldn’t trust one any further than I could throw him…
    I know there not all bad, but they sure gave them all a black eye with this action.
    Good documentary and thank God for Sun News,.. as usual the rest of the msm are AWOL again.
    I hope someone does sue these bums, even though the money will come out of my pocket in the end.
    I agree, we need to find out who ordered this action, it needs to stop, and whoever ordered it should be fired.
    unless a man has done something wrong, his house should be his castle and no one but no one should have the right to enter and do what these thugs did..

  7. Danielle Smith, leader of the Wildrose Party, and famous thorn in the side of Alberta’s premier, is from High River.
    Just a coincidence I’m sure.

  8. Looking into the future, beyond the criminal violations of the rights of individuals in High River, one must ask what the “High Rivering” (I might have just made that word up, heh) of people will mean in the future attempts to evacuate people from potential disaster zones. The mind boggles when left to imagine what some of the citizenry may do when an order to evacuate is given the next time. Lawlessness begets lawlessness. Innocent citizens may get hurt. Disaster services people may get hurt. Enforcement officials may get hurt. Did no one weigh that into consideration when the decision was made to seize private property? Who ever gave the order will be revealed to be a pure mastermind genius. The limited intelligence sociopathic kind of genius. They then should forever be stripped of authority and dismissed as such.
    Watching the documentary made me uncomfortable throughout from beginning to end. It was that blood boiling, cringe inducing, and infuriating kind of discomfort. An excellent essay.

  9. I watched the whole thing and found it excellent while extremely concerning. I agree with Ezra that without an outside inquiry with judicial clout, the truth will never surface. Those responsible for giving this order need to be brought to justice, and I would add that anyone following an unlawful order should also be brought to justice. “I was only following orders” is NO excuse. Something I learned from the documentary was the seizure of ammunition which was not even logged in and then was destroyed. This is a very expensive loss for the owners who will not ever receive compensation.
    I have stated from the beginning that dismantling the long-gun registry without repealing the Liberals Firearms Act is useless. The act assumes any legal law-abiding gun owner to be a criminal unless he or she can prove otherwise. It does nothing to address the issue of crimes committed with firearms. In this regard I consider that the CPC has failed us. Yes, I know the alternative parties would be worse, but that is not enough to excuse the CPC for lack of action.

  11. Alain said: “I was only following orders” is NO excuse.”
    I agree with you. History shows us where that ends up.
    Problem is though, since the 1970’s police hiring has placed an emphasis on political correctness and order-following. The cops we have today will follow -any- order, be it illegal or immoral. These guys know which side of the bread has the butter, and they know whose hand feeds it to them. See Caledonia for details.
    They don’t work for us. They work for the government. They don’t keep us safe. They keep the government safe.
    As long as you’re clear on that, you can predict police behavior with 100% accuracy.

  12. … ALL of it proving once again that “not showing up to riot” is a failed conservative strategy.

  13. Thanks Kate . The more that see this the better. I figure this was a situation that was exploited to see how fast the police could disarm a town.It was an operational exercise. After all a crisis to the left is opportunity.

  14. It’s a good documentary, but it leaves out critical items:
    1) Did people get their firearms/ammunition back?
    2) If not, or if there was damage, were firearm owners compensated?
    3) Were any homes looted because the doors had been kicked in and then left “as is”?
    4) How many of the homes which were listed on the [now supposedly defunct] long-gun registry were “searched for survivors”?
    5) How much (if any) compensation was made for damages caused by “searches for survivors”?
    6) If compensation was paid, will it ultimately come out of the pockets of the victims (i.e. if the local council picked up the tab, that means one way or another it comes from local taxes)?
    7) Was a formal statement ever made by the RMCP, the provincial or the national government as to why this happened *only* in High River?
    There’s a very deep “black hole” of information about this, and rather than being satisfied with the documentary (which is great – don’t get me wrong, a lot of hard work went into it) accountability must be established, and punitive action taken.

  15. As the documentary states, they haven’t even finished their investigation yet – I believe the report is due out in February.
    Much of the information you’re asking for was covered, albeit sometimes slightly or indirectly, in the documentary.
    1) I don’t have any firsthand experience here, but from what I’ve read, people are getting their firearms back if they can provide proof of ownership. How that works or whether any people have been left out in the cold because of it, I don’t know. I believe the ammunition was destroyed.
    2) Partially answered, but no word yet on whether they’ll receive any compensation for the ammunition.
    3) I haven’t heard any stories like that, but who knows? It might also be difficult to tell whether your stuff was taken by looters, or the RCMP acting in the manner of “The Federal Bureau of Taking All Your S**T” (Reference: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/01/26)
    4) An excellent point that I wondered myself. A court case may very well rest on the answer to this question.
    5) None, at least not yet. In fact, this only started getting some mainstream attention when the government refused to reimburse people for the damage they caused breaking into homes.
    6) Absolutely. I’m not sure if the Canadian education system is any better than America’s, but here in the states? (At least where I live) Probably 65% of the people you stop on the street don’t understand that any money the government gives them *comes* from themselves. Of those 65%, only about half can be made to understand the link between taxation and government spending, and of those, more than half don’t care, because they think it ‘only hurts the rich’. It really is that bad.
    7) Probably the best question in the list. After all, the documentary makes it clear that this wasn’t just a case of local officials gone wild. I can only speculate, but my guess is that this is the kind of behavior the bureaucrats in the RCMP would regularly exercise if unrestrained, and the local officials in High River were unwilling or unable to assert any authority over the situation.
    Don’t expect anyone to ever receive anything more than a slap on the wrist over this – both in Canada and here in America, the thugocracy (there really is no better word, sadly) is too entrenched for that to happen. My prediction is that one or two medium-ranked people get thrown under the bus as fall guys/gals. This gives the people who are upset a focus for their anger, so they can see someone punished and then move on with their lives.
    I’d love to be proven wrong, but part of the reason the police (again, both in Canada and America) have gotten so out of control is the absence of any sort of consequences for things like this.

  16. I’m sympathetic, but I’m also sympathetic to taxpayers who are being forced to compensate people who willingly lived in a flood zone, and are now taking welfare.
    Those people are parasites, and hypocrites, if they’re complaining about seizure of property.

  17. A judicial inquiry is the only way to find answers to what happened in High River.
    That would have the power to require testimony and address violations of both the Charter and the Alberta Bill of Rights.
    The Complaints Commission will likely only make recommendations to do with RCMP protocol. This situation went far beyond that.
    Write to your M.P. and the Prime Minister demanding that be done.
    High Riverites need to launch a class action lawsuit to prevent this happening again to them or other Canadians.
    I know they are afraid of the RCMP, but that won’t subside until they replace them with a municipal police force in High River.

  18. Exactly. As some have said, they are no longer us, but a separate class of centurions that work for the government, not us.

  19. What exactly does where they live have to do with their homes being broken into, damaged through the break and entry and having their private property taken? This is about accountability for this outrageous abuse of power and compensation resulting from it. Compensation for flood damage is a different issue, and by the way not all home damaged by the illegal actions of the RCMP were flooded but were high and dry.

  20. This is about accountability for this outrageous abuse of power and compensation resulting from it.
    Gee, would that include being forced to donate to parasites who take welfare while knowingly living in a flood zone?

  21. The documentary highlighted a very important factor in RCMP culture. I saw this to a limited extent in the military as well. The “Civies” or civilians are considered the Other Side, in some sort of US vs THEM mindset. Some elements in the forces feel such disdain for civilians that they consider them unclean lowlife. After all, we are where all the criminals hail from.
    Then you add the gun ownership factor and you have a real cultural divide.
    For sure this was was promoted in training and internal communications in the force. After all it has had a Liberal imposed culture for the past 100 years.

  23. Time for C-68 to be repealed TODAY!
    ….and time for a few thousand(just an estimate) government employees to be turned into government guests in nice clean federal prisons.

  24. “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
    – Rahm Emanuel
    Gunter often makes good points, however his delivery style and voice is just too irritating to watch.
    Sun needs someone like Julie Borowski to deliver their news and opinions.

  25. Who gave the order?
    Good luck finding out the answer. A lot of the ‘new era’ members believe that civilians should not have any guns. As usual the members will close ranks to protect heir own.

  26. Alyric,
    Thanks for the support. A number of the items I listed were touched upon in the documentary, but no definitive, formal statement/policy was cited. In cases like this, it’s all too easy for folks to simply say, “Well, I got my guns back [a little banged up] and I’m back in my house, and that’s all that matters”. That’s what the “system” counts on – it takes time, energy, and often money to try to get answers and make things right. If I was one of the residents of High River whose home had been flooded, and I eventually got back into my house, I can see that I’d have a lot of things to do more important than pursuing justice by banging my head against the brick wall that is “the system”.
    That’s where blogs, newspapers, citizen groups, etc. come in to play. Pressure can be brought to bear by just about anyone, and the more light than shines upon the responsible parties, the more likely it is that answers and accountability will be forthcoming.
    And on an entirely different note,
    Stradivarious – please provide a link for the government assistance statistics and water table map you used as a source for saying “parasites who take welfare while knowingly living in a flood zone”. Thanks!

  27. I’m not your research assistant. The fact is well known High River is prone to be flooded.

  28. My mistake, it’s Ezra Levant not Lorne Gunter who has the extremely irritating delivery style and voice. Gunter’s reporting is actually quite good.

  30. strad, the documentary wasn’t about the nearby reservation that the RCMP left alone. And you’re racist.
    When your toilet backs up or a water line breaks in your house and you’re not permitted to access your house for 2 weeks, how much of of the resulting damage do you want to pay for? Oh, and the RCMP kicked in the door and confiscated your property as well.

  31. Whether you like Nenshi or not, the fact remains the Mayor of Calgary did an excellent job in the face of disaster.

  32. When your toilet backs up or a water line breaks in your house and you’re not permitted to access your house for 2 weeks, how much of of the resulting damage do you want to pay for?
    All of it, if I’m voluntarily living in a flood prone area.

  33. Heh, that’s because he didn’t do much of anything except a lot of talk. Letting those who knew what to do, do it.

  34. Joey; you’re so right. It was pressure from citizens groups and relatives that got the Judicial inquiry into the Dozanski affair at YVR. As well there was an incident of severe police brutality against an elderly contractor who was using his shotgun to keep geese off a golf course. I thought the results were fairly severe for the mounties concerned.
    Just walking away and getting on with your life is the worst we can do.
    We allowed the DUI roadblocks to go on for years so when someone finally challenged them in Court, he lost. Judge said the people have allowed this. The Charter is revised by what we are willing to put up with.

  35. As opposed to living… where else? In an area known for hurricanes? Tornadoes? Earthquakes? Tsunamis? Wildfires? Blizzards? Virtually anywhere you live there’s going to be an elevated risk for some natural disaster, so by your logic, the only safe place to live is the moon. Until a meteor hits you, I suppose. Or you suffocate, but at least you’ve outsmarted those flooded yokels, right?
    Disasters happen – anywhere and everywhere. Any site located along a river is going to be prone to flooding – but what happened in High River was far beyond normal flooding, and not at all a common occurrence.
    Blaming the victims of the disaster is completely asinine.
    I bet you blame all the people in New Orleans for living in the path of Katrina. Racist.

  36. The G-20 and High River incidents clearly demonstrate whose self interests will always be served and protected above all else.

  38. I don’t think he did that good of job.
    Nenshi aside from going on a photo shop orgy also let his drooling left side take over with bizarre speeches about how he could walk into home depot and take whatever he wanted because he’s the mayor.
    His all encompassing ego took credit for everything flood related as if he did everything himself and he used the debacle to bolster his reelection campaign scare his opponents off and claim that he was going to be acclaimed. The city needlessly shutdown streets and kept power off when they didn’t have too (especially to the financial hear of the city which he is at war against) and longer than they didn’t need to.
    He blamed backed up sewers in some neighborhoods as part of the flooding that had nothing to do with the flooding. Used the distraction of the flooding to hoard and silence critics of the $52 million debacle and has used the flooding as justification for his continuing tax grabs.
    He’s lied about reconstruction costs and time in bed with the Redford government, wasted money building a creepy refugee style camp long after it was over.
    The fact that he look so good is because the media follows Nenshi without question like they do with Trudeau. There is no media in Calgary asking any critical questions about his regime.

  40. …and how many guns were seized from Calgary homes during the flood on Mayor Nenshi’s watch?

  41. One glaring error in the documentary was the comment that the police may enter without a warrant if “it would not be practicable to obtain a warrant.”
    But the law must be read in its entirety and that is not really what the Criminal Code says.
    Here is the Criminal Code in that regard
    “117.02 (1) Where a peace officer believes on reasonable grounds
    (a) that a weapon, an imitation firearm, a prohibited device, any ammunition, any prohibited ammunition or an explosive substance was used in the commission of an offence, or
    (b) that an offence is being committed, or has been committed, under any provision of this Act that involves, or the subject-matter of which is, a firearm, an imitation firearm, a cross-bow, a prohibited weapon, a restricted weapon, a prohibited device, ammunition, prohibited ammunition or an explosive substance,
    and evidence of the offence is likely to be found on a person, in a vehicle or in any place or premises other than a dwelling-house, the peace officer may, where the conditions for obtaining a warrant exist but, by reason of exigent circumstances, it would not be practicable to obtain a warrant, search, without warrant, the person, vehicle, place or premises, and seize any thing by means of or in relation to which that peace officer believes on reasonable grounds the offence is being committed or has been committed.”
    In other words, an offence must be committed or has been committed….AND, the Act also says…..”or in any place or premises OTHER THAN A DWELLING-HOUSE.”
    The warrantless search provisions of the Criminal Code do NOT apply.

  42. Actually, Nenshi didn’t do anything other than be a talking head. He had nothing to do with the handling of the emergency. But then, you don’t really know how Emergency Command Structures work, do you?

  44. Actually, Nenshi didn’t do anything other than be a talking head.
    yup, that’s the Mayor’s job.
    people who make unfounded assumptions about others only show their ignorance; in some cases it’s to be expected based on their outstanding record of being rude

  45. Strad your comments are a waste of a good alphabet.
    When the gov’t allows lots to be built in flood plain or fringe areas- what is a potential homeowner to do? The proper considerations to flooding should have been done to any lots sold years ago. Obviously they weren’t. Since 1995 the Town of HR has sold lots in the aforementioned areas – even filling in a dry creek bed for Seniors housing, which only filled in when the Highwood river flooded (almost every year since I moved here 39 years ago).
    At some point the John Q Public has to trust those employed by our gov’ts to do their job. Again – they did not. As a High Riverite I am torn between the acknowledgement of tax payer money to buy out, mitigate and make the town safer from future flooding with the disappointment I have towards gov’t officials for screwing up so badly (before and after the flood). I want them to pay for their idiocy – again realizing it is your money, not theirs’.
    Hundreds and hundreds of citizens in this town do not have their homes to live in. (where you get the idea these people are all on welfare is beyond me – I live here – they’re not). Homes affected by the flood and sewage backup lost the contents of their basements. In most areas where it floods every year the water runs through and then out. What is aggravating are the homes in Hampton HIlls where the DRP has so far not given homeowners any indication of what will happen unless they agree to pay for at least 1/2 the rebuild costs. The engineering of 498 Ave (between the new bridge named after our previous MLA and the new #2 highway) was the direct reason both Hampton Hills and all of Sunshine Meadows flooded.
    So after a horrible disaster, waiting for no apparent good reasons to get back into town (other than the fish bowl in the east) we find out guns are being ‘seized’. My home is in the east fish bowl. The glass was broken AND my door was smashed. It was not locked. The RCMP did not step into my home (no tracking of glass or footprints anywhere). So what exactly was the purpose of breaking my door??? My name not on gun list? Exercise for the military or RCMP? By the way, It still has not been replaced leaving my home insecure and leaking cold winter air.
    So Strad, maybe your idiotic comments can be left inside your mushy brain. Every day is a struggle in this nightmare. If you refuse to have a little compassion maybe you could be a little knowledgeable instead.
    Oh and High River was NOT named thus because the river floods. Look it up!
    Sorry to everyone else for the rant.

  46. High River was not hit by a flood. High River was hit by a WATER BOMB. 30 to 50 cubic metres of water per second normally runs down the mountains during spring thaw, and flows into the river. June 20th…2000 TO 3000 cubic metres of water PER SECOND EXPLODED IN HIGH RIVER. Exshaw does not have the same town name…Exshaw was WIPED OFF THE MAP. Bowness in Calgary…DESTROYED. Let me repeat: This was not a flood. This was a WATER BOMB and was the third largest disaster in Canadian history right under Katrina and Sandy. The police saved lives – both human and pet on June 20th, and that work continued. June 24th, the RCMP gave the pet rescue volunteers some hazmat suits to wear, and they all swept homes for pets TOGETHER. If all you have to whine about is a gun (that was RETURNED) and a bashed in door that you were COMPENSATED FOR, you are lucky. People lost homes, and jobs. You don’t see them commenting because they are a little too busy moving forward, rebuilding their lives.
    w6dsux

  47. In other words, he did nothing in the execution of the emergency plan. Nothing. But he sure was there to take the credit for it. No doubt he was thrown out of the Emergency war room from time to time because he was getting in the way.

  48. And of course, you don’t even know where High River is. High River was hit by a flood…..and biblical incompetence by the officials.
    Oh…and by the way….it isn’t about the guns necessarily as much as it is about illegal activity by those who are supposed to uphold the law. Your comments are just stupid…..because those people who had their guns stolen by the RCMP also lost homes and jobs……AND their Charter rights. Get lost.

  50. I believe it was over 7,000 pounds. The RCMP should be required to provide compensation for it. It too was illegally seized.

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