GOVERNMENT ATTACKED FOR DEFYING COURT ORDER

`THEY'RE HIDING SOMETHING,' opposition says of refusal to release documents
on covert drug operations

Opposition parties scolded the federal government yesterday for defying a
court order and blocking the disclosure of legal opinions and other
documents about controversial undercover RCMP currency exchange operations.

And the opposition parties renewed calls for the federal government to hold
an inquiry into the four-year covert RCMP operation in Montreal whose
problems and failings were outlined in a series of articles last week in
the Citizen.

Reform party justice critic Jack Ramsay said the government and the RCMP
are behaving improperly in refusing to disclose all relevant documents
about the covert police operations.

``This is wrong,'' Mr. Ramsay said in an interview from his home in
Camrose, Alta. ``We should know what is going on. If they're not prepared
to release the documents, it means they're hiding something.''

The RCMP's covert currency exchanges were designed to flush out drug
dealers looking for a quick way to convert tainted Canadian cash into U.S.
dollars and bank drafts to be used to purchase more cocaine or other drugs.

Quebec and British Columbia judges have been asked to rule on the legality
of the undercover RCMP currency exchanges, known as ``reverse stings,''
after the undercover operations were carried out in Montreal and Vancouver.

Quebec Court Justice Pierre Pinard in late 1995 ruled the RCMP's Montreal
operation, which ran between 1990 and 1994, was legal.

In January, Justice Mary Humphries of the British Columbia Supreme Court
ruled that the RCMP's operation in Vancouver between 1993 and 1996 was
illegal.

.Officers in Vancouver handled dirty money and did not get suspects to fill
out forms and report large cash transactions, Judge Humphries ruled.

In the B.C. case, Deputy RCMP Commissioner Terry Ryan and Jocelyne Bourgon,
Clerk of the Privy Council, filed sworn affidavits to block disclosure of
documents about the police currency exchanges, saying they're confidential.

And rather than disclose sensitive legal opinions about the legality of the
police currency exchange operations -- Judge Humphries ordered them made
public during her case -- Crown prosecutors urged her to stay charges
against Frederick Creswell, an Abbotsford man accused of money laundering.

The government's position to defy the court order drew harsh criticism from
Bloc Quebecois justice critic Richard Marceau, a Quebec City MP.

``No government is above the law. None. This is totally unacceptable,'' he
said.

Mr. Ramsay said what Canadians now need to know is clear: did the RCMP go
ahead with the undercover operations in Montreal and Vancouver against the
advice outlined in the legal opinions from the federal Justice department?

``If they did, they're in serious trouble,'' he said.

``If the Justice department advised the RCMP it was OK to go ahead with it,
then their judgment will be called into question,'' Mr. Ramsay added.

The affidavit from Deputy Commissioner Ryan said documents exchanged by the
police force and its legal advisers in the federal Justice department are
``intended to be communications of a confidential nature.''

Some of the documents at issue are secret communications between the deputy
justice minister and the RCMP commissioner in 1993 or 1994, a time when the
Montreal and Vancouver operations were both underway.

Another document is a legal opinion produced in the 1980s by a former
associate deputy attorney general of Canada, Don Christie, about the
legality of reverse sting operations such as the currency exchanges.

The Mounties used this legal opinion from Mr. Christie to take the position
that the Vancouver and Montreal storefront operations were legally
permissible.

The Citizen reported this week that the RCMP's Montreal currency exchange
operation was so short-staffed and overwhelmed by the amount of business it
received that officers had a hard time keeping track of all the drug money
coming in the door and of all the cocaine dealers using their company.

While the RCMP eventually arrested some criminals and recovered $16.5
million in cash in 1994, $125 million in known and suspected drug money
exchanged at the Montreal counter simply vanished, expanding the illegal
cocaine trade between Canada and Columbia.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski