Where is the outrage about the RCMP's witch-hunt?

At one time I instinctively assumed that government agencies were apolitical, servants of the people, not the servants of any particular philosophy or party. That, it increasingly seems, was the good old days. Recently I, like many others, have the distinct impression that the Canada Revenue Agency, for example, is serving the political interests of the Conservative government. Its focus on auditing environmental groups and other progressive organizations has come to seem more than coincidental.

Now I am getting the same impression about the RCMP. I knew that the government had been gathering intelligence on environmentalists and sharing it with the oil industry, but it's the recent RCMP's report on environmentalists that suggested to me that it, too, has been co-opted.

The report shamelessly promotes the oil industry while stating that environmentalists “claim” climate change is the most serious environmental threat and “claim” it is a result of human activity. The report echoes Finance Minister Joe Oliver's accusations that environmental groups are foreign-funded and undermine the country's interests by opposing the use of fossil fuels. It coins the phrase "anti-Canada petroleum movement" and repeats it endlessly in high propaganda fashion.

The first, and obvious, question is what the hell is the RCMP doing compiling a report on the environmental movement? Environmental organizations are reputable groups and environmentalists are respectable citizens. Indeed, in seeking to protect the environment, they are doing what is perhaps the noblest work a citizen can do in this modern age.

Certainly an environmentalist may go rogue and commit a serious offence (as the occasional member of police forces has been known to do), and this the RCMP must investigate. But this is rare indeed. If environmentalists commit unlawful activity it usually consists of nothing more than standing in front of a logging truck or a bulldozer. This comprehensive investigation by the national police force is a slander on respectable citizens—an outrage against civil society.

We seem to discern a troika here: the government, the oil industry and the police and spy agencies. Combined with Bill-C51, the RCMP's behaviour is ominous indeed.