Good cop, bad cop: The RCMP used to consider Calvin Lawrence a model officer. Now, he's looked over for promotions and struggles in career limbo. Is it because he complained about racism?

The Daily News (Halifax)
OP-ED, Sunday, April 27, 2003, p. 19

Stephen Kimber

You'd think that in this post-9/11, us-versus-them, axis-of-evil world, a person like Cpl. Calvin Lawrence would be much in demand. After all, he has more than 30 years of relevant policing experience. He served in a special Mountie unit charged with protecting Canada's prime ministers. He headed up the bodyguard team for prime minister Brian Mulroney at the 1988 Economic Summit in Toronto. He did the same for U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 1995 Summit in Halifax. He has taught hundreds of high-level training courses in bodyguarding, site security, route surveying, terrorist tactics and officer survival. And his RCMP file is stuffed to overflowing with thank-yous and commendations ("exceptionally professional," "probably the best instructor I have been exposed to") by everyone from former students to the U.S. Secret Service to the prime minister himself.

You'd think he could get work easily.

Well, think again. Lawrence, a onetime Halifax city policeman who joined the RCMP in 1978, can't buy a meaningful Mountie posting in Ottawa these days. Holds a non-position Last summer, after diddling, umming and awing, the Mounties finally transferred him from exile in Regina back to Ottawa. But instead of giving him a job fitting his credentials, the RCMP powers-that-like-to-be shuffled him off to the oblivion of an STE -- "surplus to establishment" -- non-position in human resources. He's now on stress leave and in limbo.

Why?

Could it be because Lawrence, a seventh generation black Nova Scotian, filed a very public complaint with the federal Human Rights Commission back in 1994 claiming racial discrimination after he was denied permanent promotion from constable to corporal?

Though the commission eventually dismissed his complaint, the Mounties settled with him anyway. The details of that settlement are confidential, but it's probably not coincidental that soon after it was negotiated, he was promoted to corporal. Or that that settlement turned out to be only the beginning of what Lawrence believes is ongoing retaliation harassment by Mountie higher ups.

In 1997, he transferred to Regina to get away from what he called a poisonous Ottawa workplace. But after four years as a training instructor in Regina, he began applying for positions back in Ottawa, where his family is based.

No one in authority in 2003, of course, will be as blunt as Mountie memo writers were back in 1941. The officer who then ran the RCMP's Sydney subdivision wrote his superiors in Halifax to warn them "two coloured men" wanted to join the force. He was instructed to let them take the educational test "with the hope that we shall find that they have not successfully passed." He was instructed to send the test results to headquarters for the commissioner to deal with, "unless they are so bad they could not be considered when, naturally, they may be so advised."

But has the message really changed?

These days, says Lawrence, no one mentions race. Those in charge "will simply not answer e-mails, phone calls, neglect to give me positions and limit official documentation on my abilities, accomplishments and knowledge."

Still, the hints in e-mails among Mountie brass that Lawrence has obtained under access-to-information certainly raise questions about whether race or the fact he'd already filed a human rights complaint are factors in his treatment.

'A bit of a history'

In one message from a staffing officer in A Division, which handles diplomatic protection, to his opposite number at Headquarters, who was supposed to be Lawrence's "career manager," warned that Lawrence "has a bit of a history... he may not be what we are looking for." Another wrote that HQ managers were very "demanding (and) they usually get what they need and want. Cal is not what they need and want."

One manager who initially appeared positive about having Lawrence in his unit changed his mind after "lengthy discussion and deliberation" with colleagues.

Lawrence is convinced the RCMP has engaged in "the covert and deliberate destruction of my career." And he's filed yet another federal human rights complaint.

"If you're a black police officer," he told me when he filed his first complaint seven years ago, "you come to a crossroads. You either have to stand up and be counted, or you can lie down and be counted out."

Calvin Lawrence will stand up and be counted. Again.

Stephen.Kimber@ukings.ns.ca

Illustration(s):

CPL. CALVIN LAWRENCE: "If you're a black police officer, you come to a crossroads."
Category: News
Uniform subject(s): Heads of State and heads of government; Human rights and freedoms
Edition: DAILY
Length: Medium, 596 words

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