Dispersing the fog

Dispersing the Fog is not just a book about the RCMP; it addresses the consequence of too much unchecked power being placed in the hands of too few people. It’s also about politicians and the media in general, who have failed to recognize the many concerns Canadians have about the RCMP’s ability and willingness to carry out its duties.

Most importantly Dispersing the Fog is about our justice system in general and a wake-up call for any Canadian concerned about the security and integrity of the country in our post 9/11 world. No one who cares about democracy and the health of the country’s guardian institutions can afford to ignore this book.

Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP

By Paul Palango

544 pages - $32.95

Published by Key Porter Books – Released October 27, 2008

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Palango is an author and investigative journalist. His two most recent books—also about the RCMP—are Above The Law and The Last Guardians. His stints as a journalist include the Hamilton Spectator and the Toronto Sun. From 1977 to 1990 he was a news reporter, sports editor, city editor and national editor at The Globe and Mail—where he supervised the investigative journalists across the country. In 1989, on behalf of the Globe and its staff, he was selected to accept the Michener Award from then Governor-General Jeanne Sauvé.

After leaving the Globe, he worked as a freelancer, writing a city column for Eye Weekly magazine in Toronto for almost five years. He has worked on investigations for the fifth estate, as well as investigative journalist pieces for Saturday Night, Maclean’s, Elm Street, Canadian Business and Hamilton Magazine, among others. Palango also worked as a fraud investigator for a leading forensic accounting firm.

In recent years he has published numerous articles in newspapers across Canada and has been a frequent commentator on matters involving the RCMP and policing in general. In that capacity he has appeared more than 300 times on radio and television in Canada and the United States. He lives in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia.

Website: www.dispersingthefog.com

Please note: “Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP”, will be at your local book store or Internet outlet, October 27, 2008

Paul Palango, will be in the Toronto area November 8th and 9th 2008 and will be available for speaking and book signing, for “Dispersing the Fog”, any size group will be considered. Please contact Brent Beleskey anytime at 416-797-5451 or brentbeleskey@dispersingthefog.com ,
to book your special, book signing event!

From Palango's Desk: October 18, 2008

My latest book, Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP, is in some ways a natural conclusion to my first two books, Above the Law and The Last Guardians. The difference this time is that the story has reached an explosive level and the impact of the political process on policing is all too evident. The threat to the rule of law is apparent and I lay out the case, I believe, in a clear, thorough and objective fashion.

From the opening line of the book: “This all begins with a typo, a simple misprint, which seemed to have slipped by everyone,” I have attempted to take the reader on a guided tour of what has happened to policing in Canada. I explore not only the implications for Canadians but for others, particularly Americans, who often cannot fathom what goes on in this country.

While there are thousands of dedicated police officers trying their best to do the job, it becomes clear that the problems begin at the top and with the outdated structure of law enforcement in Canada.

Those who have read advance copies of the book were unanimously supportive and enthusiastic. Morley Lymburner, publisher of Blue Line, called the book “phenomenal….. Palango has done a great public service.”

Former police officer Leo Knight, publisher of www.primetimecrime.com said: “Palango deserves the Order of Canada.”

Over the next few weeks and months please tune into my website: Dispersingthefog.com. There I hope to bring together experts and commentators in the field and develop an ongoing forum to discuss the real issues.

I invite you to read this book and come to your own conclusions. Let me know what you think. I can be reached at paulpalango@dispersingthefog.com.

Testamonials

After 25 years of police service with the Metropolitan Toronto Police he decided to dedicate himself full time to publishing and left active police work.

TITLE: "Dispersing the Fog"
AUTHOR: Paul Palango
REVIEWED BY: Morley Lymburner
DATE: October 8, 2008

What a revelation! Every Canadian will ignore this book at their peril. It needed to be written and needs to be read. There has never been a better opportunity for revamping and re-casting the RCMP and Canadian policing in general. Let's hope that this book will be the catalyst.

Building on two previous books, "The Last Guardians" and "Above the Law," Paul Palango has brought together a wide array of facts, figures, statistics, inferences and especially informants to tell this tale of two Canadas and two RCMPs.

The first Canada is the one we all see in the daily news or political campaigns; information that is processed, homogenized, spun and packaged for our delicate eyes and ears. We accept the shoving, bump and grind of elections designed to push us into the left or right side of every argument so that we can all feel we're the power brokers of government.

The second Canada is the secret side that sees us as nothing more than a life-support system for its greed and power. What the average citizen wants or needs is secondary to its needs and it transcends all political stripes. The political right and left mean nothing. It simply throws money at the problem, and no amount is too much, to get what it wants. Everyone has a price; it's only a matter of discovering what it is.

These people insinuate themselves into unelected and unseen power. Protected through secrecy legislation, it and its corporate interests thrive and prosper. Canada is described as the best fertilized and plowed field on the globe for this and Palango's book pulls no punches in naming them all.

In the midst of all that is powerful we have the much revered and loved RCMP also revealed as a tale of two RCMP's. The first is the much revered and loved RCMP in the midst of all that is powerful. The first RCMP is the hardworking contract police that make up the majority of the rank and file. They are on the treadmill, under trained, stretched too thin, pushed too far and cared for too little.

The second RCMP is the upper management – the privileged "carpet cops." This group has learned that the halls of power have a narrow door with no windows, and those of the second Canada hold all the keys.

Once through the door, temptations abound. An individual hungry for power or wealth can easily grow and blossom, feel entitled and use their power of executive privilege and secrecy to cover their tracks.

There has never been a Canadian expose as complete nor as explosive as "Dispersing the Fog". Revelations abound. This book will leave no head in Ottawa unturned. Its revelations will either change the RCMP or plow it under, because there is no other option left.

A few examples:

• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have an oath of office radically different from every other Canadian police service. It translates into an oath of loyalty to the force rather than the people of Canada. Obeying orders is placed as the highest level of importance.

• The unseen powers in Ottawa have used the RCMP as dupes. The Mounties have become the perfect fall guys for controversies surrounding such affairs as Maher Arar, Karlheinz Shrieber, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien.

• Members have been manipulated to the point of paralysis in investigating any major incident involving high profile, politically sensitive issues.

• Anyone showing initiative or investigative skill in controversial investigations is moved along or promoted into other assignments before any revelations are made public. In one particular politically sensitive investigation, 12 officers were rotated in and out of the file to keep the investigation off balance and out of the news.

• Who are the backroom Ottawa boys and what are their motivations? How much money changes hands and who are the payers and payees?

• Why can Canada not convict the high rollers in stock market scams or political hierarchies while other countries do it routinely?

• Who really paid the bill for the Maher Arar case? Why was a settlement reached so quickly and for such a record breaking amount?

I actually felt a knot in my stomach - or is that anger? - as the book connected the dots and finally shed light on why things are the way they are in the RCMP, Ottawa and across the country. As prim and proper Canadians we have a smugness of "it can't happen here." We never look to others to see how they have overcome the same concerns because we have never acknowledged the problems.

Palango's book raises a huge number of questions which need answering, and answers a lot of questions we have not thought to ask. It also supplies solutions, if we will only listen. Ignore this book at your peril, because it will not go away.

Review: Primetimecrime.com
Prime Time Crime's - Crime & Punishment
Comment and discussion about crime, justice and related issues.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Tilting at windmills with effect
By: Leo Knight

I have just finished reading an advance copy of Paul Palango's new book: entitled Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP.

Palango, who is no stranger to anyone interested in the RCMP and the problems that have befallen this national icon, walks the reader through a series of cases that have dominated the news headlines. From the Mahar Arar debacle through Project Sidewinder and up to the murder of the Mayerthorpe Four, Palango looks carefully at the reasons the RCMP keeps taking it on the chin.

But it is so much more than a look inside the travails of Canada's national police force. It is really an examination behind the scenes and the politicization of the RCMP to suit the needs of the real power behind the throne in Canada and he lays bare the systemic corruption that has everything to do with power and money for a small group and little or nothing to do with what is right for the country.

Palango methodically strips away the layers of obfuscation and lays bare the fabric of lies that ultimately ensures the RCMP can never be what Canada really needs of our national police force.

I have long described the RCMP as 133 years of tradition unhampered by progress and Palango nails it as he takes the reader on a roller coaster ride through some of the biggest headlines of the last decade.

The book, published by Key Porter Books, will be in bookstores in early November. If you care about Canada, read this book. Palango takes the reader inside the corridors of power and shines a light on the cockroaches that inhabit them.

The RCMP have already begun discreet inquiries to try and determine who may have given Palango information used in this book. And that, in and of itself, illustrates what is wrong with the Force. They are a fundamentally flawed, dysfunctional organization. Instead of trying to fix their myriad of issues outlined by Palango, they initiated a witch-hunt to find out who let the cat out of the bag.

Palango has done a significant service to the country with his work on this book. He should receive the Order of Canada for his efforts. Instead, I fear he will be attacked mercilessly for his efforts by those who believe they are entitled to their entitlements.

Wait for it, unfortunately.

Leo Knight

Robert Lecker: ROBERT LECKER AGENCY Literary Management and Consulting

Date: September 26, 2008

In 1874, the first contingent of the North West Mounted Police headed out from Ontario, following the Dawson Trail to their new posts in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Over the next 133 years, the Mounties evolved from those 150 cavalry men to become a police force with almost 16,000 officers and almost 10,000 civilians with an annual budget of $4-billion. There is no police service in the world like it, and for good reason. Over time the NWMP became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an iconic police force with a mythical reputation. The reality, however, is that the Mounties rarely got their man and that their collective reputation was undeserved. For more than 35 years the RCMP has found itself mired in a seemingly unending litany of organizational, legal and political controversy, but the Mounties always managed to survive virtually unscathed.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, long had a plan to stop the Mounties in their tracks. After taking office in early 2006, the pieces of that plan began to fall into place, as Harper shrewdly began the process to deconstruct and reform of the RCMP, specifically, and the country in general. Did he do it for the right reasons or the wrong ones? Did he go far enough or not? Will Canada be the better for it?

In Dispersing the Fog, Paul Palango builds on the powerful and influential arguments made in his first two RCMP books, Above The Law and The Last Guardians, to show Canadians why they should be concerned about the RCMP, its mandate, its performance and its relationship to governments and politics. No other author knows the subject matter better than Palongo. Once a voice in the wilderness, many Canadians now have come to believe what he has to say. Dispersing the Fog is not just a book about the RCMP, but a story about the justice system in general and a wake-up call for any Canadian concerned about where the country seems to be headed.

It’s thorough debunking of the many myths of the RCMP, which the federal and provincial governments have encouraged and nurtured for their own political purposes. It takes the reader on a step-by-step, virtually invisible, process which Stephen Harper and his allies from the former Alberta Reform Party have taken to make true their vision of Alberta, having the same rights and status in Confederation as Ontario and Quebec. It addresses the role played by politicians and the media, in general, who have collectively failed to recognize and address the very real and articulate concerns of Canadians from coast to coast who have long questioned the ability or willingness of the RCMP to carry out its duties.

No one who cares about democracy can afford to ignore this book