Is it past time to rein in the Mounties?

There’s a point in the 12-minute dashcam video of Chief Allan Adam’s encounter with the RCMP late one night in Fort McMurray, Alta., that literally took my breath away.

Like a raging bull, an officer appears out of nowhere, knocks Adam off his feet and smashes his face into the pavement.

Before that moment, another officer had Adam by the arm. By the time Adam is beaten, handcuffed and confined in the back of a police cruiser there are at least eight cops on the scene.

All of this because Adam’s licence plate had expired?

This is the same red-coated RCMP that stand tall on so many ceremonial occasions as a symbol of Canadian values? The same RCMP that have a legendary place in Canadian history, especially in Western Canada?

If they didn’t have POLICE labels on their backs in that dash-cam video, they would look like any other bunch of thugs out for a brawl.

I got stopped once in Calgary for an expired licence plate. The police officer issued me an expensive ticket and I was sent on my way. I was annoyed (at myself mostly), but never once did it occur to me to be afraid of what that police officer might do to me.

But then I am not Indigenous or Black.

In March, when Adam left a casino with his wife to return to his parked truck, there’s no question that he was angered just by the presence of an RCMP patrol car all aglow with flashing lights.

But rather than ignore his outburst, simply issue a ticket and drive away, the officers seem intent on escalating the situation. Was it because Adam is Indigenous? An easy target as far as they are concerned? Did they know he was a high-profile Indigenous leader? Or did they think he was just another Indigenous guy that they could easily push around with no consequence?

Does this happen routinely in Fort McMurray?

Hopefully, these questions and others will be answered by the independent body (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team) that will look into the situation. Thankfully, the RCMP won’t be investigating itself this time around.

Allan Adam is a controversial leader and has been for some time. He’s chief of the Athabasca-Chipewyan First Nation, a group of reserves north of and downstream from several oilsands operations. He has brought attention to the oilsands, the pollution and the price paid by Indigenous communities by inviting celebrities such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Fonda and Neil Young to see the damage for themselves.

But he’s also been adamant about getting a share of the wealth created by the development of bitumen for the First Nations, who live with the environmental, health and social consequences.

In 2018, he negotiated a participation agreement with Teck Resources, which was planning to develop an oilsands mine in the region but later pulled out.

If you know the history of the RCMP in the West and Allan Adam’s role in trying to create a better life for Indigenous people in northern Alberta, that dash-cam video couldn’t be more symbolic of the relationship between the Mounties and Canada’s Indigenous people.

Originally called the North West Mounted Police, the paramilitary force was established by prime minister John A. Macdonald and modelled after the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was the Brits’ way of keeping down the Irish.

Once the North West Mounted Police had made their way west on horseback and established forts and outposts in what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta, they became the enforcers of federal government policies that restricted Indigenous people to reserves so as to clear land for settlers.

In 1885, the force played a key role in quashing an armed rebellion of Métis and Indigenous people in Saskatchewan. Métis Leader Louis Riel and other participants in the insurgency were subsequently hanged.

Later on, it was often the RCMP who took kids from their families and delivered them to residential schools run by various Christian denominations.

Today, the Mounties police communities across the West and the North, including remote Indigenous communities where there isn’t much recourse for anyone who objects to their use of authority. In many ways the RCMP has become a living symbol of cruel colonialism. But unlike a statue of Christopher Columbus or that slave trader in Bristol, England, they can’t be easily dispatched.

Or, it would seem, easily changed for the better.