Transcript
Transcript: Reflections by Bob W. Paulson
Narration: Public servants, thought leaders, and experts from across Canada are reflecting on the ideas shaping public service, leadership, policy, governance, innovation and beyond.
[00:00:10 The words "Leadership", "Policy", "Governance", and "Innovation" appear on the screen in sequence, followed by the words "Review and Reflection".]
[00:00:20 The logo of the Canada School of Public Service is shown.]
Narration: This is the Review and Reflection series produced by the Canada School of Public Service.
[00:00:25 An image of Bob W. Paulson is shown next to text that reads:
"Bob W. Paulson served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1977 to 1984 as a pilot and instructor. He joined the RCMP in 1986 and spent nearly 20 years in British Columbia, specializing in major and organized crime investigations. In 2005, he moved to RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa and held senior roles in national security and federal policing. Appointed Commissioner in 2011, he led reforms to modernize the RCMP and address workplace harassment, concluding his tenure with a historic apology and settlement."]
Narration: Bob W. Paulson served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1977 to 1984 as a pilot and instructor. He joined the RCMP in 1986 and spent nearly 20 years in British Columbia, specializing in major and organized crime investigations. In 2005, he moved to RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa and held senior roles in national security and federal policing. Appointed Commissioner in 2011, he led reforms to modernize the RCMP and address workplace harassment, concluding his tenure with a historic apology and settlement.
[00:01:04 Bob W. Paulson is shown sitting in a chair.]
Taki Sarantakis (Canada School of Public Service): Bob Paulson, Retired Commissioner of the RCMP. Sir, welcome.
Bob W. Paulson (Former Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police): Thank you.
Taki Sarantakis: Tell us a little bit about yourself, where were you born?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, I was born in Lachute, Quebec, 1958. I grew up in Lachute. I went into the military when I was 18. I was a pilot in the Armed Forces, instructor pilot, for about seven years. I left there and went back to school. And when I was working at a bar in B.C., I saw some RCMP officers come through and I started talking to them and it really intrigued me, their job. So, then, I applied to the RCMP and before I knew it, I was in Regina and in the RCMP.
Taki Sarantakis: What was your first job in the RCMP?
Bob W. Paulson: Well, your first job almost invariably is response-to-call policing in a contract province. So, I went out to Chilliwack, British Columbia and was a response-to-call officer in that community, and probably, luckily, just a great community to learn to cut your teeth in policing, and it fit me like a glove. I loved it and I never looked back.
Taki Sarantakis: Did you ever imagine one day that you would head this institution?
Bob W. Paulson: No, I was happy to have a job (laughs), frankly. When I joined, I wasn't particularly ambitious in the traditional sense, although I became ambitious later, but I was ambitious in respect to policing. I couldn't get enough of it. I ended up being a major crime investigator and an organized crime investigator, and I led teams. I re-developed the doctrine for major case management within the RCMP. I just loved it and promoted myself right out of it (laughs).
Taki Sarantakis: Tell us, somehow you ended up in Ottawa, somehow you started kind of getting the attention of people that decide who's going to be the Assistant Commissioner.
Bob W. Paulson: Well, what happened was I was doing a case against the Hells Angels in British Columbia and I needed particular authorities to depart from RCMP policy to allow serious drugs to remain in circulation while our informant agent worked with Hells Angels. And so, I had to come to Ottawa to meet various authorities, and they took a shine to me. And once that project was over, successful by the way, then they wanted me to come to Ottawa, and I turned them down the first time. It was for a promotion to Superintendent. And then, they called back about a year and a half later and they offered me a Chief Superintendent's job and they added that if I turned them down, that would be the last promotion I'd ever see in the mounted police. So, I took them up on their offer, on their kind offer, and I moved to Ottawa and I took a job in organized crime intelligence and criminal intelligence.
Taki Sarantakis: Tell us about how you became Commissioner.
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, that's interesting. Well, so, I was the Director General in charge of Criminal Intelligence, and then I became the Operations Officer within National Security, and then the Assistant Commissioner in National Security, and that was at a time when the RCMP was typically involved in… not typically but routinely engaged in public scrutiny, and we were under it for the Arar case at the time.
[00:04:55 An image of RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli is shown. Credit RCMP-GRC]
And so, there was Commissioner Zaccardelli, in the day, of course, retired. Commissioner Elliott took over, about the time that I became the Assistant Commissioner in National Security. And then, I worked at length with Commissioner Elliott.
[00:05:12 An image of RCMP Commissioner William J. S. Elliott is shown. Credit RCMP-GRC]
Then, there was another little hiccup in the… a disturbance in the force, as they say, where there was a bit of a rebellion within the senior ranks against Commissioner Elliott. The long and short of that was that there was an opening as the Deputy Commissioner of Federal Policing, and he put me into that and then he went off to Interpol. Then, there was a competition for the Commissioner's job and the headhunter asked me to compete and I did. And pretty soon, there I was.
Taki Sarantakis: So, what year did you become Commissioner?
Bob W. Paulson: Well, that was the latter part of 2011.
[00:05:51 An image of Bob W. Paulson in uniform is shown.]
So, I acted quite a bit as Commissioner Elliott went off to Interpol and when I was selected for Commissioner, so let's say 2012, and I served till the latter part of 2017.
Taki Sarantakis: I'm sure you must have had a lot of remarkable days as Commissioner, and I use that in kind of the good and bad sense, but let's… we're going to talk about a particular day now. So, let's go to October 22nd, 2014. Do you remember anything that happened kind of before 9:00?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah. So, I would typically get in to work around 7:30, I guess, and prepare for a series of meetings and briefings to see what's going on in the country, see what's going on with the various departments, and one of the things that I noticed that was quite interesting when I came to Ottawa was this saturation of television screens throughout the building, particularly in the National Security Investigation Wing. I had a TV going in my office, nothing was happening, we're checking the news, it's always on the news, and I had finished the briefings, what we would call prayers was our daily meeting. People would pray that I wouldn't ask them hard questions. And then, I was back in my office, and it was around 10:00 when I received… a little after 10 in the morning when I received the first phone call from Gilles Michaud, who then was the Assistant Commissioner in charge of National Division and had oversight over the Parliament security force, advising me that an Armed Forces member had been shot at the cenotaph and that there was a manhunt underway.
[00:07:49 An image of the National War Memorial in Ottawa is shown.]
He appeared to have gone, the shooter appeared to have gone, into the Parliament Precinct.
Taki Sarantakis: So, the phone call was, somebody has been shot and you're looking for somebody. Where was the first indication that somebody had gotten into kind of Centre Block in Parliament Hill?
Bob W. Paulson: Well, and then the madness began, right? I mean, one of the things that I think I'd like to canvass in this discussion is the recognition that in one of these unfolding emergencies, the last thing the people that are having to deal with it want to have is the Commissioner calling them to get an update so he could tell all his colleagues. So, I tried to stay back and understand what was happening on the basis of third-hand information being raised up through the chain. So, then, it became clear that there was a shooting at the front door of the Parliament buildings.
Taki Sarantakis: And at this point, are you in a car?
Bob W. Paulson: No.
Taki Sarantakis: Are you on your way somewhere?
Bob W. Paulson: I'm in my office.
Taki Sarantakis: Are you still in the Command Centre?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, I'm in my office because as I'm learning of these things, the media is learning of these things and the town is learning of these things, and that starts to light up my phone as various Deputy Ministers, the Deputy Minister of Public Safety, many of my other colleagues are calling over because their ministers or their folks are locked down and scared in this building.
Taki Sarantakis: So, let's pause here for a moment. Parliament Hill is located in the City of Ottawa. One of the issues or one of the consequences of that day was an exploration of kind of the jurisdictional issues around Parliament Hill.
[00:09:45 An excerpt of a CBC article titled "Ottawa shooting: Parliament Hill security confusion left MPs locked out" is shown with highlighted text that reads:
"Parliament Hill is a mishmash of jurisdictions, with the Ottawa police responsible for the area around the Hill, the RCMP in charge of the grounds, and separate House and Senate security services working inside the buildings." Credit: CBC]
Can you walk us through a little bit of that arcania?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, that actually, when the dust eventually settled, became the central point of repair, and it had been a source of conflict and discomfort around many police forces. You have the Ottawa City Police.
Taki Sarantakis: Yeah, let's start with them. What's their jurisdiction here?
Bob W. Paulson: So, their jurisdiction is Wellington Street and the City of Ottawa.
Taki Sarantakis: So, everything outside of Parliament Hill proper is the City of Ottawa, including Wellington Street?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah.
Taki Sarantakis: City of Ottawa.
Bob W. Paulson: However, so the RCMP has jurisdiction within the Parliamentary Precinct, excluding Centre Block.
Taki Sarantakis: What's the Parliamentary Precinct?
[00:10:50 An map of the Parliamentary Precinct from Public Works and Government Services Canada is shown. Source Public Works and Government Services Canada September 2008]
Bob W. Paulson: The Parliamentary Precinct basically runs all the way down Wellington and varies from time to time, but has the West Block, the East Block, Centre Block, some other buildings, but that whole sort of area where the parliamentary operations are.
Taki Sarantakis: But not the city streets?
Bob W. Paulson: Not the city streets.
Taki Sarantakis: Not Langevin, or the former Langevin, okay. And now, let's talk about, for a moment, the buildings.
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah.
Taki Sarantakis: Centre Block, East Block, West Block. Who kind of had jurisdiction in those areas?
Bob W. Paulson: So, the Parliamentary Protective Service, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and there is an argument to be had around where the Sergeant-at-Arms owns the jurisdiction. Some would say that it is the confines of the House of Commons, because there is a similar Sergeant-at-Arms in the Senate. And so, it's a jurisdictional hodgepodge, and in crises like the one we're talking about, a nightmare.
Taki Sarantakis: And there was also… if I remember right, there was also some question over who had jurisdiction over the roof of the buildings or something.
Bob W. Paulson: Right.
Taki Sarantakis: So, it was a bit of a mess on October 22nd jurisdictionally. All right. The shooting has begun. The shooting, we know, was over pretty quickly. It was all within a matter of half an hour, maybe less?
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, less. So, what happens is the shooter, Zehaf-Bibeau, who we can talk about later, comes up with a .30-30 Winchester.
Taki Sarantakis: A rifle?
Bob W. Paulson: A rifle, and kind of an old rifle. He's wearing a bandana. He goes to the cenotaph, I call it the cenotaph, the central area there where military guards are. A fellow, Nathan Cirillo, is there with his colleague and Zehaf-Bibeau runs right up to him and shoots him point blank after making some statements, and Cirillo falls. People begin to attend to him. The offender runs off. He runs off, gets back in a car that he has, and he drives up on Wellington to the front of the entrance to the grounds. He then gets out of his car with his rifle. People are walking by, he runs through them all. People scatter because they see him. He runs up to one of the drivers that is parked in front of the East Block. That car belongs to Minister Shelly Glover. She is not in the car, her driver is. He pulls the driver out, gets in the car, drives up to the front of Centre Block, gets out of the car, runs up to the main entrance to Centre Block, and goes in. We have an RCMP officer there who engages him, gets a hold of the weapon, and they wrestle back and forth. He's trying to take him down. The gun goes off and shoots our officer in the foot. He goes down. Bibeau runs off. We have some other officers there, thankfully, led by a fellow named Barrett who deploys what we refer to as the IARD, Immediate Action Rapid Deployment Strategy, which is to grab all their officers, form a diamond or a V, and proceed towards the shooting. Because as he is doing that, not the Sergeant-at-Arms… but I guess he was the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Taki Sarantakis: Mr. Vickers.
Bob W. Paulson: Mr. Vickers, he grabs a weapon, a handgun that he has in his drawer, gets out, and comes into the fray. So, as our officers are coming down in the V and Vickers is diving out of his office, there's a massive shootout that you hear on the news and the media, and Bibeau was taken down, ultimately killed by Barrett's weapon.
Taki Sarantakis: And again, from beginning to end, this isn't that long.
[00:15:22 An excerpt of a CBC article titled "Ottawa shooting: A timeline of events from RCMP" is shown with highlighted text that reads:
"9:50:00 a.m. He fired twice at Cpl. Nathan Cirillo."
"9:53:57 a.m. The suspect, later identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was pronounced dead at the scene." Credit: CBC]
Bob W. Paulson: No, from the time that Cirillo was shot to the time that Bibeau was dead, maybe five minutes.
Taki Sarantakis: All right. So, now, the rest of the day, the chaos. Walk us through a little bit, like from your perspective as head of the RCMP. Are you on the phone with… I know there's a famous shot of you at 24 Sussex briefing the Prime Minister, but walk us through a little bit of what happens in the immediate aftermath of that.
Bob W. Paulson: So, once he's down, as that was happening and there became an awareness within the city, so the Ottawa police deploy their emergency response team, the RCMP is deploying their emergency response team. I have to say that when the shooter was going down the hallway, all the parties were in caucus, so you had the governing Conservatives on the left and you had the NDP on the right and the Liberals were in the basement somewhere in caucus. The Prime Minister who, because of the issue that we spoke of earlier, is without his protective service, is being protected in an alcove in that area as, God bless them, his protective team say, forget the jurisdictional issues, we're going in.
[00:16:42 An excerpt of an article from The Guardian is shown with the headline "Canadian PM hid in store cupboard while gun battle was fought nearby".]
The Prime Minister is safe. Everybody else is safe. None of the shots that had transpired between the shooter and the police seemed to have hurt anybody else except for our officer at the front door. However, there is reports coming in that people are seeing other shooters. The reports were coming in from the mall, that there was some sort of a disturbance there. And so, we thought we had two or three points of attack. And so, those all… we had to clear that building, and that's a huge building. So, we had to organize with the Ottawa police as we began to go door to door. I can tell you…
Taki Sarantakis: This was in Centre Block?
Bob W. Paulson: In Centre Block.
Taki Sarantakis: And a lot of them were locked.
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah.
Taki Sarantakis: Because people were scared.
Bob W. Paulson: Yes.
Taki Sarantakis: A lot of people heard shooting. They said it sounded like commandos had stormed in because of the echoes.
Bob W. Paulson: Right.
Taki Sarantakis: And exchange of fire.
Bob W. Paulson: Well, and there was something like… I don't have the exact number but I want to say in the area of 50 to 60 rounds deployed to the shooter.
Taki Sarantakis: Right.
Bob W. Paulson: And he had a couple of shots out there.
Taki Sarantakis: So, there were ministers who thought that this was like a paramilitary operation.
Bob W. Paulson: Exactly.
Taki Sarantakis: People had come in to seize Parliament.
Bob W. Paulson: And one of the things about the fog of war is that in the immediate aftermath of the exchange, there's no information, and that's the most valuable commodity, is to have that information and understanding. I can tell you an anecdote that later came to pass where Prime Minister Trudeau, who was then the leader of the third party, expressed to me how upset he was with me and the RCMP that we wouldn't let him out so that he could get before a camera and reassure people. So, that was the sentiment within the political world, is we need to start communicating. That was the sentiment within the Commissioner's office, is we need to start communicating but we need to communicate reliable information, and safety trumps everything. And so, we were going to just secure that building come hell or high water, and we were investigating all of these other reports of shooters. So, that was taking time.
Taki Sarantakis: And there were also reports of people running through the Rideau Mall.
[00:19:18 An excerpt of a CBC article is shown with the headline "Ottawa shooting: How events unfolded" and highlighted text that reads:
"There were initial reports that there was a shooting at the mall, but Ottawa police spokesman Marc Soucy later said the shooting was near the Rideau Centre, not inside. An Aldo Shoes employee working in the Rideau Centre told CBC News they were in lockdown inside their stores. He said police were running through the mall." Credit: CBC]
Bob W. Paulson: Exactly.
Taki Sarantakis: And there actually were people running through it, but they were police officers.
Bob W. Paulson: Right.
Taki Sarantakis: And there were reports of people being on roofs.
Bob W. Paulson: And meanwhile, you had the other scene of Cirillo, who was killed, being attended to, first aid, and people reacting to that. So, the Ottawa city police were reacting to that. So, it was mass confusion and it required some time and a steady hand to try and gain an understanding. And so, while that was all transpiring and people were trying to exercise their authority by calling me and demanding that I do whatever they wanted me to do, the real authority calls up and says he wants to see me (laughs). And so, he's…
Taki Sarantakis: This is the Prime Minister.
Bob W. Paulson: The Prime Minister wanted to see me.
Taki Sarantakis: And there was… I remember watching this on CBC News. You were at an undisclosed location and Peter Mansbridge said, yeah, it's undisclosed but it's clearly 24 Sussex.
Bob W. Paulson: (laughs)
Taki Sarantakis: So, you're at 24 Sussex and what are you telling the Prime Minister?
Bob W. Paulson: I'm briefing him on what we had. And so, while we were going Code 3 from the office, which is in Leikin, to get me to the Prime Minister, of course, I'm getting updates and I had I had my Chief of Staff, I had my assistant. The car was full of people with phones that were speaking to various components of this operation to try and get a sense of what I could reliably convey to the Prime Minister, because one of the things I've learned is information is very much in demand in these things, but the wrong information is end-of-the-world type stuff. So, you can't be briefing the Prime Minister or the minister with wrong information. So, we needed to have reliable info.
Taki Sarantakis: What would you say? Were the reports, first couple of hours, were they accurate? Were they inaccurate? Was it a mixture?
Bob W. Paulson: When they were running them down, by that time, when I was before the Prime Minister, I was saying, we're taking a lot of heat over the lockdown but I'm not going to budge on that, we're going to lock it down because we don't know, my sense, Prime Minister, is that is a single shooter that acted alone, we don't know, we have a report of somebody on a roof, we don't know, we have a report of somebody in the mall, we don't know, so we're going to lock that down. So, it was bringing him up to speed. One of the things he wanted, communicated to me, was his absolute firmness with respect to this jurisdictional issue that had caused, in some people's view, a breakdown that might have put this vulnerability forward and exploited by this haphazard shooter.
[00:22:18 An excerpt of a statement from the Prime Minister of Canada is shown with the highlighted text that reads:
"We live in dangerous times, yes, but the mission of country and the work of this Parliament goes on. And so does the work throughout this city."]
Taki Sarantakis: So, the very next day, or actually, later that night, the Prime Minister made a decision that democracy would continue, I think was the actual phrase that he said, and tomorrow, we would go about our business. And so, part of my business that day was to be in Centre Block briefing ministers, Treasury Board ministers, and Centre Block was a crime scene, it was… the extent to which there were broken doors everywhere. There were broken windows. I had never quite seen anything like that and it was a result of kind of your people and RCMP officers trying to ensure the safety of every single person who worked in that building, and a lot of the people, having heard gunshots, were locking their doors, were hiding under desks. And therefore, they had to have people break into their offices, and there were ministers who were horrified by the fact that they were… they didn't know what was going on.
Bob W. Paulson: Exactly.
Taki Sarantakis: What were some of the stories that ministers… because remember, a lot of ministers and caucus members, they left that building, I think, in buses around 8:00 at night. I know at first, it was relief to be alive, walk us through some of the other emotions.
Bob W. Paulson: Well, there was a lot of anger, a lot of anger at us, anger that they couldn't get free. They weren't being detained but we needed to have statements. We needed to interview everyone. We needed to make sure that everyone was who they said they were (laughs), and that really came at odds with the independence of our parliament. And so, people wouldn't get on buses. As I said, Prime Minister Trudeau was beside himself, and they all wanted to get to a microphone. They all wanted to get to a camera, understandably. And then, there was a lot of talks about a continuation of government, we're going to move to another area, and your experience obviously speaks to that. So, all of those considerations were at play and it was a long, long night, but I think it was that night that we were able to clear the building ultimately and release people. And then, there was criticism immediately about how we'd handled that and how we were managing the communications around that. So, it was quite something.
Taki Sarantakis: There's some lessons now. So, a couple of the lessons I think came through in what you were saying about information, that if you brief on wrong information, you lose your credibility, the fog of war where you don't know what you don't know but you have to make decisions, you have to take actions. Talk to us a little bit about how you deal with having pressure put upon you.
Bob W. Paulson: So, fortunately, my background was all major crime investigations, so homicides and robberies and bank robberies and kidnappings and so on. And so, in those sort of dynamic investigations, you're always dealing with victims and witnesses who always have a better idea about how things ought to go, and you get skilled at being able to manage all those things, but there was some nasty language getting thrown around in terms of some deputy ministers crawling over and demanding this, that, or the other thing with respect to their ministers, we need to get them out of there. And so, I tried to be as plain as I possibly could and just explain that nothing was going to happen until I got the all clear from the front-line officers.
Taki Sarantakis: So, kind of… I'm going to put words in your mouth, and keep them or throw them away, but basically, you stood on your authorities. You basically were… this is a crime scene, this is the way we handle crime scenes, and I don't care if you're the deputy minister of this or the minister of that or the clerk of this or the deputy clerk of that, this is a crime scene.
Bob W. Paulson: Well, it absolutely turns on the authority, and one of the things that police officers are very good at is understanding their authorities. Whether or not they're good at communicating those authorities effectively to those people that are affected by those authorities is another matter. And so, I tried, and I think I succeeded in explaining that, right? And so, people are going to get mad and they're going to get mad, there's nothing you can do about that, but trying to communicate that consistently, and I'll say kindly, there was no sort of exercise of authority blatantly in their face. It was an explanation that you're just going to have to get over it, that you're going to have to adjust, and that won the day.
Taki Sarantakis: Any other lessons from that day as you look back?
Bob W. Paulson: I think the biggest lesson is to allow the people who were responding to respond. There is a story that another person told me. You may remember years and years ago, there was a vehicle that drove up the steps of the parliament buildings, trying to get in, another crazy attacker, and the officer that was responding to it eventually got promoted and he told me this story. He said, so, there I am, I'm running up the stairs to deal with this crazy guy who could have a bomb in there, my phone goes off, and it was the commissioner of the day demanding an explanation, it's not a good time, Commissioner (laughs). So, the thing to do is to let the people have faith in the training and the authorities and the understanding that those front-line officers have in order… and they performed remarkably. What was sad and what was unfortunate was the way in which the media sought to give credit to the intervention of, in the first instance, the Sergeant-at-Arms. By all means, give him credit. Then, I started to get pressure from my own officers to say, okay, well, how come you're not coming out and recognizing our officers? Ultimately, I did, but I didn't have the facts, and it became… I often joked that if you wanted credit, you should go down to the bank and make an application, but that became a central issue as to whether or not we were supporting our members. I can tell you that I've never been so proud of the officers that responded there. Imagine the courage it takes to mount up and form that V and go down into an unknown circumstance with some crazy guy with a gun. So, that was the real lesson, is to let the people do the job, try and pick up the information, create lines of communication that would inform the public and inform the people that are affected by it.
Taki Sarantakis: One last question, let's do a thought experiment. If the very same thing happened today, 10 years later, 11 years later, is the world different enough? What do you think the ramifications would be 10 years later? More social media, more people with phones, everybody's a critic, everybody knows more than doctors, lawyers, epidemiologists.
Bob W. Paulson: Well, I think that pressure would be enormously more intense. That said, the lessons that we applied to the structural inadequacies of the day are there, and I've seen that. I watch… I still keep an interest and I've watched the Parliamentary Protective Service sort of blossom into this first-rate protective service. That said, if a coordinated attack was to take place, they'd be challenged. And certainly, the media attention and the venues or the means by which communication is achieved these days would make it much tougher for leaders.
Taki Sarantakis: And that's a constant tension in a democratic society, in an open society, because one of the reasons why you have open societies is you have access to leaders and access to public venues, and it would be very sad to kind of let, one, complete openness, or two, total lockdown all the time trump triumph. Bob Paulson, retired Commissioner of the RCMP, thank you so much for coming to talk to us about a remarkable day in Canada's history and a remarkable day for many of our political leaders who will never forget that day.
Bob W. Paulson: Yeah, thanks for thanks for the interest.
[00:31:50 The CSPS logo appears onscreen.]
[00:31:56 The Government of Canada logo appears onscreen.]
