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Time to arm park wardens

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Throughout Canada, National Park Wardens, in their traditional green-and-khaki uniforms and Stetson-style hats, do whatever needs doing to protect parks and visitors. Since 1909, their duties have included perilous search-and-rescue missions, resource and wildlife management and law enforcement.

The warden way is a proud way and competition to don that uniform is fierce -- there may be 3,000 candidates for a single position. Some work as seasonal wardens for a decade or more before qualifying for a permanent job. Most wardens today have at least a Bachelor of Science degree, while others hold master's or doctorate degrees. Entry-level education for the RCMP is high-school graduation. In their law enforcement role, it has always made good sense to have wardens, operating in remote areas, be the first responders in dealing with game poachers or other offenders.

In my own warden days, police backup was not always available so we had little more than our fists and a sense of humour to ward off assaults by rioting drunks during summer punchfests in park campgrounds. In this new era of violence entitlement, assaults and threats against park wardens have been on the rise. One in six park offenders may have a criminal record. For some offenders, the stakes of being caught are high. Game poachers could be fined $100,000 or more, or face five years' imprisonment.

Starting in 1993, Parks Canada required its warden recruits to pass a rigorous seven-week police training course at RCMP Depot Regina. Recruits were issued with police batons, handcuffs and pepper spray and trained in self defence and police procedures. Following this, they took annual retraining. Graduates were issued vests designed to stop handgun bullets (though not rifle shots or knife thrusts), but Parks Canada refused to issue them with handguns, which are the UN global standard for police officers.

In 2001, the handgun issue gave rise to a legal battle between Parks Canada and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The result was a ruling by a Human Resources and Development Canada officer that wardens should be given sidearms (handguns) to protect themselves, or be removed from law enforcement. But wardens were up against the anti-gun lobby of eastern cities, which had the ear of the Liberal government.

In 2001, Parks Canada's former CEO, Tom Lee, backed by Minister Sheila Copps, removed wardens from law enforcement and appealed the ruling. The Chretien government next donated $40 million to the RCMP to take over policing park regulations. One source claims this money came directly from the PMO.

Under RCMP control, enforcement of park regulations declined drastically. Mounties are not trained for back-country park enforcement and were ordered not to hike more than 30 minutes from their squad cars. In Yoho, visitor services clerks watched looters raid a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Burgess Shale fossil beds, on closed-circuit cameras, while wardens were forbidden to intervene and RCMP were unavailable. In Waterton, a scofflaw poached a prize bull elk and got away with it when RCMP declined to follow up on evidence collected by wardens who could not arrest the culprit. In Jasper, the warden search-dog master could not help the RCMP track a criminal who assaulted a Mountie. Eventually, a new directive was issued returning wardens to the field under reduced powers. They were allowed to "take notes" and "make observations" of criminal activity from a distance -- and run away if the perp looked threatening.

The warden service is the memory bank and conscience of Parks Canada, giving careerist bureaucrats news they need to hear, whether they want it or not. It is thus resented by some Parks Canada managers. Now, many wonder if there will be a warden service left to celebrate its 2009 centennial.

On May 9th this year, new CEO Alan Latourelle, having lost the latest appeal on the handgun issue, ordered wardens to take off their uniforms and don the T-shirts and ball caps worn by visitor services clerks so they would not be identified as authority figures, which might put them at risk from criminals.

It was a final slap in the face that reduced some wardens to tears of frustration. The decision to issue sidearms to federal officers (such as federal fisheries officers and Canadian Wildlife Service officers, armed for many years now) is at the discretion of Cabinet. A directive posted by the government in 2003 says the policy is not to arm federal officers except in exceptional circumstances. It was up to the CEO, having lost the appeal, to argue the case before the Harper cabinet.

Instead, Environment Minister John Baird will now create a brand new -- armed -- 100-member national park police force, at an initial cost of $12 million, to do work previously done by 425 police-trained park wardens. This duplicate force will not report to local resource managers or be directed by them. Unlike the wardens, who typically spent about 15 to 25 per cent of their time on law enforcement, the new cops will do park enforcement only. Spread over 41 parks and park reserves, they are unlikely to be on hand when something bad goes down, leaving wardens to observe and take notes. As specialists, park cops are doomed to be the Maytag repairmen of law enforcement -- of little use when a grizzly mauls a camper or a fire burns out of control.

Some $52 million and counting has now been either squandered or allocated on a face-saving exercise for Chretien-era senior management. Officious, inefficient law enforcement will be the result. If cabinet had armed wardens in 2001, it would have cost approximately $1.5 million, according to Duane Martin, recently retired Senior Enforcement Specialist for the western and northern national parks. Arming our wardens can still be done at a fraction of the cost and not all park wardens would need to carry sidearms all the time, as the U.S. experience has demonstrated. In America's parks, most employees wear the ranger hat and uniform but only designated rangers (who still participate in other park duties) carry guns.

Minister Baird, summer is here and our national parks are not being protected. Those responsible have your ear. Those who could fix it are not free to speak out. You have inherited a national disgrace but there is time to rein in this farce. Please don't risk destroying a well-trained, well-educated and dedicated force who are an international icon of our magnificent parks system. Sir, give them back their uniforms and their law-enforcement powers, and give the warden service the pat on the back it deserves to honour its 2009 centennial.

Sid Marty, a former park warden, is the author of A Grand and Fabulous Notion, the centennial history of Canada's national parks.

His latest book is The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek.