Tuesday, March 21, 2017

McLean runs in Saanich for police accountability

Man who filed complaint against police enters political arena - Wolf Depner, Saanich News:

March 14, 2017 - "The person who filed a successful complaint against a Saanich Police officer will run in the next provincial election. Andrew McLean will run in Saanich South for the Libertarian Party of B.C.....

"McLean filed the complaint following his January 2016 arrest during which he refused to show identification to the officer who was investigating a suspected arson case. The officer then put McLean in a wrist lock, taking him to the ground and placing a knee onto his back.

"Retired judge Wally Oppal later found this conduct constituted abuse of authority 'by using unnecessary force and by detaining and searching [Andrew McLean] without good and sufficient cause.'

"McLean said he had already made the decision to run before this incident. 'I didn’t know whether it was going to be provincial or federal at that point,' he said. 'But that experience certainly heightened concerns around police accountability.'

"McLean says he is not running to wreck anybody’s reputation. 'But I think it is an important issue, along with a variety of other things,' he said. 'It is more of a symptomatic issue. It is a symptom of a larger problem … that being, too much power in the hand of the state.'

Canada is 'severely lacking' police accountability, he said. 'We do have the (OPCC), but police as a matter of routine investigate themselves, which is a clear conflict of interest. That shouldn’t be happening and that is an issue I hope to be able to effectively address in this campaign. We need accoutabilty when it comes to policing.'

"McLean also wants to raise a number of socio-economic issues such as house affordability and illegal drugs during his campaign.

'I’m running primarily because I am getting really tired of big government interventionism within our lives,' he said. 'It seems the government’s solution to every problem is to tax it and if you can’t tax it, then want to ban it. It is all about taking more and more and more from families, which makes it harder, harder, and harder to for families to get by on a dailybasis....'

'The only acceptable role for goverment as far as I am concerned is in the defence of freedom, liberty and personal property,” he said. 'That is why we have law enforcement [and a military force]. I would describe myself as a minarchist libertarian, meaning that I support the idea of government, but to a limited extent.'"

Read more: http://www.saanichnews.com/news/416071014.html
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