Activists need not look over their shoulders in fear of preventive arrest in the lead-up to next month’s Olympics.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Cote, with the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, confirmed to the Georgia Straight by phone that such detentions are “absolutely not” something his unit is planning. “If you’re meaning, are we contemplating arresting people just before the start of the Games to make it convenient for them to be incarcerated, perhaps for the duration, absolutely not,” Cote said on January 12. “We can’t do that in Canada.”

Cote added that in the event the ISU had “reasonable probable grounds to arrest someone”, they would do it “right then and there”.

“So, if you have grounds today, the judicial process would not look very kindly for having grounds to arrest someone today and not going forward with the arrest, unless you have a judicial order giving you that permission,” Cote said.

Anti-Olympics activist Chris Shaw told the Straight he was happy to hear of Cote’s remarks, but he added: “Now, if they break that promise, there will be consequences.

“It will be a relief to those who are worried about getting the knock on the door in the night or the tap on the shoulder in the day,” Shaw added.

Prior to Cote’s statement, B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby told the Straight he was expecting preventive arrests. “Well, we’d be foolish not to,” he said by phone. “Before every major event that’s taken place in Canada where protests were expected in recent memory, there were preventive arrests.”

Eby pointed to activist Jaggi Singh, who was arrested on the UBC campus days before the November 1997 APEC conference and detained.

“Basically, any antiglobalization protest we’ve seen both in the United States and in Canada, there have been arrests in the days leading up to the event that could be characterized as preventive arrests,” Eby said.

Cote said that this will not happen to activists here “as long as their activities are legal”.

Meanwhile, without a chair and vice chair, the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP cannot on its own initiate investigations into the conduct of the police force. Neither can the commission sign off on pending reports on probes involving misconduct by RCMP officers.

These points were raised in separate phone interviews with NDP federal public-safety critic Don Davies and commission spokesperson Nelson Kalil. The RCMP watchdog has remained headless since January 1. Paul Kennedy’s term as chair ended on December 31, 2009, and no replacement has been named. The agency has had no vice chair since October 2008.

Davies noted that as of January 12, the office of Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan had not said when appointments are going to be made. Davies told the Straight that this is worrisome with regard to the RCMP’s public accountability, “both from a judicial point of view and from a political point of view”.

“Not only do we not have someone who can initiate complaints—that’s the judicial aspect—but also, Paul Kennedy was a pretty tireless campaigner for a strengthened role for the CPC and for greater [civilian] oversight,” Davies said.

In a recent report, the commission stated that it had launched a number of chair-initiated investigations of RCMP incidents in B.C. These included the September 2009 shooting death of Valeri George in Fort St. John; the Taser-related death of Robert Dziekanski in Vancouver in 2007; the 2007 death in Chilliwack of Robert Knipstrom, who was “subjected to hand techniques”, hit with a baton, zapped with a Taser, and doused with pepper spray; and the 2004 shooting death of Kevin St. Arnaud in Vanderhoof.

Citizens can still file complaints against the RCMP. The CPC, according to Kalil, receives an average base budget of $5.1 million a year, plus an additional $3.1 million.