Red Serge

I. The Practice Was New — Not Historical

The correspondence establishes that civilian participation in RCMP pipe bands wearing the Red Serge was not a continuation of any long-standing tradition. It was a new development, originating now in the context of the 125th Anniversary initiative.

The CEDC Folio — the formal presentation document prepared for the RCMP's senior executive in early 1998 — notes that it had been twenty-five years since the first proposal to adopt a tartan was put forward, describing approximately two hundred RCMP pipers and drummers then wearing the uniforms of other police bands as

Internal correspondence confirms that the Force's first RCMP Community Band had been formed in Edmonton only in 1992. As of early 1998, the formal position paper circulated within the initiative presented civilian participation not as an established practice to be regularized, but as one of three alternatives requiring a decision — the others being discontinuation of community bands entirely, or restriction to Regular Members only. The practice did not have a settled prior foundation. The civilian strategy was now being created.

II. The Civilian Question Arose Early — and Was Immediately Compartmentalized

The question of civilians wearing the Red Serge arose at the very beginning of the correspondence released by the RCMP — in the first week of January 1998 — and from that point forward it was managed through a process of deliberate compartmentalization. Different Officers were given different information at different times. No single Officer outside the initiative's inner circle was ever given the complete picture before the key decisions were made.

The first mention appears in an informal exchange between RCMP Member 1 and RCMP Member 2 in early January 1998. RCMP Member 1 acknowledged "the K Div/civilian band question," expressing the view that "there should be enough room in the pool for most interested members." The exchange was entirely private between two members and not recorded in any official document given to others. Email #4

RCMP Member 2 raised a direct concern — that if civilians from one Division were given priority over regular members, "I foresee a problem developing." Email #5 In a subsequent message dated January 6, 1998, RCMP Member 2 made the strongest statement in the record:

He cited twenty-two years of service, membership on the tartan committee, hundreds of Force functions performed, and having previously been displaced by a civilian from another Division. These exchanges took place entirely outside the official record. They were not disclosed to the Clothing and Design Committee (CEDC) or the Senior Executive Committee (SEC) or to the Deputy Commissioner in central Canada who later raised formal concerns about the tartan initiative.

At the same time — unknown to RCMP Member 2 and to senior Officers outside the initiative's inner circle — one Division in western Canada had already taken unilateral action. As confirmed in correspondence dated February 12, 1998, that Division had

modifying the Significant Uniform of the Force without authorization, before any formal policy had been established and before the CEDC or the SEC had considered the question of dressing civilians in Red Serge.

III. The Sequencing Strategy Was Deliberately Designed

By February 1998, the members managing the initiative had developed an explicit written strategy for how the civilian question would be handled through the upcoming formal approval process.

RCMP Member 3, the senior member chairing the Tartan Subcommittee, set out the strategy in a message dated February 13, 1998. He explained that the CEDC presentation would cover only two formal items — 1) the tartan and 2) the Orders of Dress for Regular Members. The civilian question would be raised separately, as a discussion item placed deliberately outside the formal folio items. He stated explicitly: Email #29

The senior member who names the specific regulation governing the Significant Uniform, and then constructs an internal argument to avoid engaging the statutory process that regulation implies, has made a documented choice not to engage Ministerial authority. RCMP Member 1 confirmed the strategy the same day: "noted and concur." Email #29

On April 9, 1998 — six days before the SEC meeting — RCMP Member 1 sent a strategy memorandum to the tartan subcommittee members describing a proposed "pilot project" for civilians wearing modified red serge. He asked recipients to consult their constituencies and reply directly. He then added: Email #53

The Senior Executive Committee (SEC) was not informed of this pre-meeting canvassing.

IV. The Information Given to the Deputy Commissioner Was Incomplete

On February 13, 1998 — the same day the sequencing strategy was confirmed in writing — a Deputy Commissioner from western Canada raised four formal objections to the initiative, stating it was the first time he had heard of the proposal and expressing concern about the objectivity of the committee behind it. Email #30

RCMP Member 1 prepared a formal two-page response presenting the initiative as well-supported, historically grounded, and progressing smoothly. Email #32 What the response did not disclose is equally significant — and is documented across the correspondence.

It did not disclose that civilians had already been confirmed as participants in the Nova Scotia Tattoo group — confirmed in RCMP Member 1's own words the previous day:

It did not disclose that one Division had already modified the Red Serge for civilian band members without authorization. It did not disclose that RCMP Member 3 had that same morning explicitly invoked Regulation 64 and constructed a strategy to argue around it. It did not disclose the strong personal objections of a Regular Member directly involved in the tartan committee — objections never formally recorded in any official document. It did not disclose unresolved design questions, unsecured artist's rights, a competing design concern raised by an external international expert, or a production lead time privately described as "unanticipated."

The Deputy Commissioner was given a carefully constructed account of the initiative's legitimacy and progress. He was not given the information most directly relevant to the concerns he had raised.

V. The CEDC Was Given an Assurance That Was Incomplete

At the CEDC meeting on February 25, 1998, the presentation proceeded exactly as designed in the written strategy of February 13. The formal recommendation covered two items: 1) the tartan and 2) the Kilted Orders of Dress for Regular Members. Both received strong support. Then afterwards, the civilian question was then raised — after the formal vote — as a discussion item. Email #34

The Division Staff Relations Representatives (DSRRs) formally objected, stating that the membership would "not support civilian members, public servants, or civilians wearing the Scarlet Tunic." One representative compared the prospect to "the outcry over summer students wearing the Scarlet Tunic on Parliament Hill." In response, the presenters:

That assurance was accurate as a description of the formal recommendation on the table. It was materially incomplete as a description of what the two presenters knew at the moment they gave it. At that moment, they knew civilians had been confirmed for the Nova Scotia Tattoo group, that one Division was already dressing civilians in modified Red Serge, that a position paper on civilian inclusion had already been completed, and that the civilian question would go to the SEC within weeks. And most importantly, they knew precisely what they had chosen not to disclose to the Deputy Commissioner from western Canada earlier that same day — that the civilian question was not a future possibility to be considered, but a present reality already unfolding on the ground, in uniform, without authorization, and without the knowledge of the senior Officers whose responsibility it was to know.

In that respect, the decision to dress civilians in the Red Serge had, in practical terms, already been made. One Division had made it unilaterally. The Nova Scotia Tattoo commitment had confirmed it. The royal ceremony in Fredericton had locked it in place. By the time the CEDC met on February 25, 1998, and by the time the SEC met on April 15, 1998, the question before both bodies was not whether civilians would wear the Red Serge. It was whether the institution would find a way to approve what had already happened. The CEDC minutes record no consensus on the civilian question. The matter was formally deferred — and carried forward regardless.

VI. The SEC Decision Did Not Explicitly Approve Civilian Inclusion

On April 15, 1998, the Senior Executive Committee considered the CEDC recommendation. The formal decision, recorded in the Record of Decision signed by the Commissioner, approved the tartan and three Pipes and Drums uniforms — all described as approved for RCMP regular members. Email #58

Civilian inclusion does not appear as a voted proposition anywhere in that record. It appears only in the discussion section: there was "general consensus" that all band personnel should wear the same uniform and that "colour should be red." The Division Staff Relations Representatives' position — that they "will not support this initiative if it means wearing part of the significant uniform" — was recorded and then overcome by the finding that the Pipes and Drums Tunic "is not the significant uniform since modified."

No standalone vote on civilian inclusion was held. No explicit decision that civilians may wear the modified Red Serge appears in the Record of Decision. The outcome was embedded in discussion consensus framing and carried within a decision formally approving uniforms for regular members.

The Minister does not appear in the Record of Decision. The Minister does not appear anywhere in the correspondence released under the Access to Information Act.

VII. The Unauthorized Modification Was Never Stopped

Throughout the correspondence, from February through April 1998, the unauthorized modification of the Red Serge by one Division is described, acknowledged at the highest institutional levels, and never corrected.

In February, the modification was described privately as "the quaint blue lapels that K Div have carved into the red serge for their civilians." Email #27 At the CEDC meeting in February, it was formally acknowledged in the official minutes — the presenters stated that this modification was:

No directive was issued. The modification was acknowledged again in the formal SEC submission in April. Email #57 The SEC Record of Decision of April 15, 1998 is silent on the unauthorized modification entirely. It approved the tartan and the Pipes and Drums uniforms. It did not address, censure, or direct the correction of the modification that had already been described as unacceptable at CEDC. The Division that had carved blue lapels into the Significant Uniform of the Force without authorization received no directive to stop, no reprimand, and no instruction to restore the uniform to its authorized design. The Significant Uniform of the Force was modified without authorization, described as unacceptable at CEDC, acknowledged again in the SEC submission, and never stopped. No corrective directive was issued at any point in the record.

The Minister Was Never Consulted

But what was said at the SEC — or left unsaid — does not change the law. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act designates the Scarlet Tunic as a component of the significant uniform of the Force, the design of which is subject to the approval of the Minister. Any modification to that design — whether made informally in Alberta, ratified by silence at CEDC, or absorbed into a broader approval at SEC — required Ministerial authorization. No document has been located in the records released to date under the Access to Information Act establishing that the Minister was ever consulted. That is the central and unresolved question that no internal decision — however senior the body that made it — has the authority to answer.

For any institution, that gap in the record would be a serious matter. For the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — an organization whose entire founding purpose is the enforcement of the law, and whose authority to act derives from that law — the absence of Ministerial consultation on a modification to its most legally protected symbol is not a procedural oversight. It is a failure to meet the very standard the Force exists to uphold.

VIII. The Compartmentalization — A Summary

The correspondence released by the RCMP documents a layered structure in which knowledge of the civilian question was distributed unevenly and deliberately across participants throughout the process.

IX. The Ministerial Authorization Question

The RCMP Act designates the Scarlet Tunic as a component of the significant uniform of the Force. The authority over that uniform, and any modification to its design, engages the statutory responsibility of the Minister.

The correspondence released under the Access to Information Act contains no reference to Ministerial notification, consultation, or approval at any point in this process. The approval chain runs from the Tartan Subcommittee through CEDC to the Senior Executive Committee. It is entirely internal.

The strategy explicitly adopted — confirmed in writing on February 13, 1998 — was to argue that the modified Pipes and Drums Tunic was not the significant uniform, thereby avoiding the need to engage the Ministerial authority that designation implies. That argument was advanced internally, accepted internally, and embedded in the SEC Record of Decision. Whether it was ever submitted to the Minister does not appear in the released record.

The absence of any Ministerial record in the documents released to date does not establish that no such record exists. It establishes that if such a record exists, it has not been produced in response to formal requests under the Access to Information Act. That is a matter requiring a direct institutional answer.

X. What the Record Supports

1. The practice of civilians wearing the RCMP Red Serge in pipe bands originated in or around 1998 and was not a continuation of prior historical custom.

2. The question of civilian participation was identified within the initiative from its earliest stages — January 1998 — and was managed through deliberate compartmentalization rather than open institutional deliberation. The written strategy of February 13, 1998 to the Deputy Commissioner in the mid west makes that compartmentalization explicit.

3. An unauthorized modification of the Significant Uniform was known to the initiative's planners, acknowledged at CEDC as unacceptable, acknowledged again in the formal SEC submission, and never stopped. The SEC decision overlooked the underlying practice without addressing the unauthorized modification.

4. The formal SEC decision of April 15, 1998 did not contain an approval of civilian participation in the Red Serge. No standalone civilian inclusion vote was held. That interpretation is confirmed by what followed immediately after the meeting. On the evening of April 16, 1998 — one day after the SEC decision — the Director of Corporate Management wrote directly to the tartan planners making clear that the SEC decision applied to Regular Members only. That communication, coming from the Director of the body that had just chaired the SEC presentation, is the strongest possible confirmation that civilian inclusion was not what the SEC had decided — and that those closest to the decision understood it in precisely those terms.

5. The statutory framework governing the significant uniform — including the potential engagement of Ministerial authority — was known to the initiative's planners, invoked by name in internal correspondence, and deliberately argued around through internal reframing rather than through the statutory process that framework requires.

6. No record of Ministerial notification, consultation, or approval appears in the documents released under the Access to Information Act. If such a record exists, it has not been produced. That question requires a direct institutional answer.

7. No record has been located establishing the authority under which RCMP uniforms and kit — government property procured at public expense — were issued to civilian volunteers. The circumstances of that distribution, the authority on which it rested, and the public cost at which it occurred have not been addressed in the available record and warrant a formal accounting.