Man Who Dreamed of Being Pope May Want to Be Premier
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Man who dreamed of being Pope may want to be premier ADAM HURAS PARLIAMENT HILL Kevin Vickers’ Miramichi Valley High School yearbook photo. PHOTO: BRUNSWICK NEWS ARCHIVES OTTAWA • As a child growing up in the Irish Catholic community of Newcastle, now part of Miramichi, Kevin Vickers dreamed of becoming Pope. Now, at 62, he may want to be premier. In late December,Vickers confirmed he was considering seeking the leadership of the provincial Liberal party. He is known to many as the man who rose from relative obscurity to become a national hero when he shot and killed an armed terrorist storming Parliament in 2014. He made the front page of the Wall Street Journal and was dubbed “Canada’s New National Hero” by the Washington Post. French President François Hollande said in an address to the Canadian Parliament that Vickers “is known all across the world.” Meanwhile, late-night talk show comedian Stephen Colbert took it a step further, stating “to hell with Bruce Willis” in the movie Die Hard,“our neighbour to the north just put the ‘Eh’ in Yippeeki-yay.” But political scientists say that in political circles in his home province, where he hasn’t worked in more than a decade and a half, little is known about Vickers. “It’s a familiar name, but other than that we don’t know anything politically,” J.P. Lewis, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said in a recent interview. Université de Moncton political science professor Roger Ouellette echoed this sentiment, noting: “He’s an outsider. He was born and raised here, but he has been away for years and years, so I don’t know.” Some clues about what sort of leader Vickers would be in the future might be gleaned from his past. As a child, growing up with uncles as priests and two aunts who are Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception in Saint John, Vickers has said he had thoughts of becoming Pope one day. Instead, the graduate of Miramichi Valley High School joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force,following in the footsteps of Uncle Benny Vickers, his “boyhood hero,” a policeman from Blacks Harbour. In 2000, he was put in charge of the Burnt Church Crisis, a heated battle in northeastern New Brunswick between native and non-native fishermen during a tense and at times violent dispute over native lobster fishing rights. In a 2006 interview with Brunswick News, Vickers credited his experience delivering milk in Burnt Church and Neguac as vital to his understanding of the region’s people. His father William,a dairy farmer,grew a three-employee dairy into Northumberland Co-op, one of the largest dairies in the Maritimes. In his high school yearbook,Kevin Vickers wrote his “probable destiny” was a “milkman.” When natives erected a fiery blockade on Hwy. 11, the main access to the Acadian Peninsula, Vickers was under enormous pressure from politicians, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Acadian fishermen to confront the protesters and clear the highway. As hundreds of native activists, some sporting camouflage outfits and brandishing illegal automatic weapons, descended on Burnt Church, the standoff had all the ingredients to become deadly. Vickers’ first response was to send plainclothes aboriginal RCMP in with coffee and doughnuts to talk to the protesters. He handed out small cans of Pringles. The officers allowed both sides to vent their frustrations at them rather than at one another. And they enlisted the bands’ “clan mothers” to exert their influence to offer a face-saving way out. Within days, the blockades were down, without any bloodshed. That policing success made it possible for others to step in and help the native lobster fishery become an accepted means of earning a livelihood. “The inspector (Vickers) was a real community man,” said Bobby Sylliboy, a longtime band constable with the Burnt Church First Nation, in a Postmedia story. “People around here, let me tell you, they hold him in the highest regard. He was this 6-foot-3, non-native guy, coming to our reserve — and even coming to our Christmas vigils. He was hard to miss. He was a Down East guy, just a guy from the Miramichi. “But to us, he was the chief.” Vickers later wrote in an RCMP publication: “Our way of dealing with those in difficulty or in violation of the law is not founded solely in the rule of law,but rather upon respect of human dignity.” Vickers’ time in Tracadie also made headlines for delivering an unprecedented public apology for an incident before his time, in which a police riot squad descended on the tiny Acadian community with tear gas, guns and dogs. Local residents were protesting the closure of two schools. “To the people of Saint-Sauveur, the RCMP wishes to say it’s sorry for not having responded to these occurrences in a more appropriate manner,” Vickers said in 2001.“Regrettably, mistakes were made and we’ve learned from this experience.” His work in his home province came after spending his earlier days in the RCMP in Peterborough and Toronto drug units, and later on in Calgary, where he received undercover drug training and supervised a two-year international drug investigation in El Paso, Texas. He spent eight years, from 1979 to 1987, in the Northwest Territories. His career in the North included three years in Yellowknife where he conducted homicide investigations and, later, another six years of homicide investigations in Alberta. Later, he employed his senior RCMP role in pushing for a national strategy to combat child exploitation that was flourishing online. His first attempt was rebuffed by federal officials who deemed it a provincial responsibility, Vickers said in a speech. “I was exceptionally disappointed - I knew the magnitude and the scope of the problem,” Vickers told the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, where he was asked to speak on ethics and crisis issues last year.“The police lacked the competency and skills sets to carry out these investigations.” But an incident involving the online luring of a Manitoba teen in 2003 caught the attention of then-prime minister Paul Martin, who spoke with Vickers about his vision of a centre of excellence to tackle online predators. That led to $49.5 million being earmarked to create the National Strategy for the Protection Children From Sexual Exploitation, whose Ottawa centre trains police in confronting the murky shadows of the ever-shifting internet world. Asked by the Telegraph-Journal in 2006 about what he brings to his new role as sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, Vickers said his “Miramichi background.” “I was always raised to see the dignity of the person as very important,” he said. As sergeant at arms, Vickers defended the right of people to wear the kirpan in Parliament - a ceremonial dagger carried by baptized Sikhs. That came after a Sikh man and woman were prohibited from entering Quebec’s legislature while wearing kirpans. In response, the World Sikh Organization hosted a dinner in Vickers’ honour. At the time, Vickers told the Globe and Mail that he doesn’t like the word “tolerance” or the phrase “a tolerant society.”“ ‘I am going to tolerate you wearing the kirpan within the parliamentary precinct.’ No. As head of security, I am going to accept and embrace your symbol of faith within the parliamentary precinct,” he said. As the keynote speaker at a Salvation Army breakfast in Saint John in 2015, Vickers said his parents taught him to respect the dignity of all people. “It is time to end poverty,” he said.“For some parents,having a warm coat or providing one for their child is a luxury they simply cannot afford. And the fact that there are children in Canada who go to school hungry is just not right. “It is about respecting the dignity of people. It is about compassion for those who are less fortunate.” Vickers said he use to sit in the Chamber in the House of Commons next to former NDP Leader Jack Layton.“I always liked his statement that ‘sometimes the poorest of our society need a hand up,not a hand out,’” Vickers said. “Justice and equity can only be achieved when people are given the tools for their own development. Education, especially adult education, is key if we are to eliminate poverty. We need to set goals. We need to engage in this noble undertaking and give the poor a new lift in life if we are to become the great society of the future.” Asked two years ago by Brunswick News on New Brunswick Day what he loved most about the province, Vickers responded “its people.” He said the cohabitation of Acadian, Mi’kmaq and English peoples in the province is a beacon for the rest of the world. “You can come here ... and make a living here in Canada regardless of race, colour, creed or belief. New Brunswick, to me, is a shining example for all of Canada,” he said. “We remain the only official bilingual province [and] we’ve been through a lot of tough times together, all three [linguistic] communities. But we’re always able to find a New Brunswick way.” Vickers declined an interview request for this profile, stating that “as I am still ambassador, it would not be appropriate for me to comment.” But he confirmed that he is still considering a run at the leadership. Ambassadorships typically last four years. Vickers was appointed four years ago this month, although Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Diana Khaddaj said in an email that the jobs “do not have term limits,” adding they serve at the pleasure of the government.