The Royal Canadian Mounted Police routinely asks applicants if they are homosexual.  It is a direct violation of the law but the Mounties make no apologies.

Not only is it illegal to deny a job or fire someone for being gay, it is illegal to ask the question.  The federal force says it wants to know for security reasons, an excuse used in the past to exclude gays and lesbians from the army, diplomatic corps, and high ranking civil service jobs.   

When the R.C.M.P. took over policing from the local force in Caraquet, a small town in New Brunswick, the Mounties subjected the fishing town's cops who wanted to keep their jobs to the test.

Daniel Maillet has filed a discrimination complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging an investigator acting on behalf of the Mounties asked a colleague whether he was gay.

Maillet, who says he is not gay, says he is outraged that in this day and age the question would be asked of anyone and says the R.C.M.P refused to hire him on the basis of sexuality.  

His complaint to the Commission includes a letter from a fellow officer with the former Caraquet force that states an investigator asked him questions about Maillet's relationships with male friends.

"Is it true that he is a homosexual?" the investigator asked, according to the statement. The fellow officer wrote that he was surprised by the question and told the investigator that Maillet was involved with a woman. But the investigator persisted according to the letter: "It doesn't matter if he is a homosexual, he'll just have to admit it."

R.C.M.P. Staff-Sgt. Normand Nadeau, the man in charge of the Mounties in the area says there is nothing unusual in the question.  Nadeau said it was departmental policy.

"This is a federal department and our members have to deal with top-secret files on a regular basis, and are made aware of privileged information," Nadeau said.

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