Nothing to see here. Move along.

At least, that is likely what the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs would want you to do. It's a pretty sure bet that this Blatchford column in this morning's Globe and Mail will be held out, at the next CACP gala and love-in, as, "irresponsible journalism".

The technical adviser to the ethics committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has resigned over corporate sponsorship - including that of Taser International - of the group's annual conference.

John Jones, an expert on police ethics who has advised the committee for three years, quit Thursday after the committee's efforts to stop the practice was rebuffed by the board of directors.

"I said in that case, I can't remain a member," a saddened Dr. Jones, the author of Reputable Conduct: Ethical Issues in Policing and Corrections, told The Globe and Mail in a phone interview yesterday from his Ottawa home. "[Such sponsorship] doesn't pass the smell test."

And that smell has another name.

Dr. Jones and the members of the ethics committee were in Montreal in August for two days of meetings around the CACP's annual conference when they learned about Taser's sponsorship and that of others, including a joint Bell Mobility-CGI-Group Techna donation of $115,000, which went toward the purchase of 1,000 tickets at $215 each to a Celine Dion concert on Aug. 25.

Each registered CACP delegate received one ticket as part of his $595 registration package; if his spouse was also registered for the spouses' program, she or he received another. Virtually all meals were also sponsored.

Hold it!!! How many municipalities, cities, towns and provinces pay out of tax coffers to send serving police members to the CACP conferences? Perhaps none of them do, but that would be something of an outlier in the day to day budgetary operations of police departments. I'd bet you a dollar to a doughnut hole that somewhere in the annual police department budget submission of many municipal, city and provincial police services there is a line for "annual conference" or "professional development" which pays the freight for attendance of police department senior officers at these CACP events.

The CACP executive director, in attempting to defend the association and its solicitation of sponsorship funds manages to get himself caught out in a "misspeak"... (emphasis mine)

Mr. [Peter] Cuthbert was insistent there is nothing wrong with the sponsorship practice, and said that part of the association's job is to bring to the attention of the chiefs "the products and tools that are available to a police service." He then suggested that Taser was only one maker of "conducted energy weapons," but, when pressed, admitted he knew of no other and said, "I guess Taser is the only name out there."

I guess it is, which now makes pretty much anything else Cuthbert has to offer in defence of CACP sponsorship impeachable.

One of Mr. Cuthbert's defences for the association accepting sponsorships is the CACP does "no buying, no endorsement, no promotion" of any products, including sponsors', and makes no "binding recommendations."

And, of course, if you go looking for the August 2008 CACP conference main page where TASER™ is prominently featured, you'll find it has gone down the memory hole. Except that Alison grabbed it when it first went up.

[Dr. Jones] rued how the CACP conferences have become increasingly "gaudy" affairs, with each host city trying to outdo the other, with members expecting bigger and better freebies. Indeed, Mr. Cuthbert's own figures - he said it now costs between $800,000 and $1-million to hold such conferences - back up Dr. Jones' perception.

You should read the whole thing.