Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald may have made the Royal Canadian Mounties famous but the plaudits for the horsemen are fading away. The rigid standards that an aspiring recruit had to reach to become a Mountie once upon a time have long gone, sadly diminished by the many concessions made to meet recruitment goals.
In the writer’s opinion, this once elite force no longer ranks as such. Consider the shameful action of the Mounties at a major airport in 2007 when a poor, Polish immigrant, waiting in the International Arrival area for his mother, unable to speak English, confused and agitated after a long wait was tasered and jumped on by no less than 3-4 officers. He died.
And news reports about the recent atrocity that occured on a Greyhound Bus travelling in Western Canada indicates that a witness who sat next to the accused killer and was a friend of the victim, could only be later identifed by the Mounties as ” Stacey”.
And no, they didn’t know her name, address or where she was.