Can Disney save the Mounties?

For much of Canada's history the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been a symbol of Canada. Some of the image was the creation of Hollywood, but much of its image was a result of the good and honest work that the force did in the Canadian West. Now we are faced with scandal after scandal.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/218715

As a lawyer, I have come to understand that you cannot always trust that the Police are doing the right thing. The RCMP and other police services are made up of human beings just like you and I. They make mistakes, they can become drunk on the power that they wield and a very small minority of police officers are dishonest. Society as a whole tends to believe that the police do no wrong and it is only when they have their own encounter with the police do they see that the police sometimes do make mistakes and sometimes do abuse their power. That is why all police services need civilian oversight and critical review of their operations.

The RCMP appears to have lacked this kind of oversight and critical review. The Mounties appear to have strayed from the straight and narrow. Who knows maybe the RCMP has been like this for a long time and its rotten internal culture is just now being exposed.

I wonder how Disney will market the Mounties now?

How does He do it?

Jean-Pierre Blackburn has been able to misuse government money and break all sorts of rules without there being a huge outcry from the Canadian public. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070527.wblackburn0527/BNStory/National/home

How does He do it?

This is so blatantly wrong and against the rules that he should resign immediately. When will this government be accountable? Harper touted accountability in the election campaign and passed an Act called The Accountability Act, yet he has a cabinet with members who think that everyone is accountable but themselves. This just further proof that the only thing that Mr. Harper has ever been interested in is to obtain and maintain power, to hell with morals and principles.

Hand Guns

I have never understood hunting and have always thought the only people who should have guns are soldiers and police officers. As I am willing to see more than one side of an argument, I have been willing to grant hunters their long guns as long as they are registered; but I never accepted the need for hand guns.

The argument about protection doesn't fly with me, if you are armed with a hand gun and some one breaks into your home armed with a hand gun aren't they more likely to shoot at you in order to prevent you from shooting them?

Now with the shooting at the high school in T.O. people are talking about banning hand guns, good for them but also push for the continuation of the long gun registration.

I'm not the only one

This is sort of update to my previous post but since it is a couple of days later I decided it deserved a new post.

General Hillier says the same thing as I did regarding troop morale http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/837400.html.

Of course that doesn't make it right, it just means that I'm not the only one.

Black and White

I believe that there are too many bloggers who portray things as being black and white (to use an old cliche) when the truth is that most issues are not clear cut. For instance Harper's trip to Afganistan, while clearly it is a political move that is intended to aid him politically it also serves a useful purpose of improving the morale of the Canadians serving there.

Should Canadians be in Afganistan? That is a different issue and if you want to question our role in Afganistan and NATO I respect you for it but don't portray Harper as being completely wrong in visiting our troops.

I want to make it clear that I am no fan of Mr. Harper and his government in fact I work everyday to get Harper defeated and since the end of the Soviet Union I question the need for NATO. But as long as Canada is a member of NATO we need to honour our obligations.

What bothers me right now is that other NATO countries don't seem to be willing to do the same; Canada has asked other NATO member countries to do more in Afganistan with no success. Perhaps it is time for NATO to be moth balled; not completely disbanded but end its operational functions until its role can be debated by the member countries.

New Blog

I have just started this blog and don't know where I will go with it. I am interested in Canadian Politics and will probably make that the focus of this blog.

Please be patient while I get the hang of this thing!