Note - My blogging record over the last few weeks has been deplorable.  I don't have a good excuse, besides needing to fish my time management skills out of the toilet and get on with it.  So here goes with the getting on with it...

Yesterday the RCMP's annual memorial service honoring fallen officers was held at the national training academy in Regina, where the names of Const. Christopher Worden and Const. Douglas Scott were engraved on the cenotaph, honour roll and memorial wall plaques.  Both men were gunned down in the line of duty in the remote Canadian North.  Despite these tragic incidents (and I'd venture to add the general reputation of the North) Sgt Alain Leblanc told the media that RCMP cadets are not deterred from accepting, even requesting posts within these communities.

Leblanc's comments remind me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, a dedicated Mountie who saw and experienced things during his time in Northern Saskatchewan that I simply cannot comprehend. 

Cutting an 11-year old girl down from under her deck, from which she had hung herself with a skipping rope.  She lived, but no thanks to the crowd of people standing around...disinterested, watching her dangle.

The brutality of the beatings and sexual assualts, which were commited on a virtual daily basis between members of the community as sport - a form of recreation.

Another suicide, where the young man had shot himself in the head in the basement of a house, surrounding himself with pictures of his wife and kids before he did it.  Pretty standard stuff I suppose, except for the fact that my friend had to push his way through the party raging upstairs to get to the body in the basement.  The partygoers were well aware of what had happened, cracking jokes and taunting the officers as they made their way through the chaos.

The fact that social disorder exists in these remote communities is common knowledge, though I think that as along as it's out of sight/out of mind, a solution will never be found.  In the meantime, we leave it up to the men and women who offer themselves up to go and live within these areas, trying their best to maintain some kind of order, offering their assistance and in some cases, their very lives to be there to help those that want it.  And I don't pretend to understand what motivates them to do it, I wouldn't last 5 minutes. 

Anyway, I do have a point.  Obviously RCMP officers everywhere deal with horrifying situations, bad things don't just happen up North.  As we continue to judge the RCMP on their response to various incidents, their use of tasers, lethal force etc - I think it's really important to remember what these men and women face, or have faced on a daily basis.  It's not an excuse for improper reactions, but I'm just not convinced that the 'average' citizen is in a position to judge. 

Tammy Robert is the Executive Producer of 'The John Gormley Live Show' - listen live every weekday morning from 8.30am - 12.30pm on NewsTalk 650 or NewsTalk 980.