No Easy Ride Read online

  On July 3, 1961, Ian Parsons reported to RCMP Depot Division in Regina as a raw recruit. It was the beginning of a 33-year adventure that took him from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island and many points between. By the time he retired with the rank of inspector, Parsons had a policeman’s trunk full of colourful stories and insightful observations that he now shares in this memoir.

  Parsons writes candidly of his many roles within the RCMP, from postings in rural detachments, where he dealt with diverse policing issues, to stints teaching at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa and at the RCMP Academy in Regina. Always an independent thinker, Parsons lectured sometimes-resistant RCMP senior officers on the adoption of new ways and helped introduce programs to modernize recruit training and make it more relevant to the demands of a rapidly changing Canadian society.

  In recent years, Parsons has observed the troubled state and tarnished reputation of his beloved force as it faces crisis after crisis. Against the entertaining backdrop of his life in red serge, he gives a thoughtful assessment of things gone wrong in the iconic institution and identifies the drastic steps necessary to save it.

  * * *

  “I can only imagine a few people who could share the experiences as well as Ian Parsons. No Easy Ride leaves nothing to the imagination about where the force has come from and where it should be going.”

  —Morley Lymburner, Blue Line magazine

  “Ian Parson’s highly readable memoir casts an insightful eye on issues in the iconic federal force. His conjecture on the future of the RCMP merits thoughtful consideration by all Canadians.”

  —Robert F. Lunney, Chief of Police (Ret.), author of Parting Shots

  NO EASY

  RIDE

  REFLECTIONS

  ON MY LIFE

  IN THE RCMP

  IAN T. PARSONS

  Dedicated to the two most

  important women in my life:

  my wife, Lynne, and my daughter, Michelle.

  The world is a better place for your intellect,

  compassion and common sense.

  Also to my mother, Patricia Parsons,

  who devoted 60 years to supporting

  her husband and her son in their

  RCMP careers. She passed away in

  October 2012 in her 102nd year.

  CONTENTS

  PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER 1 THE WAY IT WAS

  CHAPTER 2 STAND STILL, LOOK TO YOUR FRONT

  CHAPTER 3 RIDE, TROT!

  CHAPTER 4 WELCOME TO THE FIELD

  CHAPTER 5 TEMPORARY POSTINGS, TEMPORARY TRAUMA

  CHAPTER 6 PRAIRIE ROOTS

  CHAPTER 7 DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

  CHAPTER 8 FLAILING AT WINDMILLS

  CHAPTER 9 CULTURAL IMMERSION AND SWEETGRASS

  CHAPTER 10 PUZZLE PALACE AND BEYOND

  CHAPTER 11 DÉJÀ VU

  CHAPTER 12 AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN?

  CHAPTER 13 HALFWAY HOME

  CHAPTER 14 HOME AT LAST

  CONCLUSION END OF A DYNASTY?

  PHOTO INSERT

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD

  IT HAS LONG been the legacy and legend of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s national police force, that they could overcome any obstacle when asked to do too much with too little. It was a cherished reputation built over a century of policing new frontiers, at first across the Canadian prairie and later over the 3,000 miles from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. These brave men usually functioned alone, remote from media scrutiny and without the many complexities of modern times. Through real deeds and, later, Hollywood portrayals, the police force established an image that became an internationally recognized symbol of Canadian society and justice. Today, maintaining that reputation is proving burdensome.

  Canada’s parliament first passed a bill in 1873 to create the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) and establish a force of 300 scarlet-coated riders, sent west from Ontario with a mandate to bring law and order to the Dominion’s North-West Territories. Things started badly.

  Most historians agree that the NWMP’s first commissioner was the wrong leader on the wrong trail with the wrong horses. During the 10 weeks after disembarking the Red River camp at Fort Dufferin on July 8, 1874, Colonel George French failed dismally, forcing his ill-conceived strategy on what started as six divisions of 50 mounted policemen. Even as they broke camp that day, two of French’s division leaders resigned in total frustration, angered that their commissioner insisted on using his regal hand-picked eastern steeds instead of trained cart horses readily available at the fort.

  Within 60 days, almost three-quarters of French’s herd of matching bays, light bays, chestnuts, blacks, browns and greys were either dead or lame. Supplies had dwindled, morale was on its own death march and they were effectively lost. The threat of early snow and even starvation hung over the camp as French and his assistant commissioner, James Macleod, headed south into Montana in search of supplies and a good scout.

  Fortunately the weather held and supplies were secured, and as a blessing to all, George French was summoned east by his superiors. With the well-respected Macleod left in charge and their new scout, Jerry Potts, at the front of their column, the NWMP headed farther west to build their first fort and establish a foothold for law and order on the Canadian prairie at Fort Macleod.

  In contrast to the bloodletting that occurred on American soil, the NWMP gained the trust of tribal leaders and maintained peace through their first decade in the West. In 1886, after the Metis rebellion, there were 1,000 men enlisted, and the achievements of James Macleod, Sam Steele, James Walsh, Cecil Denny, other NWMP original recruits and Jerry Potts are now well documented.

  In spite of their heroics, the Mounties’ existence was threatened in 1896 when Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier announced his intent to disband the NWMP. A strong protest from the West and the beginnings of the chaotic Klondike gold rush assured the survival of the Force and its expansion into the Yukon. There, in gold camps north of Whitehorse, tiny detachments kept law and order, as they had done when small patrols had chased off Montana whisky traders, ridden in peace among the villages of the Blackfoot Confederacy, greeted the arrival of Sitting Bull and his followers as he crossed the Medicine Line, maintained peace as gangs of navvies built the rail lines to the mountains and protected ranchers and settlers as they set out to tame a raw landscape.

  The NWMP became the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP) by a proclamation of King Edward VII in 1904. When the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed the following year, the RNWMP continued to maintain both provincial law and federal law in the lands that were their first arena. That role continued until 1917, when both Saskatchewan and Alberta established their own provincial police forces, as British Columbia had done decades before. The following year the RNWMP was also assigned duties to handle federal laws in BC, a jurisdiction already well served provincially.

  Even before there was a Canada, the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia shared early policing roots that dated back to the 1858 Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes. When BC entered Confederation in 1871, the British Columbia Constabulary was formed. In 1895 the name was changed to the BC Provincial Police (BCPP). The BCPP would remain the prominent West Coast police presence through the Second World War and the early post-war years. At its peak, it was in charge of all rural areas plus 40 municipalities throughout the province.

  Through the First World War, the RNWMP was largely confined to the Prairie provinces and Yukon Territory. East of Manitoba, federal policing had long been handled by the Dominion Police Force, a body originally formed five years before the NWMP to protect Ottawa politicians from assassination attempts. The
Dominion force gradually expanded to administer federal laws, including a national fingerprint bureau and the parole service, and served as protector of naval dockyards at Halifax and Esquimalt, near Victoria, BC. It also assumed various policing duties in the Maritime provinces until the end of the Great War, when its contingent of almost 1,000 was briefly made a civilian arm of the Canadian Military Police Corps.

  In 1920, the merging of the western-based RNWMP with the civilian corps of the Canadian Military Police Corps finally resulted in a truly national police force. The prominent red serge of the Mounties became the official uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the force was well on its way to building the most complex infrastructure of any police body in the world.

  Establishing detachments in the High Arctic soon became a priority to protect Canadian sovereignty. By 1928, the Force had returned to handling Saskatchewan’s provincial laws under contract. Four years later, as the Depression stirred civilian unrest, members signed contracts with Manitoba and the three Maritime provinces to act as their provincial police as well. They also took over federal policing along Canada’s coastal perimeter while absorbing personnel and vessels from the Preventive Service of the Department of National Revenue. The essence of the RCMP Marine Section would be defined a decade later by Sergeant Henry Larsen, who captained the schooner St. Roch as it carved its way through the ice-laden Northwest Passage and became the first ship to ever circumnavigate North America.

  In 1950, new layers of complexity were built into the RCMP when they were contracted as the provincial force in Canada’s newest province of Newfoundland, while absorbing the country’s oldest police roots when they integrated the BC Provincial Police into their structure. They were now the dominant municipal, provincial and federal police agency in Western Canada.

  It was into this era of policing that Ian T. Parsons was born. His father, Joseph, had been a proud member of the RCMP since 1930. Ian enlisted while his father was still active in the Force, becoming part of a tandem that would serve their country for 64 consecutive years.

  In the 33 years that Ian Parsons served, his assignments took him across the country from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to a final posting on Vancouver Island. He entered the Force while “old-school” training procedures were still in play. Later, as a new philosophy permeated the Force, he returned to teach at Regina in classrooms occupied by both men and women and enlistees representing many cultures. But Ian Parsons not only taught raw recruits in Regina; while stationed at headquarters in Ottawa, he also lectured the old guard of sometimes resistant RCMP senior officers on the adoption of new ways, new techniques and new social pressures of political correctness.

  Outside of his stint in Ottawa, most of Ian Parsons’s career was spent in rural detachments where RCMP members were most often a respected part of a close community. The diversity of his postings brought him in touch with all aspects of policing, including highway patrol, provincial issues and First Nations law enforcement. For his final posting, he was the operational officer and assistant officer commanding on Vancouver Island, a component of the single most complex division in the RCMP.

  By the time he retired with the rank of inspector, Parsons had a policeman’s trunk full of colourful stories, insightful observations and amusing yarns that he now shares in this memoir. They provide an entertaining backdrop for his candid assessment of things gone wrong in the Force.

  In retirement, Parsons has remained active amongst his peers but also independent in his thinking. In recent years, as his beloved Force has faced crisis after crisis Ian Parsons has built his own thesis on how to fix things. He is now willing to speak out and try to help fix what so many Canadians feel is broken. For this ex-Mountie, it is more than gender issues, bad judgements and use of excessive force, unwieldy discipline procedures and low morale. It is about a structure and a mandate far too complex and fundamentally unfixable. Now distant enough from the inside to see both the trees and the forest, Inspector I.T. Parsons (Retired) offers a solution.

  Rodger Touchie

  PREFACE

  The man who lived in my house—my father—had a thundering voice and seemed six foot seventeen. He was a fabled law-enforcement officer and a survivor of gunfights. I was raised in an RCMP family and will forever carry great affection for the Royal Red; it is part of my DNA. My earliest memories are of a forest of high brown boots, the sound of men’s voices and the smell of tobacco and occasionally beer wafting through our home. My father was at the core of this boisterous regiment, an alpha male among men who were held in high esteem in the communities where we lived. Police cars, firearms, police dogs, uniforms—these awe-inspiring and intimidating tools and trappings of law enforcement were a part of the everyday routine of family life. Even when my father’s lofty height seemed to diminish as I became a rebellious teenager, his stature as a hero never faded. He left an indelible impression on me and inspired me to follow my own career in the RCMP.

  Over 33 years with the RCMP, I served from sea to sea, including postings in several provinces. While all the events I recount in these pages are authentic, they are viewed through perceptions and opinions acquired over a lifetime. In telling my story, I have changed the names of some people and places for reasons of confidentiality, and on rare occasions I have altered incidents or fictionalized characters to enhance the flow of the work. Some incidents are composites of several separate scenarios and as such cannot be attributed to specific individuals. The reader will hear a recruit, an investigator, a researcher, a manager and perhaps even a philosopher as I progress through the stages of my law-enforcement career.

  Much of my story occurred prior to the 1970s, a decade when a maelstrom of change descended upon not just the RCMP, but our entire world. Many RCMP veterans define the period from the inception of the Force in 1873 to the late 1960s as “the Golden Era.” The “golden” aspect most probably alludes to the impeccable external reputation of the Force, seemingly untarnished by assorted mischief committed by those inside the organization during those halcyon years. Symbolic of the end of this era, equitation was removed from RCMP training in 1966. The Regina stables were closed and all things equine moved to “N” Division Rockcliffe, in Ottawa, Ontario. The demise of equitation training coincided with the beginning of an amazing organizational transformation. The RCMP has had to cope with sweeping changes, including new technology, compensation for overtime work, women in policing, acquisition of support staff and the right to challenge management through representation. As is often the case, even these positive changes have been disruptive and frequently unwelcome.

  My reasons for writing this book are twofold. While I hope my story entertains readers and provides a window into the everyday challenges that faced RCMP members during the past few decades, I also wish to share my concerns for the future of the Force. The RCMP evolved from a small band of men in 1873 into a viable police organization during the early part of the 20th century. Initial frontier police duties demanded little sophistication, but the Force acquired expertise as it grew and assumed responsibility for almost all policing functions in the dominion of Canada. As demands on the RCMP increased, it was unable to stay abreast of this astounding growth, largely due to its high recruiting standards and limited training facilities. The philosophy of the RCMP has always been “never say no.” This inability to decline a request is at the root of many of the organization’s problems. I strongly believe that the Force must shed some of its numerous and varied burdens if it hopes to survive as the charismatic institution beloved by so many Canadians.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WAY IT WAS

  THERE IS LITTLE chance that my career in the RCMP would ever have happened without my father’s example. Like many young immigrants of his era, he sought a new life in Canada and worked through adversity to build a successful career. But his story is also a snapshot of the RCMP during the years it grew to become a four-tiered organization. It happened during Canada’s adolescence as a country
, when it was largely populated by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and Catholics. With the exception of Quebec, Canada’s laws and mores were almost exclusively British.

  In 1922 my father, 16-year-old Joseph Thomas Parsons, embarked on an arduous ocean voyage across the Atlantic. His long journey by sea and over land concluded in Regina, Saskatchewan. His elder brother, who had already immigrated to Canada, had told him of an employment opportunity with a grain farmer. Joseph left Cornwall, England, and the oppression of stern Methodist parents and set out to seek his fortune in Canada. He arrived in a prosperous new land, finding ample work as a farm labourer and earning good money. He dreamed of buying land for his own farm, and, acting on advice, he invested all of his earnings in the stock market. The future looked extremely promising until he lost his nest egg in the 1929 worldwide stock market crash. With few options available to him, he learned the RCMP was hiring able-bodied young men to police the Canadian west. He applied and was accepted in 1930. Upon completion of his training, he was posted to Kelvington, a small farming community in Saskatchewan.

  After only two years’ service, Joseph became involved in an investigation and manhunt that would set his destiny in the Force. The account of the incident below is based on an article by Henry M. Savage that was originally published in the Regina Leader Post in 1944 and later reprinted in the RCMP Quarterly.

  In June and July of 1932, a crime wave occurred in the Yorkton, Saskatchewan, area. Someone was robbing hardware stores and gas stations in small towns in the region, and the RCMP was having no luck in finding the culprits. It was particularly troubling since the thieves had stolen firearms and large quantities of ammunition in several of these burglaries. The only clue was the presence of a blue sedan in the area of several of the offences.