(Prime Time Crime exclusive Nov. 6, 2004)
Mounties leave widows to pick up funeral tab
By Leo Knight
THE motto for our federal police force is Maintiens le droit. In English it means Maintain the Right. It appears right below the buffalo on the RCMP crest, badges, marked police cars and in every detachment and office of the force.
They function as the national police force, the provincial police force in all but Quebec and Ontario and the municipal police force in countless villages, towns and cities across the country.
In practice they are leaders of the community they serve and are held to higher standards of conduct than the rest of us. They endeavour to recruit the best and the brightest of our young men and women to serve the citizens of Canada.
In their promotional material they preach their core values one of which is respect to both its members and the community they serve. When one of their own is killed in the line of duty, they put on a big show for the funeral, with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of members lining up in their famous Red Serge uniforms in formal regimental ceremonies to honour their fallen comrade.
Their names are inscribed on memorials in divisional headquarters, the detachments where they served and on a granite cenotaph on the parade square of the RCMP Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan.
And so it should be.
But, as revealed by Edmonton’s A Channel newsman Paul Mennier on Friday, that seems to be where that respect ends.
Superintendent Dennis Massey was killed in a traffic accident in Calgary on December 18, 2002. He left behind his second wife Lesley. Shortly before his death, Massey was recognized formally by the Governor General of Canada with the Order of Merit of the Police Forces. He was a cop’s cop.
He was also a friend of mine. I first met Dennis when I was in recruit training in Regina. He had just completed a dangerous undercover assignment and there was a price on his head.
The RCMP kept him secure by concealing him in the recruit barracks. He was a gregarious man in those days, somehow larger than life to us new recruits, pink-cheeked and green as grass. Because of the threats against him he carried two guns all the time in those days. Despite the threats, he went out of his way to befriend young and impressionable members just embarking on their policing career.
Later, I served with Dennis’ first wife Vicky on detachment and got to know him socially over the next few years. The last time I saw him was a couple of months before his death when we had lunch in Edmonton and did a lot of reminiscing.
He had a lustrous 33 year career in the Force and his death was a shock to all who knew him. The RCMP reacted with all the pomp and ceremony one might expect for a senior serving member. Dignitaries flew out from Ottawa for the funeral and members turned out from across the country along with municipal police officers from all over Canada and the US.
Lesley Massey was concerned about the size and cost of the funeral. She was told not to worry about it that everything would be taken care of. She was mis-led.
After all the members marched and stood in respectful silence, after the piper played the last lament, after the last toast was made at the wake, Lesley Massey was given a bill for $20,891.00.
On May 23, 2003, the RCMP added his name to their memorial wall in “K” division headquarters in Edmonton. To this day they are refusing to pay the bill for the funeral.
On February 28, 2004, Corporal Jim Galloway was shot and killed in the line of duty while involved in an ERT incident in Stony Plain, Alberta. He too was given a funeral with full regimental honours. His wife Margaret got a bill for over $9,000 I’m told.
Jim Galloway had served the citizens of Canada as a member of the RCMP since 1969 and gave his life in that service. If the RCMP want to demonstrate respect for their members, their survivors shouldn’t be given a bill for their funerals after their loved ones have been killed in the line of duty.
If our national police force continues to demand their members Maintiens le Droit, it seems to me they, as an organization, should accord the same to the widows and orphans of the members who paid the ultimate price in the service of the country.
It’s only right.
-30-