NO matter what scandals have befallen our oft-beleaguered national police force, no one can argue the horsemen (and women) do not provide full value as a red-serge standard-bearer of Canada’s identity, for better or worse, on both the small and silver screens. From the Dudley Do-Rights of fevered 1940s Hollywood cliche to the surreal sergeants of Monty Python, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have taken viewers on a musical (and largely mythical) ride of policing as psychological portrait of a nation. To us they’re just the cops – there’s no stirring romanticism in getting a speeding ticket from one, stetson or no stetson.
In terms of soft power, however, it’s a ticket to recognition that no amount of tourist-board moulding can match. When it comes to television Mounties generating Canuck goodwill, few can rival the much-loved Constable Benton Fraser. Charmingly portrayed by Calgary-born Paul Gross, the fish-out-of-water copper was paired with a streetwise Chicago detective in the crime comedy-drama Due South from 1994-1999.
Fully indulging in cross-border stereotypes, it nevertheless had a resfreshing lack of cynicism that earned it plaudits in more than 160 countries – despite being dropped by CBS after its first season. It was rescued later in part by the BBC, going on to earn great acclaim and viewership in the U.K.
where it is still remembered fondly. But long before Const. Fraser and his deaf-wolf partner Diefenbaker politely pummelled the perps of I.
