Last week I had the opportunity to hear Charles Scheideman, a retired RCMP officer read from his memoir Policing the Fringe: The Curious Life of a Small-town Mountie.

Although the book sounds like a riveting read with a lot of local interest (part of his career was spent in the Kootenays), during the final question period things got a little political.

Discussion turned to how the RCMP has had its reputation somewhat tarnished, recently. In particular, he mentioned the Robert Dziekanski affair. Although I agree with him that this incident was a black mark on the RCMP, and even on Canada in general, I have to disagree with his assessment of why it happened.

Scheideman argues that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has eroded the RCMP's ability to do its job, not because the criminals have too many rights, but because the officers do.

Scheideman says that, in his day, it wasn't uncommon for a solitary officer to walk in to a brawl without backup even though he knew it might be dangerous. Back then, he said, a black eye or a broken nose was a badge of honour. Meanwhile, today a man making a disturbance at an airport out of frustration is met with a “gang” of four officers.

I agree you shouldn't need four burly men to subdue one unarmed man in a public place. However, responding to other potentially dangerous environments, such as a home where there's a likelihood that the residents are armed, officers shouldn't be afraid to call for backup because they might not look “manly” enough for the job.

Which leads into what he had to say next, that the introduction of women had a negative effect on the force. To be fair, Scheideman was…, well, “man” enough to admit that his views are pretty old-fashioned and he isn't likely to turn back the clock. However, I know that small-town cops, both male and female, often respond to calls alone, and, if anything, women have brought more diversity and more empathy into today's policing. After all, if four female officers had responded to that call at the Vancouver airport, it's hard to imagine things turning out the way they did.