Red Deer Advocate

To serve and protect

Posted by Chris Salomons - Red Deer Advocate • May, 23 2012 6:39 AM • Red Deer Advocate

'I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully, diligently and impartially execute and perform the duties required of me as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and will well and truly obey and perform all lawful orders and instructions that I receive as such, without fear, favour or affection of or towards any person. (So help me God)'

With great pride I watched my son-in-law Chance, along with twenty-two others repeat this oath this past week. We had travelled to Regina to the RCMP Depot to witness this graduation exercise with all its pomp and circumstance, and we were not disappointed.

For six months we had followed his journey through training (much like any boot camp) where they were yelled at for the slightest infraction, or if there was none, one was created. It was obvious to us and to the cadets that this was a hardening process, but it made it no easier to deal with. Many of them were on the verge of quitting, but their fellow cadets along with the families at home kept encouraging them and lending what support possible. So intense is this training, that out of a class of thirty-two, only twenty-three graduated, and this after a very intense and thorough application process that lasted for as long as two years.

While in training, all of the trainees wore on their epaulettes a ribbon designating them as cadets in training, and they wore them until in the swearing in ceremony they all were instructed to turn to the person on their right and remove the ribbon. Not much was made of it until later when our son-in-law was showing us part of the depot and we ran into the corporal who was their drill instructor. As a dutiful cadet, our son-in-law greeted her with a “Good afternoon Corporal” at which point this petite female officer demanded “what did you call me?’ , then she demanded to know if he was still a cadet or was he a constable. Chance of course replied that he was now a constable, and the corporal then stated that he was no longer under her control and was now a member of the force, and that her name was Penny. With a curt but smiling “enjoy your day” she walked on leaving both Chance and us with the realization that this portion was now over, and he was a full-fledged constable in the RCMP. All the grief and trials of training were over, and now his career would begin.

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Society standards

Posted by Chris Salomons - Red Deer Advocate • May, 14 2012 5:45 AM • Red Deer Advocate

Have you ever wondered where we obtained the standards that we have in our society? By standards I mean the values which we as a society embrace in order to live peacefully together.

I read with interest the case of a Canadian convicted of murder while in a foreign country. Even though we do not as a country condone capital punishment, we have the standard that murder is wrong and is punishable to the full extent of the law. But in the United States, in certain states, murder is punishable by death. There is something in this case that shows me that the standards once held high have been eroded to the point of not even being considered.

Is it not strange that thirty years after the crime took place, this self-confessed and sentenced murderer is still able to ask for clemency? This is a man who admitted that he took the life he is incarcerated for (because he wanted to know how it felt to kill), and on top of that, asked for the death sentence when convicted. Why was the sentence not carried out at that time? Now the Canadian Government is accused of treachery for not jumping up and down to support a clemency bid by this man. In the article, the lawyer stated in an opening statement that they want to look beyond the horrific murders in this clemency bid. Can we as a society really afford to do that?

Yesterday, I ejected someone from the kitchen because they were drunk and disorderly. Normally we will serve most people even if they are drunk, as long as they are somewhat manageable, and most of them are. But then every once in a while we have someone who becomes belligerent, and this particular individual had been harassing passersby even though we had asked him to stop, so I felt that expulsion from free meals for a week was in order. This is a standard measure that we use in order to make these individuals aware that even in their inebriated state, they have a responsibility to society. It’s not a harsh punishment, but often enough to make them aware.

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Humbled

Posted by Chris Salomons - Red Deer Advocate • May, 02 2012 8:35 AM • Red Deer Advocate

“My sister made this for me, but I think you deserve to have it; Happy Birthday!” A Huge chocolate cookie was pushed into my left hand while he vigorously shook my right hand.

The cookie wasn’t the important thing, but the fact that he gave me what might be his next meal was huge. This is one of the gifts I received yesterday that will always stick out in my mind as I received one accolade after another.

“Happy OAS Day” was also a common greeting that I was given by the many folks at the kitchen.

You see, it was my sixty-fifth birthday yesterday, and because it was a regular kitchen day, I knew that I would have to deal with some well wishers. Like most people, I wasn’t broadcasting the fact that I was getting older, but enough people knew, so I couldn’t avoid it.

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Freedom of speech

Posted by Chris Salomons - Red Deer Advocate • April, 25 2012 8:29 AM • Red Deer Advocate

It constantly surprises me to hear the people on the street expound on the past election and the rhetoric that accompanied the would be politicians as they jockeyed for positions of popularity.

Everyone had an opinion and sound levels increased as they all beat each other up in the mad scramble for the prize podium. On top of all that, the general populace also wanted their voices to be heard; after a while, it sounded exactly like placing a pail over your head and shouting at the top of your lungs.

No one can really make sense of it all, but still on the basis on what we have heard (be it a mad scramble), we went to the polls and voted, none the wiser for what we heard.

At the kitchen just before the election, there was a lot of discussion about the supposedly faux pas statements by some of the Wildrose members. Even the mayors of our largest cities weighed in on the accusatory debate crying foul. Calgarys’ mayor made his own faux pas by basically saying what a politician should or should not believe. One of the ladies at the kitchen put it this way,”I’ll be D#%@* if a politician is ever going to tell me what I can believe or not; I’m sure he has his beliefs; just because he is not brave enough to say it doesn’t mean I can’t believe what I want to, or to even express it.”

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