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.