So much for being a good Samaritan and helping out your neighbour.  Dr. Jon Cooper of St. Albert, Alberta was using his quad to clear the snow off of the sidewalks for his neighbours.  There are lots of seniors in the area, so he wanted to make sure they would have no trouble getting where they needed to go on foot.  He’s been doing this for years.  It’s never been a problem for the RCMP before.

This past Saturday, instead of saying “Well done”, St. Albert RCMP handed Dr. Cooper a $250 fine for “riding a quad on a public sidewalk”, and then forced him to pay another $350 to get his quad back from the RCMP impound lot.

Yes, there is a bylaw against riding an ATV on the sidewalks in St. Albert.  Am I alone in thinking this bylaw was put in place to stop joyriders from being a danger to people on the street?  It would seem so, if the RCMP actions here are anything to go by.

Dr. Cooper was doing good deed…  removing the snow from the sidewalks for his neighbours.  Was this against the bylaw?  Absolutely.  But what ever happened to common sense?  Did we just toss it in the trash with all the Christmas wrapping paper?

I remember the days when RCMP constables were considered friendly and “we the people” would welcome them openly into our homes.  Those days sure seem to be gone, don’t they?

Dr. Cooper’s son Dan was helping his father to pull the stuck ATV out of a snowbank when the RCMP constables showed up.  You’d think they were going to help, right?  Wrong.  When Dan tried to explain what they were doing, these fine representatives of the RCMP refused to even listen, choosing instead to toss Dan on the ground arrest him for, if you can believe this:  resisting arrest.

It seems that every day there is another story of RCMP members abusing the public they claim to protect.  Some abuses are disgusting and abhorrent, like the unnamed Kelowna RCMP member who brutally kicked a man in the face.  Others, like this, are just plain rude.  There’s no reason to toss someone on the ground and arrest them for “resisting arrest” when all they want to do is explain what they’re doing.

But today’s RCMP isn’t interested in hearing from “us little people”.  It seems interested only in “getting our compliance” to whatever dictatorial whim they have at the moment.

And what has their rude and asinine abuse of the good Doctor done for him?

“I will never go out there and do those sidewalks again, not after this,” he said. “We were just trying to do a nice thing for people.”

Good job St. Albert RCMP.  I hope you’re really proud of yourselves today.