On Sunday, September 28, 2008, thousands of police and peace officers from across the country will gather on Parliament Hill to honour colleagues who have died in the line of duty. The Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Stockwell Day will participate in the 31st Memorial Service. In the past year, 2 police and peace officers have made the ultimate sacrifice in keeping communities safe.
They are:
Constable Douglas A. Scott (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Nunavut)
Constable Christopher J. Worden (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, NWT)
Other historical names that were added this year are:
Game Warden Austin W. Letcher, October 18, 1967 (Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forests)
Constable Edward McMaster, April 24, 1935 (Toronto Police, ON)
Constable Leigh W. Metcalfe, October 17, 1927 (Ontario Provincial Police, Grimsby, ON)
Deputy Sheriff-Baliff James McKay, November 15, 1918 (Court of Saskatchewan)
Their names are forever etched on the glass panels erected along the perimeter wall adjacent to the Memorial Pavilion which now totals 744 fallen officers. The Service is a lasting tribute to the sacrifice of those brave men and women. “THEY ARE OUR HEROES, WE SHALL NOT FORGET THEM”.
The Canadian Police and Peace Officers Annual Memorial Service is organized by the Canadian Police Association (CPA), the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and the Canadian Peace Officers’ Memorial Association (CPOMA). CPA President Charles Momy, CACP President Steven Chabot and CPOMA President Dennis Brock will be available for interviews after the Service.
Parliament Hill service honours fallen Mounties
Ian MacLeod – The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, September 29, 2008
Mountie Douglas Allen Scott had been on the job slightly more than six months when he was shot and killed while responding alone to an impaired-driving call at Kimmirut, Nunavut, the night of Nov. 5, 2007. The native of Lyn, just west of Brockville, was a month shy of turning 21.
RCMP Const. Christopher John Worden was shot and killed 30 days earlier in Hay River, N.W.T., after responding alone to a suicide call in the middle of the night. The native of Orléans was 30, a husband and a father of an eight-month-old baby, Alexis Marie.
Their extraordinary dedication and sacrifices were remembered yesterday by a solemn and tearful gathering of hundreds of men and women in uniform, family and the public at the 31st annual Police and Peace Officers’ National Memorial Day service on Parliament Hill.
A grey sky captured the sorrow as Const. Worden’s brother, Michael, was presented with his brother’s Stetson.
At the time of their deaths, Canada’s two police slayings in 2007, both officers were working alone in remote northern detachments.
Const. Scott had been in Kimmirut only a few weeks after serving five months in Iqaluit. It was the second posting of his short career.
Const. Worden, born and raised in Ottawa, was a star football player at St. Matthew High School in Orléans, and went on to co-captain the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks. He graduated from the RCMP academy in February 2002, and served his first post in Yellowknife.
After the officers’ deaths, the RCMP approved a new policy directing when officers should call for backup.