The Mounties go private

As if there wasn't enough truth to the charge that Harper's platform matches Martin's record, Kelowna will soon have three privately-paid RCMP officers:

Private funds will pay the salaries of some RCMP officers in a B.C. city, in what is being billed as a national first.

The program is being set up in Kelowna, where Crime Stoppers is raising $240,000 a year to pay the salaries of three new officers.

Crime Stoppers says it's a stopgap measure to deal with a critical shortage of police in the Central Okanagan, which left the force unable to follow up on many tips called in to the organization's anonymous hotline...

Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill McKinnon said that, as far as he knows, it is the first time private funding from companies and individual donors has been used to pay for general duty RCMP officers in Canada.

Needless to say, any claim on Martin's behalf to be able to defend against creeping privatization - in health care or elsewhere - should take a major shot from this news. Nothing against Crime Stoppers as an organization, but there's no excuse for the government to have dropped the ball on public protection to such a degree. And all the ranting in the world about an imagined need to re-ban handguns won't help to make up for the lack of resources that's led to today's announcement.