A small note to the BBC, re: Canadian Police

Cafe Society
1

It’s cropped up twice now on recent British broadcasts, so I thought I’d offer a correction for a seemingly commonly held misconception.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are NOT the only police force in Canada.

Stephen Fry said they were, in a recent episode of Q.I… And just now I was watching a recent episode of “Lewis”, the sort-of continuation series from Morse. They were trying to find out about a criminal who had spent time in Toronto, and therefore called… the RCMP.

There are many, many regional, municipal and provincial police forces in Canada. Toronto, for example, is policed by the not-so-confusingly named “Toronto Police”. This kind of thing is the work of moments to research, and is such a silly mistake.

I’m trying to think of an equivalent error … I suppose it would be like assuming that every police force in England was somehow run by Scotland Yard.

So, if you’re reading this, and you know someone (or are someone) who works at the BBC … give 'em a smack for me, would ya?

Thanks,
thwartme

2

Agreed, and I remember this grating when watching that episode of QI myself, despite no particular Canadian connection.

Spotting the errors in QI (for there are many) is a truly geeky way to spend an evening :slight_smile:

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Fun though. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

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I’m not disagreeing! :slight_smile:

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“Interesting” has always trumped “actually true” on QI, so no surprises there. I still love David Mitchell’s image of Canadian cops having to chase drug dealers up staircases on horseback :smiley:

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Not much point complaining to the BBC about inaccuracies in Lewis.
They don’t make it; it’s their biggest competitor who makes it - ITV

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Assuming every British TV show is produced by the BBC?

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To be fair, the British commercial companies seem quite happy for BBC America/BBC Canada to carry their programmes, so if they can’t be bothered to assert their identity I don’t blame North Americans for imagining that it’s all made by/for the BBC.

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Hah! Fair cop. Now, if I were to be broadcasting this in someway, I’d set my crack team of researchers to fact-checking first…

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So, the BBC wasn’t down with OPP?

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No, not since William Campbell took over for Paul…

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Win.

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To the point that the DVDs of the Morse and Lewis shows are sold in Canada by BBC Canada. Since we don’t get ITV here, I’ve always assumed that they’re a BBC product.

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I had a relative who was a member of the North-West Mounted Police, and another who was a "Special Constable’ in Montreal.

Of course, the NWMP is a precursor of the RCMP, so that may not count.

But the RCMP* is *the largest Police Force in Canada.

15

OK Brits, time to get our own back on the Canadians.

I have just finished reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie which is set in England in 1950 and is “narrated” by an 11 year-old English schoolgirl who solves a murder all on her own. The trouble with the book is that it’s written by a Canadian and is riddled with errors which shows he lives on the other side of the pond. For instance he calls the doctor who attends the murder scene “The Coroner”. In fact a coroner is somebody who presides over an inquest and is not necessarily a medical man.

Other mistakes include a notice on a library which states “Open Thursday through Saturday” (instead of “From Thursday to Saturday”) ; calling a pile of planks “lumber” instead of timber; front and back gardens called “yards”; “file cabinet” for filing cabinet; “dog house” for dog kennel and “Times of London” instead of just plain “Times”.