John MacLean Leitch

Divisions Served: “F,” “NWR”

Medals & Honours: Member Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, Long Service Medal, Saskatchewan Protective Services Medal, Saskatchewan Centennial Medal

Pillar Location: Pillar VII, Row 26, Column D

Story: 

I was born in 1952 and grew up in south-east Vancouver with my parents, two sisters and a brother. My father was a carpenter and my mother returned to her teaching career when I was a young teenager. We lived in a neighborhood full of kids our age and, compared to kids today, we were free range. Our parents instilled in us a love for music and reading. My mom predicted my future, based on all the detective novels I read.
After high school, I attended UBC for two directionless years in sciences before realizing I wanted something different. Having attended the counselling office to seek direction, I spotted an RCMP recruiting poster and a seed was planted.
I had two uncles in the Force, one being Reg# 16653 S/Sgt. R.A.M (Bob) Crawford, a traffic guy at heart, who started out with the BC Provincial Police and retired as the NCO i/c Langley Detachment. The second was Reg# 15649, Sgt. W.R.C. (Bill) Leitch who travelled with the Musical Ride to London in 1957 and was a notorious PT Instructor at “N” Division and “Depot”. I was, however, most influenced to join the Force by Reg# 23221 John Toews. He was a sharp, friendly, slightly mysterious plain clothes, Mountie who lived across the lane from my parents’ house in my late teenage years.
I applied for the Force in early 1972 and had been accepted by August. Having learned there would be no new troops before April, I travelled from the north of Scotland throughout Europe into the southern Sinai desert for 11 weeks, experiencing the world.
I was sworn in at Fairmont Barracks in Vancouver on April 5, 1973 and assigned Reg# 30336, joining Troop 1 1973/74 in Regina later that evening. I left behind my family and friends and my future wife Valerie, whom I had been going with for two years.
Training was the adventure of a lifetime where stresses, strains and good times were experienced as a troop. These made us strong in a mental sense with awareness of and confidence in our abilities, and we developed a camaraderie that exists to this day. A lot of laughter and good humour took place when our instructors were not looking. Instructors portrayed toughness, yet their human side often leaked through.
A highlight of my period at Depot was the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to present a new Guidon to the Force and officially open the “new” Museum. When, many years later, this Heritage Centre opened, I knew it was time to retire as I was on my third museum! In any event, being tall, I was on the end of troops inspected by Her Majesty and graced a number of publications in which Her photograph appeared.
Valerie visited during training and I raised the courage to propose to her. She accepted, not knowing where in Canada we might end up and also knowing we would not be permitted to marry before April 5, 1975 due to a then requirement for members with less than two years of service to be single.
Towards the end of training, we “recruits” were invited (ordered) to identify our three preferred divisions for posting. I chose BC and Alberta and had Saskatchewan identified for me. When I was posted to La Ronge, Saskatchewan I suspected it had already been decided but who knows! When the Training Officer asked our troop if anyone was disappointed with their posting, I was the only one who raised my hand, and received sage, and correct, advice that Saskatchewan would grow on me.

I loved La Ronge and was very disappointed when transferred out of there after only 6 months. It was a small community in the northern forest, absent pavement and surrounded by lakes. From there we policed Southend, Stanley Mission, Pinehouse and Kinoosao and I got to all but the latter. With only three months out of training, I was dropped by a small plane on skis into Stanley Mission or Southend on Fridays and retrieved on Sunday or Monday afternoons, having served alone as the police for the weekend. I stayed with the Hudson Bay or Co-Op store managers and worked from their homes as there was no office. I was 21, on an adventure and relatively oblivious to whatever risk there may have been.
In April 1974, I was transferred to Milestone, Saskatchewan, the most wonderful place I have ever lived. It was a farming community of about 600, about 55 kms south of Regina, on Highway 39. I had a difficult time navigating at first as I wasn’t aware #39 runs on a NW/SE diagonal and couldn’t figure out how you could travel N/E/W/S on the gravel roads when they all ran on angles. One of my first investigations was theft of a coil packer from a farm and I had no idea what that was. I also developed a reputation for getting stuck in the gumbo mud.
Valerie and I were married in Vancouver on April 5, 1975 and she joined me in Milestone where we lived in a mobile home. Val worked in the Credit Union and very quickly knew more about the community than I did. We made lifelong friends in this community and our son Scott was born and lived his first year and a half there.
As small as it was and far from Vancouver, Val’s next-door neighbor in Vancouver was from Gray, Sask, part of our policing area, and visited us in Milestone. My uncle was married to the aunt of a man who was the Coroner, Justice of the Peace and operator of the Milestone Mail weekly newspaper.
Through investigations of break-ins and a Credit Union armed robbery, that led me to Regina and Moose Jaw, I developed a deep respect for the knowledge of their Police Services and willingness to support a common cause.
In 1978, we were transferred to the Drug Section at Regina, our home ever since. This was before cell phones existed, so informants had our home number and frequently spoke to Val when I was out.
Our son Brian was born in 1979. While completing a Justice Studies degree at university in Regina and Mexico, he gained a remarkable range of life and work experiences, including part time employment with Force in several civilian units.
In January 1981, Val started working part time for Special “I” and continued that work for the next 23 years, working also in that time frame for the Regina Police Service equivalent. For several following years, she transcribed police interviews as demand for recording grew.
By 1982, growing concern regarding Scott’s physical development led us to the doctor where we learned he was afflicted with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a terminal neuromuscular disease that would profoundly change the course of all our lives. It allowed the four of us to know the boundaries of the possible were much further out than we had imagined. Scott died in July 2006 after achieving his journalism dreams.
In 1983, I was posted to Regina Detachment where I remained for two years. Summer evenings on patrol in the countryside remains one of the fondest memories of my career. In addition, my Drug Section experience with informant development and search warrant preparation were transferable skills that led to success with my investigations.
While still in Drug Section, my NCO i/c had encouraged me to continue my university studies and as a result I started taking night classes at the University of Regina. This led to secondment to the university, full time, for three semesters allowing me to complete a B.Sc. with a Computer Science major.
Following university, I was posted to Regina Commercial Crime where, over the next 10 years, I was promoted to Corporal and then Sergeant. My work entailed complex fraud investigations including those of Saskatchewan Transportation Company and of members of the Saskatchewan government caucus of the mid-80’s era. Computers were introduced into investigations during this period and became an indispensable tool for simplifying the analysis and presentation of financial evidence of fraud.
In 1995, our Crown Prosecutor introduced me to four-part a cappella singing in the Barbershop style and I performed with a Chorus and in a quartet for 25 years thereafter, experiencing some of the most rewarding times in my life.
In 1996, I was transferred back to Regina Drug Section and was tasked, along with others, to successfully integrate with the Regina Police Service equivalent thus forming the Regina Integrated Drug Unit. I am proud of the efforts we took to ensure the success of an integration that lasts to this day. I was also disturbed by the extent to which the use of needle drugs and violence in the drug trade had grown.
In 1999, I was promoted to S/Sgt. and transferred to Informatics Saskatchewan, a unit responsible for the delivery of telecommunications, computer services and information management to all RCMP units serving in Saskatchewan. In 2007, I was commissioned as Inspector with regimental number O.2414 and became the Officer In Charge.
During these final 11 years of my career, my team delivered a networked, computerized, office and mobile environment to detachments around the Province, that is taken for granted today but did not exist until then. It initiated a joint project between the Force, SaskPower and the Province that became the province wide voice radio system, and today serves thousands of public safety responders across Saskatchewan.
I retired in February 2011 and worked several years thereafter for the Province managing the provincial radio system and dealing with public safety communications interoperability issues.