Ready to move on

‘I’m not afraid of anybody or anything anymore’

After fulfilling the lifelong dream of joining the RCMP in 1986, Louise Butts said her objective was to serve a role of helping others.

But it didn’t take long for disillusionment to set in.

Butts, 57, has lived in Truro since 2012 and said her first inklings of a negative attitude against female members began to show during training at the RCMP Depot in Regina.

“They didn’t want women. And there was a common expression of ‘God damn 1974’. And we’d hear that all the time. They just didn’t want women.”

Louise Butts

“They didn’t want women. And there was a common expression of ‘God damn 1974’,”she said, indicating the first year female recruits were accepted. “And we’d hear that all the time. They just didn’t want women.”

Nonetheless, Butts said, she accepted the mindset at the RCMP Depot as part of the “break-them-down-to-build-them-up” attitude, similar to basic training in the military.

Following graduation, Butts said she thoroughly enjoyed her first nine months as part of the Executive Diplomatic Protection Service in Ottawa where she worked under a “good watch commander.”

“I did not have one incident when I was in Ottawa,” she said.

Then came her posting to Newfoundland.

Butts spent eight years at two separate detachments, before taking leave for three years and eventually retiring in early 1997.

For the next 20 years, she suffered in silence, a failure in her own eyes and that of family members alike. In 2012 her mother died without knowing her true story.

Despite her negative experiences, Butts said she would “do it over again” because of the people she met and the experiences she had as a Mountie.

Finally, she’s ready to move on with her life without remorse.

“I’m not afraid of anybody or anything anymore. It will heal me,” she said of finally telling her story. “I feel it is an important part of the process of healing.”