Robert Read saw his career as an RCMP officer destroyed when he tried to alert Canadians of sinister goings-on at the diplomatic mission in Hong Kong around the time of the handover of the former British Colony to China.

Frustrated that his investigation was being stymied by his bosses, he went to the media with his investigation papers - a move which ultimately propelled the stalled probe to some action.

For his efforts, the 26-year veteran of the police force was accused of disgraceful conduct, drummed out of the RCMP and had his pension revoked.

An RCMP external review committee later vindicated Read saying the Mounties had seriously mishandled investigations into complaints that Asian triads had infiltrated the embassy.

In its ruling, the committee said that Read was justified in taking his concerns to the media and ordered him reinstated.

The RCMP refused.

Bob Stenhouse was rising through the ranks of the RCMP in the late nineties for his efforts to bust members of outlaw motorcycle gangs.

In 2000, while holding the rank of Staff Sgt., the officer told a journalist-author that our national force was more interested in getting money out of Ottawa with their scare statements about the Hells Angels than executing effective operations to put them out of business.

The brass got angry and forced him to leave the Mounties.

In 2004, a Federal Court set aside the dismissal.

Stenhouse is now intern pastor at the Community of Hope church in Edmonton.

In both cases, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli who resigned this month, oversaw the efforts to kill the careers of the two officers whose claims were prescient and are being played out today.

Both the officers are too classy to say that what goes around comes around regarding Zaccardelli’s resignation for his fumbling on the Maher Arar case.

Unlike Zaccardelli, they don’t get to ride away in the sunset with C$11,000 shiny boots, a hefty pension and job prospects with the likes of KPMG or Deloitte Touche.

Zaccardelli’s watch as Canada’s top cop is less than stellar let alone what happened to these two brave police officers.

There were the pathetic Shawinigate investigations, the Airbus fiasco, the inept Air India probe and many more. In the West, massive drug operations costing millions fizzled while “Zack’s” vows to cripple organized crime came to naught.

Maher Arar, whose case toppled Zaccardelli, now wants a public inquiry while seeking millions of dollars in compensation for being mistakenly identified as an extremist, which led to the U.S. shipping him to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al-Qaida.

That public inquiry should be expanded to include the egregious decisions during the tenure of Zaccardelli, which saw Read, Stenhouse and others fall under the sword of the commish.