Green’s Dictionary of Slang

barnburners n.

[the burning down by the RCMP, in 1976, of a barn in rural Quebec which was being used as a meeting place for French-Canadian separatists]

(Can.) the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

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[US]Maledicta III:2 182: Barnburners. A derogatory reference to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, stemming from an incident in the mid-1970s when members of the Force’s anti-terrorist squad burnt to the ground a barn in rural Quebec that was serving as a meeting place for separatist-minded terrorists and American Black Panthers.