The RCMP logo outside the force's 'E' division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on March 16.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
There are so many things wrong with the RCMP right now that it can be hard to know where to begin. Report after report since 2000 has found the force to be lacking in nearly every aspect of its existence – from its outdated culture, to its mistreatment of female members laid out in the Bastarache report, to its tragic incompetence during the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting.
To date, no federal government of any stripe has taken steps to address these pressing concerns. It’s easy to see why: Reforming an icon of Canadian identity – and perhaps even breaking it up, as the commission of enquiry report on the Nova Scotia shootings suggested might be necessary – is no political picnic.
In May, the Trudeau government appointed a retired appeals court justice to oversee changes recommended by the Nova Scotia enquiry commission, and to do it over a minimum three-year period.
But what if the status quo posed not just a long-term challenge for policy makers but was an imminent threat to Canada’s security? Would that hurry along the needed reforms?
Let’s hope so, because the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians laid out plainly in a report it released this month that the RCMP is not properly equipped to protect Canada against a gamut of serious threats that include violent extremism, transnational and domestic organized crime, financial crime, foreign interference, espionage and cybercrime.
The RCMP is mostly known for its “contract policing” – serving as the local police force in rural and remote areas of Canada (except in Ontario and Quebec, which have provincial police forces), and in some smaller urban centres.
The majority of the RCMP’s uniformed and civilian staff – 18,500 out of about 30,000 – and almost half its annual $6-billion budget are dedicated to contract policing.
But the Mounties are also responsible for federal policing – the less visible but arguably more urgent job of fighting crime in a global, internet-based threat environment rife with drug smuggling, money laundering, terrorism, recruitment, parallel underground financial systems, misinformation, hate propagation, election interference and other forms of modern unpleasantness.
And yet that branch of the force has lost 600 officers in the past nine years, mostly from attrition, some of its annual budget of $860-million is routinely redirected to make up for shortfalls in contract policing, and the RCMP’s recruitment and training methods are increasingly irrelevant to its complex needs, the NSICOP report said.
The federal policing branch operated at a 13-per-cent staff vacancy rate in fiscal 2022-2023, the report says. And because it is reliant on new recruits who are trained at the RCMP’s infamous Depot in Regina, where rookies are put through a paramilitary-style boot camp, it has limited ability to recruit people “with advanced education or specialized skill sets, particularly in the areas of cyber and financial crime.”
The report said just six out of 823 training hours at the Depot are dedicated to federal policing. Recruits, whose only qualifications are that they are 18 and have a high-school diploma, focus on basic police skills and physical fitness.
As the Nova Scotia enquiry heard, Finland has a three-year program at the university level for training federal investigators and preparing them for a reality that goes far beyond the general policing duties required in rural and remote Canada. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation requires candidates to be at least 23 years old and possess a university degree.
In 2021, the federal policing branch proposed the creation of a training academy to meets its needs, but the RCMP’s senior executives turned it down.
The answer is obvious: Ottawa should make federal policing a stand-alone service so that it can recruit and train the officers it needs, and have a reliable budget.
There is almost nothing about the status quo in the RCMP that is acceptable. Every part of it needs to be rethought, including the state of contract policing and the many problems it’s creating (more on that next week).
But given the state of the world today, and especially the revelations of foreign interference in Canada’s past two elections, the idea that the RCMP is not properly manned and funded to fight these and other 21st-century threats verges on insanity.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the location of the RCMP Academy, Depot Division. It is located in Regina. This version has been updated.