Kevin Lynch was clerk of the Privy Council and vice-chair of BMO Financial Group. Jim Mitchell is an adjunct professor at Carleton University and a former assistant secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government.
Anyone following the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission hearings cannot help feeling both bewildered and appalled at the failures of the RCMP. How could our storied Mounties so totally fail the victims and their families, and so undermine public confidence in this crucial national institution? Even more concerning is that the Nova Scotia massacre was not an isolated incident.
The problems in the RCMP run deep, and go well beyond the very public challenges of leadership and culture. At their core they are inherently structural, requiring fundamental changes to reshape and refocus the RCMP.
Consider the RCMP “model”: a vast mandate from a century ago that encompasses national, federal, provincial, municipal, rural and Indigenous policing; a paramilitary culture from another time; a training regime focused more on provincial and rural policing than federal policing; and a jumble of accountabilities and responsibilities that can create confusion.
These are all structural impediments to policing success. They are not a criticism of the thousands of dedicated RCMP officers who work so diligently to protect Canadians, but rather a recognition they work within an organizational model that fails both them and the citizens they are sworn to protect.
This is not a new insight. The Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP observed in its 2007 report that “the RCMP is poorly positioned to discharge its responsibilities under its current organizational framework.” It went on to argue that “successful change and reform require a much higher degree of managerial competence and sophistication than that which is currently found within the RCMP.”
Fifteen years on, little has changed for the better, with the result that public trust and pride in the RCMP have declined further.
In 2020, the Bastarache Report on the sexual harassment of women in the RCMP described the force’s internal institutional culture as toxic, misogynistic and homophobic. Testimony at the Nova Scotia inquiry paints a damning picture of operational chaos and weak leadership in the RCMP while the current Emergencies Act inquiry portrays an indecisive federal police force, uncertain about its role and mission. The public is clearly taking note: A 2022 Ekos poll found that only 57 per cent of Canadians expressed satisfaction with how the RCMP fulfills its role in maintaining public safety.
The clear takeaway is that neither incremental reform, nor change led from within, are going to make the RCMP the police force Canadians expect and deserve.
A modern federal police force should not be a contract supplier of police services to provinces, municipalities and rural communities, and yet that is exactly what the RCMP is. With roughly two-thirds of all RCMP personnel involved in contract policing, this represents a profound misallocation of resources and creates endless confusion over accountability.
Contract policing also misshapes how the RCMP develops its officers. They are trained for, and have formative experience in, provincial and local policing – an approach no other advanced country uses to recruit, train and deploy its federal police forces.
Canada needs a federal police force that is fit for purpose. Besides the obvious problems of leadership and culture, what are the structural changes required to drive RCMP reform?
First and foremost, we need to end contract policing. The RCMP has to get out of provincial and municipal policing at the conclusion of the current contracts in 2032. Transition negotiations will be difficult as provinces and municipalities benefit from current arrangements. RCMP personnel would be given the option to transfer to the new provincial police forces. Some provinces and the territories might opt for regional police forces for reasons of scale and efficiency.
Second, refocus the RCMP on federal policing. Through legislation, the government would define the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of the RCMP as Canada’s federal police force. These would include addressing contemporary policing challenges such as cybercrime, transnational crime, white-collar crime and national security. This reconstituted RCMP would continue providing essential national police services such as forensic facilities, the Canadian Police Information Centre and protective services. It would also have a modern governance regime.
Third, define the Mountie of the future. For a federal police force to handle today’s national and international threats, it requires new skills, diverse backgrounds and wide-ranging technical competencies. But the RCMP also needs to define a modern culture and leadership values, supported by a sophisticated recruitment, training and development regime.
Fourth, move to an Indigenous policing model. In consultation with First Nations, design a transition plan to move to full Indigenous policing on reserves, staffed and led by Indigenous officers. While this might take several decades and significant resources, it is the right way to go for proper accountability to First Nations.
Fifth, resource the restructured RCMP appropriately. These structural changes will not be cheap, but a core function of government is public safety and Canada has long tended to underfund its obligations to policing, intelligence and security.
These structural reforms would represent a major modernization of a core institution of government. They will be resisted by an organization that views any change to the status quo as a dire threat. And these changes will be intimidating to any federal government given their complexity, pushback from some stakeholders and the lengthy timeline to implement.
But the problems with the RCMP will only worsen with inaction – an unappealing prospect for future governments of any party. The process of reform should be bipartisan, enjoy broad public understanding of its purpose, and consult widely as all Canadians have a stake in public safety and security. Most importantly, it should start now – Canadians cannot wait forever.