For the longest time it’s appeared to me that there’s a desperate need for reform of the nation’s national police force, the RCMP, or Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or simply, the Mounties.
There are far too many systemic problems within the ranks of this organization, problems that permeate into the realm of organizational actions that impact the service rendered to the public. Harassment, sexual and other, professional incompetence, the diminishment of women, of Natives, and generally the optic they give of being Canada’s version of the “keystone cops” of old Hollywood fame.
For those of us in Ontario, the only time you’re going to see a Mountie is on Parliament Hill or at ceremonies swearing in new Canadians or honouring Canada’s war dead. But for Canadians in eight provinces and three territories, the RCMP is much more visible, tasked as they are with provincial and territorial policing as well as community policing. As such, the Mounties are, by far, the largest police force in Canada.
Add to this the responsibilities the RCMP has on a national scale, investigating international crime, cyber crime, terrorism, both domestic and external, and crimes impacting national security. It’s a huge mandate for a single organization and, as in many organizations that may have over-expanded, leads to cracks or fissures that compromise or even degrade the services that they’re tasked with. In the end, something’s got to give, and sadly, it’s been giving plenty as the years go by.
There is a conversation taking place at the higher echelons of both the force and government about transitioning the RCMP into a strictly federal force along the lines of the American FBI, or Federal Bureau of Investigation. To be sure, the Mounties currently take on a role similar to that of the FBI, but they do it on top of all their other provincial and community responsibilities. The thinking is that, by removing RCMP responsibility for provincial, territorial, and community policing, the force can better concentrate on the national aspect of its mandate, and becoming more like the FBI south of the border. Like the FBI, the Mounties could still get involved in provincial, territorial, and community investigations, but only if those investigations involve cross-border crime involving more than one province, or crimes deemed “terrorist” or “international” in nature. Aside from that, the RCMP would leave non-national policing to other forces, either newly-created provincial forces or municipal forces.
This would not, by any stretch of the imagination, be easy to do. Any transition from one force to another is going to be expensive, possibly clunky, and may, in the short term anyway, lead to a quality of policing that may be inferior to the one being replaced.
Only Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police forces. Others, like Alberta, have looked into a provincial force, but that’s been more politically driven as a means to make Alberta more “independent” of the federal government. Current Alberta premier Danielle Smith championed just such a force as part of her anti-Ottawa rhetoric, but quickly stuffed the notion back under the carpet as a provincial election drew near. Even she can see the ramifications of following through on such talk, the expense, the upheaval, and the probable diminishment of service quality. It would be, in effect, shooting oneself in the foot for the premier to proceed.
That said, at some point there needs to be an organizational reckoning for the Mounties. They can’t stand as presently constituted, that much appears to be universally agreed upon.
The transition to provincial or territorial-based policing will be an expensive and awkward one, unless current RCMP detachments are re-badged as provincial police forces. And that all community-based policing contracts be assumed by that re-badged entity. Otherwise, those provinces will have to create a police force from scratch, from the ground up, and that would be an enormous and difficult undertaking. I know simply changing the sign out in front of the detachment is an overly simplistic solution, so there, of course, would need to be transition at all kinds of levels. But honestly, it seems to me something that could be worked out by well-meaning people intent on coming up with a solution that works for all jurisdictions involved. I realize the potential impact on existing RCMP personnel, but again, with good intentions and plenty of advance notice, current employees, whether officers or administrators, should have the opportunity to sort themselves out with respect to any transition. National and international corporations do it all the time. If it can be done there, it can be done here. It’s not downsizing, nor is it something that requires widespread layoffs. It’s simply a re-purposing. We’ll still need the boots on the ground, and all the people in the background who support those boots.
I don’t mind the concept of the Mounties looking more like the FBI at all. They’d be able to concentrate their expertise within defined areas of responsibilities, while still being able to “surge” into provinces or communities that have been overwhelmed by events or by crimes of an extra-provincial nature.
For the record, it would still be really cool to see Mounties on horseback leading royal processions. I don’t feel it would be necessary to reduce the Mountie’s historical footprint or the iconic presence the force has established over time. I do believe, however, that it may be time for the RCMP to concentrate on the federal aspects of their mandate, and leave provincial/territorial/municipal policing to other jurisdictions, with the proviso that the Mounties may offer human and resource assistance when necessary or called upon to do so.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 