In her new Substack, Tasha Kheiriddin considers what should be done with the RCMP in the wake of the Mass Casualty Commision’s report on, among other things, the cultural and structural problems within the force that contributed to the death toll in Portapique:
The first thing the federal government should do is break up the RCMP. It should give local policing contracts to provincial and regional police and focus a new national force solely on national policing.
Former RCMP officer Garry Clement, author of the forthcoming book Under Cover: Inside the Shady World of Organized Crime and the RCMP, gives a blunt assessment of the situation. In an email to In My Opinion, he stated that “The RCMP has two choices: 1) relinquish contracts and focus on their federal mandates; or 2) maintain contracts but create a ‘Firewall’ between both areas and enable the federal side to have permanent resources in their wheelhouse with their own metrics for salaries.”
Considering how the force is currently structured, a financial firewall won’t be enough to ensure adequate delivery of both mandates. It is unreasonable to expect a national force to deliver community policing at the standards expected in the 21st century. Vice versa, it is also unreasonable for officers who cut their teeth in remote communities to go on to tackle big city, national and international criminal matters.
One of the main recommendations of the Mass Casualty Report is that the federal public safety minister commission an independent review of the RCMP and examine the force’s approach to contract policing. But some believe they should act now, and leave local policing to local police.
Todd Hataley is a professor in the School of Justice and Community Development at Fleming College and a retired member of the RCMP, where he worked as an investigator in organized crime, national security, cross-border crime and extra-territorial torture. He offered these thoughts on a Teams call the day after the report came out.
The RCMP is currently structured with a paramilitary, top-down approach, making it difficult to retrain middle management. It is a paramilitary structure that doesn’t work for modern policing, where you need partnerships for mental health, where you need to get ahead of problems.
Local policing needs to be responsive to local demands,” continued Hataley. This is particularly true of indigenous communities. “There’s a good body of research that shows that indigenous officers use less force, about one tenth that of non-indigenous officers. In my experience, service is better when less force is used. There are better relations with the community.”
Some communities have already cut ties due to this lack of community engagement. Last December the town council of Surrey, BC, ended its contract with the RCMP, even though it will cost more to hire local police. It cited the growth of a large South Asian community in the area and the fact that the RCMP’s structure did not facilitate development of an adequate relationship.
Interviewed in the Toronto Star about this issue earlier this year, Curt Griffiths, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in B.C., echoed that assessment. “RCMP officers — and it’s not their fault; it’s the way the system’s set up — they’re just passing through,” he said. “There’s a cost to that in terms of community policing, community engagement, knowledge of the community.”
Similarly, in March of 2023 the Alberta community of Grande Prairie voted to create a municipal police service. Councilor Gladys Blackmore told CTV News that training issues were one of the reasons. “I’m frustrated by the fact that 40 out of our 97 officers have come directly to us from Depot, and that means they are inexperienced, and they still require a significant amount of training, which the RCMP chooses to send them away for.”
