In fact the Force, as it now exists, should be abolished. It is stretched far too thin, trying to be almost all things to almost everyone (the Auditor General’s latest report is here)–and the Conservative government refuses properly to fund it.
If today’s RCMP is not what it should be, what to do? I can think of no other developed country (and probably no other of any size) that has a national police force responsible for the following types of law enforcement:
-municipal policing (Ontario and Quebec and many cities in other provinces excepted)
-rural policing (all provinces except Ontario and Quebec)
-All policing in the territories
-highway patrol (all provinces except Ontario and Quebec, and the RCMP also does this on federal roads in Ottawa)
-Organized crime (drugs etc.)
-National security (terrorism, espionage)
-Border policing
-White collar crime (sometimes, e.g. Karlheinz Schreiber).
I’m sure I missed a few things.
It seems to me that all provinces should provide their own municipal, rural, and highway policing, by the means of their own choice. There then should be separate federal law enforcement agencies to deal with, in cooperation with the forces in provinces and municipalities as required:
1) Serious organized crime and national security matters (there are many common techniques involved, and both rely greatly on intelligence)
2) Border, airport, and port policing (this function should be part of the Canada Border Services Agency–think Vancouver Airport; one service might have done better)
3) The territories
4) White collar crime (small and mainly civilian, that is to say lawyers leading, indeed conducting, much of the investigation as is done in the US [think Patrick Fitzgerald, more here]; the Mounties just do not have the skills to do this sort of work properly)
5) VIP protection.
I retired from the RCMP 15 years ago and yes the RCMP must get out of contract policing (Municipal & Provincial policing). This is just one of many areas where the Feds are infringing on Provincial jurisdictions.
mid island mike
Unfortunately provincial police forces are very susceptible to political influence and manipulation eg. the Ontario Political Police in Ipperwash and Caledonia etc.
Provincial Highway Patrols where they have been tried in BC, Alberta and New Brunswick for reasons other than efficiency have been costly failures.
At this time, any attempt to withdraw from contracts will simply be seen as the CPC “uploading” costs to the provinces and will result in demands for compensation
I’d expect Alberta and BC to be the provinces most likely to move away from the RCMP but neither (government) seems willing to do so.
The Cons are not going to touch the following, according to past:
-RCMP – too much of an icon in Canadian society, the above males too much sense, therefor will not come to pass
– Global Warming/Climate Change policies, because the cons refuse to look at the facts and fear the enviroMENTALists more than Canadians
– Human Rights Commission
– Stop funding the Constantly Bashing Conservatives [CBC] – could save over a billion dollars a year
– open the MP’s expense accounts for the public/Auditor General to view – only ONE LIEberal permitts this.
The list could go on and on, but you get the picture.
Well it’s just a matter of a holdover from more or less colonial times.
At one point the US Marshall Service was the primary Police force away from the developed Eastern States. As newer states attained statehold State Police were inauguated.
However holdovers are Ciybty Sheriffs, overlaping municipal Police forces while the US Marshalls moved away from everyday policing….then agencies such as the FBI, DEA, BATF were founded confusing the issue.
The question for Canada is do we keep the current Police structure or adopt a patchwork such as the US.
Probably municipal policing and highway patrol belong in municipal and provincial hands.
Here in MoronTario the OPP still do the municipal thing…in some cases municipal forces being disbanded and now contracted to the OPP. Some of these were budget/tendering issues….others corruption.
Overlaping jurisdictions frequently occur with municipal departments answering calls in rural OPP areas due to availability. The OPP suffers the same problem as the RCMP…being spread far too thin.
The main problem the OPP has is manpower…..seasonal due to the resort areas. Weekends north of the GTA are a black hole which drains other areas of manpower and equipment.
My thought is perhaps the RCMP monolith is preferable to creating multiple bureaucracies….similar to the FBI, DEA, BATF chaos in the US. It is probably more efficient and cheaper to divide internally rather than creat separate agencies.
The agency loving LIBRANOs created CSIS…..which most of us wonder what it does.
Remember the institutional shift/chaos that the creation of DHS created in the US.
The RCMP should be a National agency like the FBI.
Time to end the samll town policing.
It could also serve with a public board as watchdogs on Provincial policing like what happened at Caladonia.
Its still going to be bad since its Union run, but at least you have watchers watching the movers.
Give bigger role to CICIS as the Internal & external agency for threats.
I even prepose a third department devoted only to Immigration runners & illegals. No laywers need apply.
JMO
“There then should be separate federal law enforcement agencies to deal with, in cooperation with the forces in provinces and municipalities as required:”
You mean like the States, where the department of education has a SWAT team? No thanks. I like the Mounties just fine.
well hell ya, abolish all the cop forces and privatize the lot.
there.
hundreds of billions saved.
in fact, privatize EVERYTHING.
The way we police this country needs to be analysed from the ground up and reorganized, but it will never happen. Small changes might be made but the from the ground up reorg will neve happen for political reasons. I am not an expert so my facts might not be exactly right but they are basically right.
Here in Ontario we have the OPP, and municipal police forces and city police forces. Therefore some municiple tax payers are paying for policing and others aren’t. Some municipalities pay the OPP to provide services and some don’t. In the last couple of decades some towns have rolled their police forces up into the municiple forces and gone out of the business of policing themselves. They now get ever increasind demands from the province for more money, but they don’t actually get a lot of police services like they did when they had their own force.
A lot of police duties could be peformed by ten buck an hour rent a cops, yet we pay constables about 100k a year. They are considered untouchable because they have a “dangerous job” I sometimes respect what they do, but statistically it is much more dangerous to be a construction worker or gas station attendant than it is a cop.
They do not have enough of a presence on the street to prevent the street level crime and they are not smart enough to do anything about the more sophisticated crime.
Within my lifetime the police has gone from being a local presence on the streets that was respected by the population to a distant paramilitary organization that most people fear rather than respect. They have created for themselves a monopoly on “public safety” to the point where they arrest people who stand up to criminals because they don’t want “vigilante justice”, but when one of the thin blue line beats a member up the public half to death no one saw a thing and they can’t be identified. They then complain that the public won’t cooperate with them.
They are crap at finding people who have committed serious crimes as witnessed by the number of wrongfully convited people that we here about on the news on a regular basis. Judging from my own experience with the police and the experiences of people I have known, If the police ever ask you a question about anything, invoke your right to remain silent because they seem to be way more interested in arresting anyone than the person they are really after.
Just some random thoughts that came to mind.
I am not in favor of privatizing but would support having the RCMP become more specialized like the FBI and Interpol. The way the RCMP works right now they are a mile wide and an inch deep. Way too many responsibilities.
Not to be picky, but in Ontario the OPP handles rural as well as some municipal policing, not the RCMP.
ALL provinces need to get their own provincial policing, not just Ontario and Quebec. Maybe the smaller eastern provinces could band together to create ONE “Eastern Regional Police” force.
These new provincial forces could be staffed by many of the ‘downsized’ Mounties no longer needed for highway patrol / rural / municipal policing.
Get the Mounties back to FEDERAL issues (like anti-terror / national security) and some high visibilty “symbolic policing” around Ottawa, maybe national parks, and major international airports, to show off those spiffy ‘dress’ red uniforms and leather boots to the tourists.
Clown Party I got the message..seek help.
I don’t know that Patrick Fitzgerald is the best example, but I understand what you mean.
If it does happen, just don’t let the Montreal cops run the SWAT teams.
There certainly are problems with policing the Canadian citizenry. This can probably be linked with our Constitution bearing bitter fruit.
“Within my lifetime the police has gone from being a local presence on the streets that was respected by the population to a distant paramilitary organization that most people fear rather than respect.”
Agree fully,minuteman. When I was a kid we used to rush home after school to listen to “Sgt.Preston” on the radio,the Mounties were heroes to us.
One of the biggest problems with the RCMP has been affirmative action hiring. Some of the people that end up as RCMP officers would have never even been considered as candidates forty years ago.
One of the worst examples is Cpl. Monty Robinson of the Robert Dziekanski case infamy,and the rest of the crew in that case were not much better,lying their asses to to protect themselves.
Remake the RCMP as an FBI/Scotland Yard type of federal agency trained to look after major crimes,turn the everyday policing over to Provincial forces.
Every time I see a speed trap outside Chilliwack manned by three or four RCMP officers,I wonder why in hell these allegedly highly-trained police are wasting their time and our money on such a mundane task.
mike @ 11:38 and dmorris @ 1:14, agreed.
It is almost impossible to get the RCMP out to rural Saskatchewan to deal with issues that rural municipalities have. They are too busy making house calls on the reserves and looking for seat belt violators in the small urban centres.
The RCMP is an exclusive membership, an “us and them” organization. If you’re not a member you’re a “them”.
This kind of policing has no place at the community level, where common sense and empathy towards that community and its individuals is limited too dictatorial polices written in a handbook.
Policemen are supposed to be of the people, members of the public who protect the community as citizens, not pseudo-military jackboots occupying townships on behalf of a foreign crown, and its colonial Federal government.
What Knight 99 said, IN SPADES.
Not to bash the Mounties(my nephew is on the force), but they’ve become Jacks of all trades, masters of none. They try to take control of way too many aspects of law enforcement/legal issues, then show indifference to many of their more important duties. They’re almost useless in their role of maintaining public peace. They spend too much time trying to interpret the law, any too little time enforcing the law.
“Policemen are supposed to be of the people, members of the public who protect the community as citizens, not pseudo-military jackboots occupying townships on behalf of a foreign crown, and its colonial Federal government.”
knight99,that’s the finest post you’ve ever made!
Good one! 🙂
I too agree, Knight 99.
dmorris is spot on about the deterioration of the RCMP due to politics, affirmative action and HRCs. They had to water down their requirements and training in order to recruit members of the sacred cow groups. When a Muslim recruit failed the training in spite of this, they were forced by a HRC to keep him. A couple of friends who were Mounties from before this got so disgusted by it all, they retired early to escape it.
As for policing of provinces and cities, the ball is in the court of the provinces in question to change things. I suspect the present agreement works out cheaper for them, so perhaps the RCMP should review the actual cost to determine if the province is paying what it should.
The statement that provincial police are more subject to political interference, I suggest that so are the RCMP. The only difference being who there political masters are.
What Knight said.
Politics has bound the hands of the people we let protect us (using the word “protect” in the weakest sense). Whether we divvy up the responsibilities or not, if we let someone like McGuinty determine that a certain action is too hot, what good would any of it do?
Just my quick thoughts.
Those who live where there are upcoming provincial elections (e.i. Saskatchewan), need to start raising this issue.
As an Ontario city-dweller I don’t come into contact with the RCMP very often, so I don’t have much to say about that.
As a professional computer IT-type-thing guy, though, I’ve had to deal a couple of times with the RCMP’s technical services division – the blokes who deal with white-collar and specifically computer crime.
The stunning level of ignorance on the part of the TSD frightened me enough that I no longer volunteer my services. What little training on computer or financial forensics they do have is years out of date, and oversimplified to boot.
This is definitely something that needs to be outsourced to professionals at the Crown Attorney level.
Then again, I wasn’t too impressed with most of the CAs I met, either.
“….and the Conservative government refuses properly to fund it…”
That’s a matter of opinion ….
While there is little other comparison,
“I can think of no other developed country (and probably no other of any size) that has a national police force responsible for the following types of law enforcement…”
note that the KGB handles nearly all civil police work as well as the better-known international work.
The RCMP are an organized bunch of thugs who go into little communities around this countr and sleep with married women, break up families, lie under oath and were the type of guys who didn’t have any friends growing up. They are bullies and narcisstic weenies who use their position to over compensate for their little man short comings. They are, without a doubt, purveyors of misery and misfortune and hide under the guise of “just doing our jobs” mantra. I have zero respect for anyone who wears a uniform, I spit at the mention of their name.
This is not our parent’s police force. They are the biggest douche bags walking our streets. They can hide and cover up anything they want. They game the system for their own deviant needs.
I’m speaking from experience. The few good ones are brow beaten and bullied into following “the code.”
They are afterall only human. Everytime I hear about a cop getting killed in the line of duty I ccrack a beer and shout out Hell Yeah!
This country needs more James Rozcos….
In a letter from RCMP:
“This refers to your letter concerning your alleged privacy violation complaint against the Canadian Firearms Program…
…we have determined that the Access to Information and Privacy Branch of the RCMP is not the proper entity to investigate this allegation. …you should direct your concerns to the Officer of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada”
You bet, thugs.
“Clown Party I got the message..seek help.” Posted by: Speedy
Yes Speedy, anytime the Cons want to seek my help to improve Canada, they can come and ask me for advice.
What would you do, tell them to keep the corruption and overspending in Canada as the LIEberal did? Are you against the changes already proposed like the freedom given Wester Farmers with the CWB being less dictorial?
I suppose you love the HRC judgements
You think like a believer in the Global Warming/Climate Change lie
CBC funding – you must be one of those Canadians that love his/her tax dollars support them
And of course you do not care how your MP’s spend your tax dollars – if there is nothing to hide, then they shold open their booke – at least to the Auditor General.
What would you do to fix the problems mentioned above. The Cons need to address these and other itams.
If I did not knnow any better, you appear to be a supporter of “Stop Harper” campaign.