RCMP looks to bolster its ranks with civilians, says it's 'playing with the DNA' of the service

The next wave of RCMP hires might be more likely to wear red hoodies than red serge.

The national police service is looking to hire more civilian investigators to tackle some of its more complex investigations — things like cybercrime and money laundering.

"The world has changed and we need to change," said Sean McGillis, the RCMP's executive director of federal policing resource management.

"We're maybe playing with the DNA of the organization here, but in a good way."

The change has been small so far. The RCMP launched a pilot project to bring in civilians with backgrounds in coding, cyber forensics and financial crime and is now moving to make it a permanent program.

A spokesperson said the RCMP has hired 14 civilians under the pilot project and is aiming for another 24 hires this fiscal year.

"So our numbers are low at this point, in terms of being able to actually get people through the door," said McGillis.

"But we've had a lot of success in terms of attracting attention. People want to come and be part of this mission."

McGillis said he would like eventually to get to a point where the RCMP is hiring 100 civilians per year.

"That would be aggressive, given the conditions in the labour market, but something that I think is worth striving towards," he said.

His team isn't the only one facing hiring hurdles in the private sector.

Governments can find it very hard to compete with private sector salaries — and the intense security checks required of anyone working on sensitive government files can also discourage outside hires.

"The labour market in cybersecurity in Canada and globally is in crisis," said Charles Finlay, executive director of the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst program at Toronto Metropolitan University. The program receives funding from the federal government.

"There are hundreds of thousands of open positions in Canada and there are millions of open positions worldwide. So the labour market shortage is extreme. There's basically zero unemployment in this sector. The numbers are daunting."