RCMP's ability to defend national security is eroding, report warns

The RCMP's federal wing is at a "critical juncture" and its ability to police key files like foreign interference, terrorism and financial crime is on the line, says a recent report from the Mounties' independent advisory board.

After studying the sustainability of federal policing for more than a year, a task force set up by the external Management Advisory Board drafted a report that says the RCMP must change to survive — and the federal government needs to step up to protect Canadians' safety.

"Federal policing has now arrived at a critical juncture of its sustainability, which present risks for the national security and safety of Canada, its people, and its interests," says the report, shared with CBC News this week.

It's just the latest report to offer dire warnings for the federal government about the direction of the national police organization.

"There is, I think, a real call for political leadership in this report," said Christian Leuprecht, a professor of political science at the Royal Military College and of intergovernmental relations at Queen's University.

"Without that dedicated attention, the rest is simply going to be moving deck chairs on the Titanic."

Federal policing is the section of the RCMP that investigates some of the most complex criminal files, those involving national security, organized crime, money laundering, cyber attacks and war crimes.

The RCMP is also responsible for boots-on-the-ground policing in large parts of the country, including many rural and remote areas.

The Management Advisory Board, created in 2019 by the federal government to provide external advice to the RCMP commissioner, set up a task force in the fall of 2022 to study the federal policing program.

"Canada and its people have already begun to see the repercussions of the federal policing program being stretched thin," says the task force's report, completed at the end of last year.

The report says budget and personnel shortfalls have left the RCMP "operationally limited," restricting the number of cases it can take on annually. 

That problem "is further exacerbated by other competing urgent criminal priorities (e.g. national security)," the report adds.

The report points to the 2022 Cullen Commission, the money laundering inquiry launched by British Columbia. It concluded that the primary cause of poor law enforcement results on money laundering files in that province was a lack of police resources.

The task force warns that there are global implications to the weakness of federal policing, since the RCMP represents Canada in global security bodies such as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and INTERPOL.