RCMP union seeking 'clarity and certainty' on plans for national police force review
CTV
The union that represents 20,000 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is calling on the federal government to offer clarity on its plans to review Canada's national police force's contract policing role.
The union that represents 20,000 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is calling on the federal government to offer clarity on its plans to review Canada’s national police force’s contract policing role.
“The ongoing speculation and vague language from government representatives, the media and pundits is demoralizing to our members whose careers, lives and even families have been built around service to their communities large and small,” said National Police Federation President and CEO Brian Sauvé during a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.
During the event, Sauvé called for all level of governments to commit to further bail reforms that include better integration of criminal offence data and the allocation of more resources to the bail system as a whole.
Sauvé’s comments about the federal government’s vision for the future of the RCMP come a day after the Toronto Star reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme would like to see the RCMP transform into an investigative force like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States.
“We already are the FBI of the North,” said Sauvé. “We're actually the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, Homeland Security, as well as the U.S. Marshals and the Secret Service.”
The RCMP currently provides contract policing services to eight provinces and three territories, with direct contracts to 150 municipalities in Canada. These contracts are set to expire in 2032. Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police forces.
In his December 2021 mandate letter, Mendicino was called on by Trudeau to conduct a contract policing review, and in the years since, further calls have come for the federal government to reconsider the role the RCMP play across the country.
