Why some Manitoba communities are transitioning away from the RCMP

Const. Trevor Mitchell gets into a police car outside the new police detachment at Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and begins his daily routine. 

The Manitoba First Nations Police officer says his day usually starts with quick patrols. After that, he often sets up on the highway crossing the community about 66 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg to watch for speeders during the morning commute.

It's quite a change of pace for a seasoned police officer who spent 22 years with the Winnipeg Police Service before joining MFNPS.

"You'll definitely get to know the residents as opposed to in a big major city where … you may never see the people again that you've dealt with," Mitchell said.

In Brokenhead, "They see you and they get to know your face. They're more comfortable in being able to approach the same person that they see over and over and over again."

On October, Brokenhead became the 10th community patrolled by MFNPS, which emphasizes a community response model. It's the kind of policing one expert says comes hard for the police service's predecessors in the First Nations community: the RCMP.

"The RCMP transfer policy, which has officers churning through detachments on a fairly regular basis, makes it very difficult for them to establish sustainable relationships," said Curt Griffiths, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University.

"We know that collaborative policing these days is really the model, that the police can't solve all issues themselves … The collaborative model is challenging in an RCMP detachment because of the turnover."

Griffiths, who's acted as a consultant with police departments all across Canada, was involved in the process that saw the Surrey Police Service in British Columbia take over policing from local RCMP this fall. 

He says there are several reasons why an increasing number of communities are looking for alternatives to the RCMP, which currently serves First Nations, about 150 municipalities and all of Canada's provinces and territories except Quebec and Ontario.

"There's been increased … visibility of police issues and accountability," Griffiths said. 

"It's very difficult for a municipality that's policed by the RCMP to have that governance and accountability and transparency. There's no police board, for example."

The MFNPS continues its push to expand beyond the six communities it served when it was established in the 1970s as the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council Police Department.

MFNPS Chief Doug Palson says at least two more agreements are expected to be completed next year: Fisher River Cree Nation in the spring and Dakota Plains later in 2025.