Last November, Bob Paulson replaced William Elliott as head of the RCMP, Canada’s national police force. Elliott, the Mounties’ first civilian commissioner, resigned in February because he failed to achieve much-needed reforms to modernize the storied police force. He attributed his failure to the fact that he was perceived by the RCMP’s rank and file and much of its brass as an “outsider,” and recommended that the prime minister replace him with an “insider” to speed the process of reform. While Paulson is an insider, having risen through the ranks, it is not clear that he will be able to achieve much change.
There are many reasons why the RCMP is difficult to reform, many of which are not unique to an organization of its complexity and size. However, there is a unique aspect of the structure of the RCMP which makes it inherently difficult to change. The RCMP is an agency of the federal government, but most of its officers are actually contractors for the provincial governments. All provinces and territories (with the exception of Ontario and Quebec, who have their own provincial police forces) contract the RCMP to police municipalities too small to afford their own local police forces.
The rest of the RCMP’s officers are divided between enforcing federal laws, such as those prohibiting counterfeiting, and protecting national security, such as through counterterrorism operations. The differences between these three groups makes it difficult to effectively control them because the rules for one type of officer might not be appropriate for others. All three groups are theoretically subject to oversight through the RCMP Complaints Commission, which investigates complaints and makes recommendations to the RCMP to prevent future incidents. However, the Complaints Commission lacks the legal authority and money to fulfill its responsibilities, and its recommendations are too often ignored.
[pullquote]If Paulson is serious about reform, he should welcome British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office and encourage other provinces to create similar investigation units.[/pullquote]
The result is a police force that is subject to far less oversight than comparable provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec or local police forces throughout Canada. The reliance on the Ottawa-based RCMP Complaints Commission to investigate incidents related to local policing that can take place nearly anywhere in Canada means that RCMP officers are less accountable to the communities they serve than they might otherwise be. While they are technically contractors of the provincial government, RCMP officers often behave as though they are above local oversight, which can lead to serious incidents.
Last year, this type of incident led the British Columbia government to create an Independent Investigations Office to investigate incidents involving the use of force by the RCMP and local police in British Columbia. Modeled on Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which is considered to be the gold standard for police oversight in much of the world, the Investigations Office is led by Richard Rosenthal, an American lawyer who successfully set up similar offices in Denver, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon. While it is too early to determine whether the office has improved the behaviour of RCMP officers serving in British Columbia detachments, it is certainly a promising development.
If Paulson is serious about reform, he should welcome British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office, and encourage other provinces to create similar investigation units. This would go a long way in ensuring that RCMP officers are more directly accountable to the communities that they serve. This is especially important in larger provinces, such as Alberta and Manitoba, which see a significant number of complaints against the RCMP. It is also crucial that Paulson support the federal government’s plans to beef up the RCMP Complaints Commission by increasing its budget and clarifying its legal mandate. A well-functioning Complaints Commission would complement units like British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office by ensuring that policies to prevent future incidents are implemented across the force, rather than in a single province or detachment.
It will undoubtedly be difficult for Paulson to achieve this over the objections of the rank and file. He will need more than his status as an “insider” to achieve change. It is essential that he also has the support of the Harper government, and that accountability for the RCMP is made a top priority. There is much to be gained politically by doing so for the Harper government as it tries to shore up the Conservative base in western Canada, where the RCMP is remarkably unpopular.
