The Mounties are known for “always getting their man,” but they might not always get their way — a situation that’s unfolding in Surrey, where the province wants the RCMP to hand over its responsibilities to the newly formed Surrey Police Service.
This hotly contested and highly controversial move by the B.C. government — the Surrey mayor is vehemently opposed and wants to retain the RCMP — has made its way to the province’s Supreme Court. The case will likely have implications on how the Canadian Constitution applies to police reform.
It will also raise questions of national and practical importance: Should the RCMP be involved in municipal contract policing? Or is that role better left to the municipalities under provincial policing models? These questions illustrate an ongoing struggle between modern police reform and the old guard.
From what I can tell, the RCMP provides a superior level of officer quality for the same price, or the same level of officer quality for a lower price. They have an economy of scale that provides them an operational edge over small municipal departments.
Such a nation-wide org also - when paired with effective disciplinary system that can actually fire bad apples - makes for a much more “clean” system. In the states, any officer fired for cause can just go to the next town over and get hired there as a police officer. This way, bad apples can bounce around municipalities, continuing to be bad officers and destroying the very lives they were sworn to protect. This cannot happen with a national org - if fired from the RCMP, they’re not going to let you work anywhere else in the country. You are then incapable of becoming another police officer anywhere in the country.
But the RCMP is not a blanket national org; it only covers a good chunk of the country, not all of it.
We should make that all of it.