RCMP

It could be called the nuclear option.

There’s a belief among some that Canada should dismantle the RCMP in the face of the scandal and criticism that plague the force.

It would certainly be a dramatic change to the landscape of policing in this country. The force’s red serge, horses and the saying that they “always get their man” have long been associated with Canada. Hollywood has made productions drawing on the Mountie image for more than 100 years, going back to films such as 1921’s silent movie “O’Malley of the Mounted.”

EDMONTON—When Ron Zazulak joined the RCMP, it was seen as the “big leagues” of policing, he says.

He doesn’t think that’s the case anymore. And there are indications he’s not alone in his opinion.

Zazulak spent a career with the Mounties after joining the force in the 1960s. When he retired in 2000, he bought a farm with his wife and spent years living in rural Alberta near St. Lina, where they bordered three different RCMP detachment areas — the closest one being in St. Paul, 40 minutes away.

Harry Bond is blunt in his assessment of the RCMP’s role on the night his mother and father died in the Nova Scotia mass shooting — and of the force’s potential to reform in the future.

“My trust for the RCMP is gone,” he said during a recent telephone interview from his home near Mahone Bay, N.S., where he’s been going over the hundreds of hours of testimony heard at a public inquiry into the April 18-19, 2020 rampage.

Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro is calling on the federal government to fire RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, saying her continued tenure is damaging to the national police force.

In a statement Wednesday, Shandro calls on Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to immediately rescind Lucki’s appointment.

“Alberta has lost confidence” in Lucki, Shandro said in the statement.

Under fire over claims of political interference, Lucki calls for new rules on RCMP’s relationship with Ottawa

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says it’s time to bring in better guardrails between the national police force and the federal government to avoid future allegations of political interference.

“I think it’s time that we put something to writing that outlines the what you can and cannot do from both the commissioner’s perspective and the politicians,” she said under questioning at the Emergencies Act inquiry on Tuesday.

“I think it’s time to clarify, because it’s been a topic of conversation.”

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is useful.

No, not as a symbol of the integrity and independence of the RCMP. To the extent she might have ever served as an authority in that regard was compromised back in June, when the Mass Casualty Commission looking into the shooting that killed 22 people in Nova Scotia in April, 2020, released documents suggesting Commissioner Lucki pushed senior RCMP brass to publicly identify the guns used in the killings, in seeming service of the Liberal government’s planned gun-control policy.

OTTAWA – A confidential RCMP review, conducted after the arrest of a senior employee for allegedly leaking classified information, calls for a fundamental shift in the security culture of the national police force to be led at the highest levels.

The newly disclosed report makes 43 recommendations, including training updates, stricter adherence to federal security screening standards and the possible introduction of random physical searches.

The review “confirms gaps in the security practices of the RCMP that could be closed or at least narrowed,” says a message in the report from the joint chairs of the exercise.