Canada's Famous Police Force

The scarlet jacket and the broad-brimmed hat make an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police one of the best known symbols of law enforcement in the world, and one of the best known symbols of Canada.

The RCMP employs more than 20,000 Canadians. It is the national police force. As well, it serves as the provincial police force in all provinces and territories except Québec and Ontario. These two provinces have their own police forces. As well, the RCMP has extensive ocean patrol forces, air patrol squadrons of airplanes and helicopters, a training academy, 8 crime detection laboratories, and 27 liaison officers stationed in foreign countries.

The North-West Mounted Police: The First Mounties

In 1870, when the Government of Canada was about to take control of the West from the private Hudson's Bay Company, a decision had to be reached about how to secure the vast region from Manitoba to the Rocky Mountains. The particular concern was peacekeeping because the period 1845-1870 had been dominated by deteriorating relations between the fur trade company and Native people and Métis.

Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first Prime Minister, thus decided to create a frontier police force for this vast North-West Territories (today's provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta). He chose to call it the North-West Mounted Police, and he modelled it after the Royal Irish Constabulary and the mounted rifle units of the United States Army. The N-WMP arrived on the Prairies (another name for this part of Canada) in 1874. As their name suggests, horses were their mode of transportation from the start. This historical detail is remembered today in the famous RCMP Musical Ride.

The N-WMP's first assignments were to establish friendly relations with the First Nations peoples, contain the whisky trade that was coming up from the USA and enforce prohibition, and supervise the negotiation of treaties between Native and the federal government.

In 1874, the transcontinental railway, which was completed in 1885, had not yet been built. When construction of it across the Prairies began in 1881, the N-WMP were responsible for maintaining law and order along the railway line and in construction camps, keeping them clear of liquor vendors, gamblers, and prostitutes.

Once the railway was completed, of course, tens of thousands of settlers began arriving in western Canada from around the world. The N-WMP then changed its focus, attempting to keep peace between settlers, who did not know the law of Canada, and Native peoples, who watched as farmers claimed, fenced, and cultivated their land. The N-WMP also fought prairie grass fires, and helped starving and destitute immigrants.

In 1895, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory, the N-WMP were sent north for the first time to maintain order. In 1903, the force established permanent patrols on the northern coastline of Canada. A year later, in 1904, the designation "Royal" was conferred on the force by King Edward VII, so the force's name then became the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.

The RNWP Becomes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

In 1920, the name of the force was changed for the last time, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This change of name signified a change in the force's jurisdiction. By 1920, the RCMP was providing policing for not just the North and the West of Canada, but also for much of the rest of the nation. As well, the RCMP had seen action in the Boer War and the First World War. They provided surveillance, border patrols, and the enforcement of national security regulations.

By 1932, the RCMP was the provincial police force for three Maritime provinces of Atlantic Canada, and became the provincial force for Newfoundland after it joined Canada in 1949. In 1949, as well, it became British Columbia's provincial police force.

In the 1960s, the RCMP shifted much of its security and intelligence focus from foreign threats to a perceived threat within Canada. This was the decade when separatism ran highest and most publicly in the province of Québec. The RCMP overstepped its mandate while investigating this threat. They themselves engaged in illegal activities designed to expose suspected criminals.

Eventually, it was decided to remove intelligence operations from the mandate of the RCMP. In 1984 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was established to take on this role. However, its working relations with the RCMP have often been marked by friction.

The RCMP focuses much of its current activity on three growing problems: organized crime, narcotics smuggling, and commercial fraud. Recently, the illegal entry of migrants into Canada and international terrorism have also exerted a major claim on their mandate to secure Canada. Thus airport security and the protection of visiting foreign dignitaries are ongoing RCMP activities. As well, during the 1990s, the RCMP has expanded its international police duties: forces have been directly involved or have supplied training for forces in Namibia, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia/Herzegovina, East Timor, Guatemala, Croatia, and the Western Sahara.

Although the RCMP has merited increasing public criticism in the past few decades, it has continued as a strong, positive symbol of the nation. Thanks in part for this positive image must go to Hollywood. USAmerican movie makers have made more than 300 movies over the course of the twentieth century in which Mounties are portrayed positively. The saying, "the Mounties always get their man," is famous. So too is saying that Canada is the only country in the world where the police are heroes.

As well, there is a long tradition of novels set in the Arctic, comics, and cartoons that portray the force sympathetically. The famous character, Sergeant Preston of the RCMP and his dog, King, remains a much sought after item among collectors of comic books. These popularized images reinforce the misperception that Mounties are only men. In fact, in 1974, the first women were recruited by the RCMP as uniformed regular members.

Established in 1933, and moved to its present site in the city of Regina SK in 1973, the RCMP Museum houses the history in artifacts of this famous Canadian institution.