RCMP Staff Sgt. Jerry Nutbrown brings you behind the scenes with a series of columns taking you behind police work and how it’s done in our community. If you have a question you think needs to be answered in Behind the Bison, send it to admin@borderpulse.ca and we will be sure to share it with him.
People that are not exposed to policing from an inner standpoint may believe that all police are the same. Canada has many police agencies or services that provide a very similar service to various communities and provinces. I didn’t forget the territories, but these are policed exclusively by the RCMP.
For this article I specifically mean police and not peace officers such as Community Peace Officers or other provincially appointed peace officers. Many communities such as Lloydminster employ their own peace officers but for today, I am sticking specifically to police.
Provincial, regional and city police agencies are provided their authority to act as police via Provincial Acts but those also create limitations that RCMP officers don’t have. However, there is the RCMP Act and also section 56 of the Criminal Code that speak only to members of the RCMP and not any other police agency. RCMP policing authorities extend across Canada whereas others have geographic restrictions, most often based on provincial borders.
For example, if an Edmonton police officer was to travel out to Lloydminster while on duty, their authority ends at the Saskatchewan border. If they knew ahead of time that they would need to cross into Saskatchewan, they could request that they be given police/peace officer status in Saskatchewan for a specific period of time to meet their needs (typically this is of short durations).
There are three main levels of policing in Canada, and these are federal, provincial and municipal. The RCMP is responsible for federal and international policing which includes security at events like G7 meetings in Canada. I attended the 2010 G8 in Ontario (the G8 was reduced to 7 in 2014 when Russia was expelled indefinitely) as did hundreds of other RCMP officers from across the country. I worked with Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers and Canadian military members during this deployment. As the OPP is the police of jurisdiction in Ontario, they were included in the planning and execution of the protective plans while the world leaders were meeting.
If other police services were to deploy members to the event, they would need to be granted supernumerary powers in Ontario to be able to act as police/peace officers. As the RCMP are federal, all of our officers have authority across the country, and we don’t require anything to be done to function in that capacity outside our posted jurisdictions. For the G8, I just packed up my kit, flew to Ontario and was put to work.
The RCMP serve as Canada’s national police force which sees us heavily involved in contract policing. We are considered a paramilitary organization as some of our history is based on the Canadian military. We have a rank of corporal, but most other police services do not as they will jump from the rank of constable to the rank of sergeant. Our yellow stripe on our pants is also a symbol of our connection to our historical cavalry roots.
There are mostly similarities between police services but there are also some distinct differences.
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