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Canada’s RCMP: History, and what it wants to change

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As the RCMP marks a major milestone, questions linger over the legacy of Canada’s paramilitary police force, and how it fits into modern-day policing.

In its 150 years, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has grown from 300 employees to 30,000, and evolved from a northern policing agency into a country-wide organization.

The agency has jurisdiction over 22 per cent of Canada’s population and works to prevent crime, enforce the law, investigate offences and assist with emergency situations. Currently, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador are the only provinces in Canada that don’t use the RCMP as a provincial police force.

On top of the local and provincial policing the RCMP does, it also has a mandate to support the international community through police training and peacekeeping, as well as providing protective details for high-profile officials, including the prime minister.

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As the RCMP navigates the 21st century and the changing demographics of the Canadian population, the goals and upcoming initiatives of the RCMP are crucial to understanding how it will evolve.

“We’re tackling head-on the issues that have been raised,” Nadine Huggins, chief human resources officer, told CTVNews.ca in a recent interview.

“We’re acknowledging the complexity of our history, and laying the foundation for us to ensure that legacy of the next 150 (years) is about modern, inclusive, respectful, dignified policing.”

CALL FOR ‘TRANSFORMATIVE’ ACTION

Huggins was asked about the organization’s evolution in light of recent years under a critical spotlight.

Recently, the force has been under scrutiny as reports of sexual assault, racism, internalized misogyny and homophobia plague the organization.

One such report, called “Broken Dreams Broken Lives” and compiled by Justice Michel Bastarache, notes a “toxic” culture within the RCMP. The report, published in 2020, digs into the “devastating effects” of the women who experienced poor treatment within their workplace.

Bastarache highlights the barriers preventing women from succeeding in the RCMP, calling for an external independent study of the future of the federal policing organization. He made 52 recommendations for change, including to training, recruitment, job postings, human resource policies and more.

A separate report by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in June 2021 focused on how the RCMP can be reformed.

The committee said the “pervasive nature of systematic racism in policing” needed “transformative” action to ensure the safety of Indigenous, Black and other racialized people in Canada.

Additionally, the RCMP is battling a $1.1-billion lawsuit over bullying and harassment of its members.

The lead plaintiffs, veteran RCMP members Geoffrey Greenwood and Todd Gray, allege there was a culture of systemic intimidation and harassment in the force that was condoned by its leadership.

Critics look to the organization’s recent history, asking why multiple reports and damning allegations had to occur before the force took action.

Responding to this, the RCMP says those who are currently in leadership roles with the force are determined to make improvements.

“I think leaders do the best they can in the moments that they’re in their roles,” Huggins said. “And I know that this leadership team, at this time, is quite focused on ensuring that we set a solid foundation for the next 150 (years) of our organization.”

‘A MODERN RCMP’ IS A ‘LONG-TERM PROJECT’

Huggins said one of the current “core mandates” of the RCMP is that it is reflective representation of the communities in which it works.

“All through our organization, we’re holding folks accountable to ensure that we have an organization where sexism, racism, homophobia, discrimination, harassment of any kind… there’s no place for it in a modern RCMP,” she said.

To achieve this, the force is developing guidelines aimed at tackling each of its problems.

Reports detailing the toxic culture in the RCMP placed blame on the leadership team. To fix this, the RCMP says, it is eliminating barriers to the recruitment of diverse candidates, helping bring representation to the top.

As of October 2020, just 21.7 per cent of the regular members of the RCMP were female, and 12.1 per cent identified as a visible minority. Indigenous people represented 7.1 per cent of the RCMP’s regular members.

“One of the key things… is how we’ve changed our recruitment and renewed our recruitment approach,” Huggins said. “The organization has updated everything from its entrance exam to its assessment of new applicants. We’ve updated our exam so that it is bias-free.”

The exam is the first step to determine if the person holds the fundamentals of being an RCMP member. Huggins said if the organization sees people from certain demographics struggling with the same question, the administrators will go back to see if it holds a bias.

Huggins said the organization is also prioritizing younger people in recruitment. Two programs, one aimed specifically at Indigenous youth, and the other Diverse and Inclusive Pre-Cadet Experience, are bringing in new perspectives to the force.

“This is not an overnight thing, this is a longer-term project,” Huggins said. “It’s changing the fundamental so that the culture changes.”

The hope, according to Huggins, is that as new officers join the RCMP, the culture will shift.

“We’re building and flying at the same time,” Huggins said. “It comes to making sure that we continue to provide the services that we need and evolve our model, so that it is going to result in greater diversity amongst the ranks, but also into our leadership.”

FEAR OF SPEAKING OUT

Fear of speaking out against senior leadership is another problem the RCMP is trying to address.

A class action lawsuit about sexual harassment within the RCMP alleged that higher-ranking employees used their power to force sexual acts on others, particularly women. The allegations led to an independent assessor recommending 52 actions the organization needs to take.

“In June of 2021, we launched the Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution…which is arm’s length from the leadership of the RCMP,” Huggins said.

The centre addresses harassment prevention and resolves complaints as employees come forward.

When a member of the RCMP displays poor behaviour, the issue will be investigated, according to the force’s code of conduct, then the member will be issued educational and corrective opportunities before punitive actions are taken.

While the centre was created in response to complaints and is described as arm’s length, critics have pointed out its executive director was recruited and hired by the RCMP and reports to the force’s highest-ranking civilian officer. Additionally, the external investigators are former officers, rather than someone truly independent.

“They can’t fix themselves. There’s so much hurt and corruption that it cannot be fixed internally,” Shirley Heafey, former RCMP public complaints commission chairperson, told CTV National News on June 2021. “It’s just a stopgap measure. That’s all it is.”

Huggins said having ongoing conversations around removing barriers within the organization about reporting issues is something the force has committed to.

Women in particular have been at the forefront of the RCMP reports, with allegations of mistreatment ranging from gender-based discrimination in teams to penetrative sexual assaults and pejorative comments.

The RCMP says it is working to put more women in leadership roles within the force.

“Under the current commissioner (Brenda Lucki), we have achieved just about gender parity with regard to our senior leadership table,” Huggins said. “Are we perfect? No, we’re not perfect in all regards, but there certainly is a concerted commitment…to ensuring that we strengthen overall equity and inclusion in the workplace.”

While the current government has come to her defence in the past few years over her handling of certain high-profile incidents, Lucki’s future at the helm of the RCMP remains in question as she nears the five-year mark in the role.

‘THE CULTURE’: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RCMP

Lucki was named the first permanent female commissioner of the RCMP in 2018, outlining her vision for a more diverse RCMP.

At the time, her experience with Indigenous relations was pointed to as an asset, given the force’s ongoing work to improve its relations with First Nations communities.

The RCMP was created on May 23, 1873. At the time, the landscape was hundreds of hectares of dense untouched land.

Indigenous communities were scattered throughout the country, and their languages and traditions were still largely intact before the Indian Act of 1876 forced assimilation.

The very fabric of what many think of today as Canadian culture was still in its infancy.

The RCMP was modelled after the Royal Irish Constabulary, Steve Hewitt, historian and police expert with the University of Birmingham, told CTV’s Your Morning in an interview earlier this month.

The force in Britain was used to “control” the Irish, Hewitt said, and in Canada, the RCMP was used against Indigenous people.

“I think that gives you an idea of the initial impetus of the force was to go westward to effectively take control of territory that had been Indigenous land to help displace Indigenous peoples onto reserves to prepare the way for European settlement,” Hewitt said.

As Canada became more diverse into the later 20th century, how the RCMP reacted to issues of racism became a focal point. Serving the people of Canada meant the organization needed to adapt values and protocols to the rapidly diversifying population.

However, discrimination persisted.

Between the 1950s and 1990s, the RCMP was involved in what’s become known as the LGBTQ2S+ purge that saw thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Canadians actively discriminated against, interrogated, and fired or demoted from their jobs in the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal public service.

Work is ongoing within the federal government to improve inclusivity and rebuild trust, with survivors recently calling out the RCMP specifically.

“If you look at the historical records, they fought tooth and nail to persecute LGBT people,” said Douglas Elliott, an activist and the lead lawyer for the purge class action, during a news conference on Parliament Hill in October 2022.

HOW TO EVOLVE ‘A COLONIAL INSTITUTION’

Some elements of the RCMP past are factors in how it currently operates – from the way it’s set up to core mandates.

Critics wonder whether it’s possible for the organization to evolve, moving away from the harm it caused in the past.

“You’ve got effectively what is a colonial institution, a paramilitary institution that still (operates) in the 21st century,” Hewitt said. “I’m just not sure paramilitary values in the 19th century work so well in the 21st century.”

He said the problems surfacing now are not unfamiliar – but there is a key difference.

“These issues are not new. The difference is obviously through social media, through lawsuits, things such as that, we’re much more aware of them than we would have been in the past,” Hewitt said.

The RCMP acknowledges that in order to move forward, “a lot of work” is needed to address the problems within the RCMP. It has known this for years, according to its CHRO.

“While the organization certainly is proud of its traditions, it is also eager to be a policing service for the future,” Huggins said. “Our culture change, our new core values, our focus on de-escalation, all speak to how we have taken what is useful from our paramilitary tradition and wedded it to the modern vision that we have for ourselves.”

 

With files from CTV News’ Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello.

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Alberta's population surges by record-setting 202,000 people: Here's where they all came from – CBC.ca

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Alberta smashed population-growth records in the past year, mainly due to people moving to the province from across Canada and around the world.

The province’s population surged to just over 4.8 million as of Jan. 1, according to new estimates released Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

That’s an increase of 202,324 residents compared with a year earlier, which marks — by far — the largest annual increase on record.

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Alberta also broke a national record in 2023 for interprovincial migration, with a net gain of 55,107 people.

“This was the largest gain in interprovincial migration nationally since comparable data became available in 1972,” Statistics Canada said in a release.


Most of the interprovincial migrants came from Ontario and British Columbia.

Statistics Canada estimates that 38,236 Ontarians moved to Alberta last year, versus 14,860 Albertans who moved to Ontario, for a net gain of 23,376 people.

Similarly, an estimated 37,650 British Columbians moved to Alberta, compared to 22,400 Albertans who moved to B.C., for a net gain of 15,250.


All told, interprovincial migration accounted for 27 per cent of Alberta’s population growth over the past year.

That put it just ahead of permanent immigration, which accounted for 26 per cent, and well ahead of natural population increase (more births than deaths), which accounted for eight per cent.

The largest component, however, was temporary international migration.

Non-permanent residents from other countries accounted for 39 per cent of the province’s population growth in the past year, reflecting a national trend.


Canada’s population reached 40,769,890 on Jan. 1, according to Statistics Canada estimates, which is up 3.2 per cent from a year ago.

“Most of Canada’s 3.2-per-cent population growth rate stemmed from temporary immigration in 2023,” Statistics Canada noted.

“Without temporary immigration, that is, relying solely on permanent immigration and natural increase (births minus deaths), Canada’s population growth would have been almost three times less (1.2 per cent).”

Alberta’s population, meanwhile, grew by 4.4 per cent year-over-year.

Alberta now represents 11.8 per cent of the country’s population, its largest proportion on record. 

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Why Canada's record population growth is helping – and hurting – the economy – CTV News

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Canada has recorded the fastest population growth in 66 years, increasing by 1.3 million people, or 3.2 per cent, in 2023, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.

The country has not seen such growth since 1957, when the spike was attributed to the baby boom and an influx of immigrants fleeing Hungary.

The vast majority of Canada’s growth last year was due to immigration, with temporary residents — which includes foreign workers and international students — making up the largest proportion of newcomers.

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“We need people coming to Canada to help with our economy,” says Matti Siemiatycki, a professor of planning at the University of Toronto. “There are many jobs and professions where there are vacancies, and that is having an impact, whether in the healthcare sector or trades and construction sector.”

Siemiatycki adds immigrants also bring “ingenuity… resources… and culture” to Canada.

Newcomers are relied on to help keep pace with Canada’s aging population and declining fertility rates, but the influx also presents a challenge for a country struggling to build the homes and infrastructure needed for immigrants.

“It’s an incredibly large shock for the economic system to absorb because of just the sheer number of people coming into the country in a short period of time,” says Robert Kavcic. a senior economist and director with BMO Capital Markets.

“The reality is population can grow extremely fast, but the supply side of the economy like housing and service infrastructure, think health care and schools, can only catch up at a really gradual pace,” Kavcic says. “So there is a mismatch right now.”

The impact of that mismatch can most acutely be seen in the cost of rent, services and housing.

In December, Kavcic wrote in a note that Canada needs to build 170,000 new housing units every three months to keep up with population growth, noting the industry is struggling to complete 220,000 units in a full year.

To address this, Ottawa has announced plans to cap the number of new temporary residents while also reducing the number of international student visas, a move economists say could offer some relief when it comes to housing and the cost of living.

“The arithmetic on the caps actual works relatively well because it would take us back down to 1 per cent population growth which we have been used to over the last decade and which is more or less absorbable by the economy,” Kavcic says. “The question is whether or not we see policy makers follow through and hit those numbers.”

Economists believe these changes could help ease inflationary pressures and may make a Bank of Canada rate cut more likely, but could also lead to slower GDP growth.

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Canada’s population hits 41M months after breaking 40M threshold – Global News

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Nine months after reaching a population of 40 million, Canada has cracked a new threshold.

As of Wednesday morning, it’s estimated 41 million people now call the country home, according to Statistics Canada’s live population tracker.

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The speed at which Canada’s population is growing was also reflected in new data released Wednesday by the federal agency: between Jan. 1 2023 and Jan. 1 2024, Canada added 1,271,872 inhabitants, a 3.2 per cent growth rate — the highest since 1957.

Most of Canada’s 3.2 per cent population growth rate stemmed from temporary immigration. Without it, Canada’s population growth would have been 1.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said.


Click to play video: 'Business News: Job growth fails to keep pace with population'

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Business News: Job growth fails to keep pace with population


From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, Canada’s population increased by 241,494 people (0.6 per cent), the highest rate of growth in a fourth quarter since 1956.

Usha George, a professor at the Toronto Metropolitan Centre for Immigration and Settlement at Toronto Metropolitan University, told Global News in June a booming population can benefit the economy.

“It is not the bodies we are bringing in; these are bodies that fill in the empty spaces in the labour market,” she said.

“They bring a very-high level of skills.”


Click to play video: 'Canadian millennials surpass baby boomers as dominant generation: StatCan'

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Canadian millennials surpass baby boomers as dominant generation: StatCan


However, Ottawa has recently sought to ease the flow of temporary immigration in a bid to ease cost-of-living woes.


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Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on March 21 Ottawa would set targets for temporary residents allowed into Canada to ensure “sustainable” growth in the number of temporary residents entering the nation.

The next day, BMO economist Robert Kavcic in a note to clients the new limits will have a positive impact on Canada’s rental market and overall housing crisis.

“We’ve been firm in our argument that Canada has had an excess demand problem in housing, and this is maybe the clearest example,” Kavcic said.

“Non-permanent resident inflows, on net, have swelled to about 800K in the latest year, with few checks and balances in place, putting tremendous stress on housing supply and infrastructure.”

Alberta gains, Ontario loses: A look at Canadian migration in 2023

If Alberta is truly calling, then it appears more Canadians are choosing to answer.

Putting the pun on the provincial government’s attraction campaign aside, Canada’s wild rose country saw the largest net gain in interprovincial migration in 2023, Statistics Canada said in Wednesday’s report.


Click to play video: 'Is Alberta ready for population growth?'

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Is Alberta ready for population growth?


The agency said 55,107 Canadians moved to Alberta last year, which was the largest gain in interprovincial migration nationally since comparable data become available in 1972.

“Alberta has been recording gains in population from interprovincial migration since 2022, a reverse of the trend seen from 2016 to 2021, when more people left the province than arrived from other parts of Canada,” Statistics Canada said.

“Approximately 333,000 Canadians moved from one province or territory to another in 2023, the second-highest number recorded since the 1990s and the third straight year that interprovincial migration topped 300,000.”

Meanwhile, British Columbia had 8,624 more residents move out than in in 2023, meaning net interprovincial migration was negative for the first time since 2012, Statistics Canada said.

In general, the largest migration flows for British Columbia and Alberta are with each other, and most of the net loss from British Columbia in 2023 was to Alberta, it added.


Click to play video: '‘Enormous pressure’ expected in Ontario home care due to high growth of senior population'

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‘Enormous pressure’ expected in Ontario home care due to high growth of senior population


It also seems that good things may no longer be growing in Ontario; Canada’s most populous province lost 36,197 people to other regions in 2023, the biggest regional loss in 2023, Statistics Canada said.

That followed a loss of 38,816 people in 2022; the only other times a province has lost more than 35,000 people due to migration to other parts of Canada occurred in Quebec in 1977 and 1978.

Alberta aside, net interprovincial migration was also up in Nova Scotia (+6,169 people), New Brunswick (+4,790) and Prince Edward Island (+818), although all three Maritime provinces gained fewer interprovincial migrants in 2023 than in the two previous years, Statistics Canada said.

— with files from Uday Rana and Sean Previl

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