OK, got a bit of time now.
First, on the Nova Scotia shooting particularly- and I won't be saying everything I want to say here, not by a long sot, but I can point out some geenral facts and observations that are plainly discernable from what's already out there, or that aren't particularly sensitive.
The event unfolded over a span of twelve + hours. Critical Incident Command was activated early, as was ERT. When the shooter was finally stopped, that wasn't the first ERT was involved. They'd been at it all night. The final confrontation wasn't a matter of the ERT truck finally happened to be making their merry little way from Halifax, and the truck had been parked with an eight of a tank of gas. An ERT guy and another member were on their own task and had been at it for a while probably bouncing around a lot as different info came in. It very much WAS pure happenstance that they ended up gassing up at the same time and place as the suspect, and it went down fast from there.
I have an exceptionally foul opinion of the characterization of Heidi in one of the 'articles' posted farther up thread. Yes, she had previously been at the Music Ride. Yes, she had done public relations work too. She also had done plenty of work as a cop on the road. At the time of her death she was working out of Enfield detachment. Before Enfield she was posted to Cole Harbour, hardly a sleepy and peaceful detachment. One of my good friends actually replaced here there. Heidi went down fighting. I'm not sure why the author thinks that an aluminum push bar mounted to a unibody chassis would have somehow given the other guy a huge advantage. By that point he had shot another member nearby (Chad Morrison), that member went over the air to report it, and Heidi moved to the threat on her own to try to stop him. Unfortunately he won that particular fight. ERT was on scene very quickly after that, and RCMP had a member overhead in an EMS helicopter -that's publicly known from the EMS radio that's open to the public.
I've seen some talk about why didn't RCMP call other police services like Truro to help? Well, they did. They helped by covering other calls not related to the shooting. That freed up Mounties to work the major file. Not least among the reasons why,t he police services do not all use compatible radios. Nova Scotia RCMP went to encrypted digital radios pretty recently. Truro police couldn't talk to them on the operational channel. HUGE liability in a major incident. You need everyone to be able to be on the same net. So we can put that one to bed. But other services did contribute to the larger picture- because while a huge thing is going on, other 'normal' but still emergency matters are taking place that can still necessitate immediate police response.
Unfortunately the bad guy hugely stacked the advantages in his favour and he made the most of it before he was stopped.
On the RMCP and rural policing more generally.
It's evident that it's not fully appreciated how independent each division is for almost all operational matters. The contract policing divisions are mostly paid for by the province, and this can include physical assets, not just officers on the road. The feds kick some money in, but if a province wants multiple ERTs, they need to pay for it. They want a helicopter, they're covering most of the costs. They want a new radio system, they're paying for it. In some cases the RCMP are contracted by municipalities themselves. Rural policing is thin on the ground anywhere you go. While the RCMP seem to have it worse than, say, OPP, it's still a simple reality that there are only so many out there- and on a night shift or weekend you don't necessarily have a bunch of bodies in an office who can throw their belt and vest on and hit the road like what happened at Moncton. So that means that among the few scattered rural detachments - maybe 20-60 minutes apart from each other, each with just a couple members on, you need to be able to assemble and respond quickly to something highly dangerous potentially anywhere. The first few hours of that will be whoever happens to be on shift or can be called in quickly from bed.
When minutes count, ERT is only hours away. With few exceptions they generally aren't sitting there waiting for a call ready to go. Certainly not overnight in Nova Scotia. I'm not sure if NS' team is full time or part time- some provinces / territories have ERTs that are part time, when an ERT call comes in they drop what they're doing (whether at a desk or on the road), suit up and go. And at that, they can only work with the information available. They still need to be pointed at the threat and told 'go. If nobody can point them to the threat, all they can do is be ready for when that comes. ERT is a highly capable but also expensive capability. Nunavut was mentioned upthread- they had a team for a while, but they couldn't sustain it. They couldn't keep enough ERT trained members in the territory to have their own team. So now they have a containment team comprised of general duty members, and if they need ERT, they have to fly them up from Ottawa or Edmonton generally. Less than idea, but Nunavut cannot justify or sustain a full time ERT. That means you have to have enough members with that skillset doing other jobs, and that's tough. Everyone serving in the territories has volunteered to do so. Nunavut in particular is a short commitment, and there's a lot of turnover (and a lot of burnout). But, at that, nearly anywhere in the country ERT will take hours to get there. Critical incidents have a rude habit of not happening in convenient locations, and they're infrequent enough that the opportunity cost of maintaining Cadillac capabilities to respond really fast means taking away form member son the road taking calls, for a capability that will sit unused most of the time. Damned hard to justify... Yes, nearly every Mountie on the road has had a C8 and active shooter training for years now. That only goes so far.
Some changes will be coming. The RCMP are entering collective bargaining negotiations soon, having newly won the right to that and recently formed a union. Issues like 'cop to pop' ratio will be on the table for sure. The long term trend should be towards more officers on the road in isolated areas to be able to provide cover for each other. That is, however, going to come at a cost. The RCMP have been funded, paid, and treated as policing on the cheap for a long time. It's going to be a painful process as this changes, whether by agreement or binding arbitration.
