Whew, where to start?
First of all, you guys must have a mole in my office. My penchant for caffeine that's cold and in a can has been laid bare, and my efforts to quit chew with nicotine pouches is downright depressing at times... I digress.
I find the soon to be former Prime Minister's assertion that "I have been trying to do this since the very beginning. So this isn't me trying to jam something out the door," he said, when questioned about the timing of the proposal.
"This is me realizing that we're at a moment where we have to bring Canadians, all Canadians, into this conversation." insulting.
I'm pretty sure he actually spent most of his time speaking on the topic of the RCMP by calling us racists, bigots and an institution unsuited to modern policing. He even got the Commissioner before the current one to tell a parliamentary committee as much. So his above claims come as breathtaking news to me. He had nine years and change to make this happen, he didn't.
As far as the actual functional changes to the RCMP? There's lots to look at and consider here, but I'll limit myself to the couple things that immediately jump forward in my mind, and let the discussion go where it may.
I've said a couple times, on this forum, that the RCMP needs to limit if not abandon contract policing. I've suggested population caps above which the RCMP will no longer police the jurisdiction, as well as wholesale backing out and letting the Provinces figure it out. This would be a painful exercise for the RCMP, and every jurisdiction we police. There would have to be some sort of Federal money thrown at the places we were leaving, or the level of service would drop to dangerous levels.
If we do back out of contract in a limited or complete way, what are we still going to do? Federal policing obviously, but what else? Air Services? Forensic Identification? Police Dog Services? The Territories? Lots of these are specialty, high expense items the places we police won't be able to afford. In what way is Federal money going to be made available to assist these new police forces? Perhaps exclusively specialty support services? Would be an awful lot of back room politicking to sort that mess out.
What shape does Federal policing then take? Is the money actually going to be made available to retain members, form units, and do the work? I would like to think so, but there's an awful lot of vacancies in my local FSOC units and filling them would cost a lot of money the Feds have very much enjoyed not spending for the last 8 years of my career.
Finally, what becomes of the members? Who gets to stay, and who gets told to apply to our replacement forces? We wouldn't have room for everybody, even with the most generous expansion of Federal policing. How is that going to be done? Rank? Service level? The competency profile? Favourtism? The 'ol Mountie dogpile?
At the end of the day, to me, its all about the money. And nothing will happen quickly.
