Parliamentary Committee Notes: RCMP Reform and Policing

Commitments:

• Enhance the RCMP Management Advisory Board
• External review of the RCMP’s sanctions and disciplinary regime
• Externalize the Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution (ICHR)
• Engage with provinces, territories and municipalities to better connect the RCMP with community social support workers
• Timelines for responses to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission recommendations
• Prohibition of neck restraints and the use of tear gas or rubber bullets and national standards for the use-of-force
• External review of de-escalation
• Conduct an assessment of contract policing

Overarching message on progress and priorities

The Government has made progress in accelerating reform of the RCMP. For example:

• The Government has issued direction setting out clear expectations for the RCMP’s use of its Management Advisory Board and has taken steps to improve the transparency of the Board’s work.
• The Government has advanced its assessment of contract policing through engagement with officials from provinces and territories municipalities, Indigenous communities and others.
• The RCMP is a partner in the new nationwide crisis hotline or       9-8-8, which helps to de-escalate individuals experiencing a suicide crisis. This initiative is an example of a shift from intervention-based models to more preventative, community-led policing services.
• The RCMP has established a new decision-making model on discipline and misconduct that is outside of the regular chain of command. This improves fairness and consistency of disciplinary decisions.

Enhance the Management Advisory Board to create an oversight role over the RCMP

• The Management Advisory Board has a legislative mandate to review and provide advice to the Commissioner of the RCMP on a variety of matters, including the efficient and effective functioning of the RCMP.
• Ministerial direction was provided to the RCMP Commissioner, along with a letter to the Chairperson of the Board, to set out the expectations for the RCMP when communicating with the Management Advisory Board, and to improve transparency and collaboration between the Board and the RCMP.
• Steps have been taken to improve the transparency of the Management Advisory Board. The Board now has an independent website where it publishes its reports and advice to the Commissioner. As of February 2024, the RCMP is now also highlighting its responses to the Board’s advice on its external website.

External review of the RCMP’s sanctions and disciplinary regime

• In response to the concerns raised by the Honourable Michel Bastarache in his final report on the Merlo-Davidson settlement, the RCMP contracted an expert consultant to conduct a review of its conduct (“disciplinary”) measures.
• The goal of the review was to ensure the RCMP's conduct measures met modern expectations of fairness, transparency and effectiveness, and that measures are being applied properly and consistently.
• The review resulted in the creation of a new, dedicated decision-making model outside the regular chain of command, with specialized training and legal support to effectively manage serious misconduct and harassment matters.
• This change allows for robust oversight of serious misconduct, improves consistency and increases the independence of decision-making in the disciplinary process.
• The RCMP will also adopt presumptive dismissal for the most serious misconduct and increase its use of demotions for misconduct related to leadership and supervision.
• Additionally, updates to the RCMP’s Conduct (disciplinary) Measures Guidebooks are underway and expected to be completed in Summer 2024.
• Appropriately addressing misconduct and ensuring professional workplace behaviour is important for deterrence and prevention.
• It is also an essential part of maintaining the trust of all those employees who do uphold the RCMP core values and are guided by their respective code of conduct at work and in their daily lives. 

Externalize the Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution (ICHR)

• At this time, the focus is on strengthening the independence of the internal harassment resolution process that supports RCMP employees.
• Measures to further externalize the RCMP’s harassment resolution process are also being assessed.
• There has been extensive analysis and stakeholder consultations ─ including with the RCMP’s Management Advisory Board ─ to inform the path forward for the Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution.

Connect the RCMP with community social support workers

• Work continues to better connect the RCMP with community social support services. A key example is the nationwide crisis hotline – 9-8-8 – which was launched last November.
• It is available to all people in Canada to call or text for trauma-informed and culturally-competent suicide prevention and emotional distress support, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week, in English and French.
• 9-8-8 functions as a network of distress lines distinct from 911/emergency services, to help de-escalate individuals experiencing a suicide crisis.
• If an emergency intervention is required, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has an established protocol for transferring a call to emergency services when someone’s life is in imminent danger, which is already used with Talk Suicide Canada, and is also leveraged for 9-8-8.
• This initiative represents a shift from intervention-based models to more preventative, community-led policing models that employ tiered policing, and better integrates policing with other social programs, such as health and mental well-being services.

Timelines for responses to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission recommendations

• The RCMP continues to meet its six-month timeline for responding to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission’s interim reports.
• The Government introduced Bill C-20, an Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission. This Bill would codify the required timelines for RCMP to respond to the Commission’s interim reports and specified activity reviews.

Prohibition of neck restraints and the use of tear gas or rubber bullets and national standards for the use-of-force

National Standards for Use-of- Force

• The RCMP does not support the use of any technique(s) by police that constrict an individual’s airway (e.g., chokehold).
• 99.9 per cent of all RCMP occurrences continue to be resolved without the application of a police intervention option.
• The RCMP’s approach aligns with the advice of the Management Advisory Board and with assessment of data and medical evidence.
• The RCMP is conducting an environmental scan of provincial and territorial use of force standards, including a survey of agencies which will examine intervention-option-specific training and recertification, thresholds for use, restrictions, and prohibitions.
• Using this work, the RCMP plans to develop a report outlining ‘industry standards’ and national intervention-specific guidelines or model policies that could be shared with agencies or endorsed by the Canadian Association of the Chiefs of Police, similar to the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s approach.

Prohibitions:

• The goal in any police interaction with the public is to de-escalate and achieve a peaceful resolution.
• There will be exigent circumstances where intervention is required to ensure officer and public safety. In these incidents the use of intervention options should always be necessary, proportional, reasonable, and lawful.
• We remain committed to ensuring that tools such as CS Gas (i.e., tear gas), Extended Range Impact Weapons, and the Carotid Control Technique are strictly limited.
• A number of organizations, such as the Management Advisory Board and the National Police Federation, have looked at these issues.
• In addition, the RCMP sought an independent, third party medical study on the Safety of Vascular Neck Restraint Applied by Law Enforcement Officers.

If pressed for additional details:

• The RCMP is committed to keeping the Management Advisory Board informed by April 2024 on continued progress toward the full implementation of the Board's recommendations.
• In line with the recommendations of the Management Advisory Board and with assessment of data and medical evidence, the RCMP is acting to:
• Revise the annual mandatory incident management / intervention model (IMIM) recertification training;
• Review the Tactical Support Group policies, procedures, and course training standards; and,
• Continue to disclose of all uses of the carotid control technique, CS Gas and the 40mm Extended Range Impact Weapon via the publicly available annual RCMP Police Intervention Options Report.

If Pressed regarding general RCMP use of force

• Between 2010 and 2022, there was a 38 per cent overall decline in the application of police intervention options as a percentage of occurrences.

External review of de-escalation

• The RCMP has been collaborating with the Canadian Association of the Chiefs of Police Use of Force Advisory Committee and academia on a review of de-escalation training.
• At the August 2023 Canadian Association of the Chiefs of Police Annual General Meeting, a project proposal was presented regarding the external review of de-escalation training. The Use of Force Advisory Committee unanimously supported the project and work is already underway.
• The RCMP is working to develop a survey of agencies to examine their adoption of proprietary or internally developed de-escalation training. The survey will also look at the core components underlying their training, such as the involvement of mental health experts and persons with lived experience.
• This is being done to generate a report outlining ‘industry standards,’ to highlight evidence and best practices and provide a summary of current de-escalation training programs that could be shared with agencies or endorsed by the Canadian Association of the Chiefs of Police.

Conduct an assessment of contract policing

• The contract policing assessment was initiated in March 2023. Engagement sessions have been held with officials from all provinces and territories that receive contract policing services, as well as over 100 municipalities and municipal associations, a number of Indigenous communities and other key stakeholders.
• A draft “What We Heard” report is being finalized and will be published on the Public Safety Canada website in the coming weeks. The Report summarizes the feedback that was shared during the engagement sessions.
• Key findings include:
  • general satisfaction with the RCMP and the critical work of front-line members;
  • the need for a more flexible local decision-making so that policing approaches, policies, and practices are more responsive and reflective of community needs;
  • concerns with rising costs and the RCMP’s ability to recruit and fill vacancies; and,
  • a desire for modern policing approaches such as community-led/tiered policing models which are better integrated with health and wellness services.

Date modified:

2024-08-07