RCMP to have dash cams in all cruisers by the end of 2019

Saskatchewan abandoned old in-car cameras before replacements ready

The Saskatchewan SASKATOON RCMP are spending about $4.5 million on 85 computer servers and 500 dashboard cameras to be installed in all cruisers in the coming months.

The national police force’s F Division made the announcement Tuesday, three months after a court decision revealed it broke ranks with 11 other divisions across Canada by abandoning its old in-car cameras before a new video recording system was fully operational.

“Following a successful pilot project that concluded on Aug. 31, 2017, Saskatchewan RCMP is moving forward with full implementation of the Watchguard In-Car Digital Video System,” F Division said Tuesday in a statement.

“The three pilot locations (White Butte, Southey and Saskatoon) have since been joined by 23 other detachments for a total of 26 locations that are now operational with video being recorded in vehicles.”

While all RCMP vehicles at the three pilot locations have functioning in-car cameras, installation is lagging behind server installation at its other locations and not all cruisers are fully-equipped, the statement noted.

The division said it expects the next four detachments’ servers to come online by the end of November, and an additional 30 to be operational next year. The remaining 25 detachments should be running before the end of 2019, according to the statement.

“We will continue to seek opportunities to speed this process up as funding and equipment become available,” it added.

The division will not provide updates or information on specific detachments “for security reasons,” the statement said.

F Division previously defended its decision to prioritize the purchase of C7 carbines and body armour rather than commit its “scarce resources” to maintaining its existing fleet of about 60 in-car cameras.

“We decided to invest in new technology and I don’t know if it would have been a good use of public funds to continue to try and prop up an old technology that you couldn’t get parts for anymore,” RCMP Superintendent Kris Vibe said in August.

Two prominent defence lawyers criticized the force’s lack of in-car cameras, arguing video footage not only protects citizens from potential abuses of police power, but also shields officers from frivolous complaints about their conduct.

The RCMP began using dash cams in the early 1990s and started looking for new systems in 2013. Eight divisions, including F Division, initially decided to spend $3.4 million on new cameras and servers with the aim of creating an integrated video database.

It emerged in July that F Division, which had already decided to stop maintaining its existing cameras, could not use $2 million worth of new dashcams because it had not yet developed a policy on how the resulting footage would be stored.

At the time, Saskatchewan, P.E.I. and Nunavut were the only RCMP divisions without fully-functioning dashcams.