MOUNTIES WANT MORE THAN BODY CAMERAS.
OTTAWA • The federal Liberals are ponying up nearly $ 240 million to equip RCMP officers across the country with body-worn video cameras in a bid to improve police accountability, but there are more big tickets asks coming from rank-andfile Mounties.
The new funding was announced in Monday’s fiscal update and includes $238.5-million spread over six years to buy the cameras and set up a system for collecting video, with an additional $ 50 million a year for maintaining the system when it is complete.
Mary-liz Power, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, said they believe the cameras will help the police force connect with the communities they serve.
“This program will strengthen public trust in the RCMP, increase transparency and accountability, and build on our commitment to strengthen trust and relationships with racialized and Indigenous communities,” she said in an email.
She said as of Monday, there are currently two RCMP officers on each shift in the force’s detachment in Iqaluit wearing body cameras, with the plan to expand it to the whole detachment by early next year.
“We will grow the number of officers equipped with these cameras. Data from this pilot will inform our strategy for a broader rollout of these cameras.”
The RCMP currently has approximately 18,500 officers working across the country, though not all in front-line roles.
Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, the RCMP’S new union, said they welcome the cameras and are glad the RCMP won’t be forced to cut other programs to pay for them.
“Our members, by and large, want to see body worn cameras,” he said. “Obviously the devil is in the details as to how they roll out, when they get to be turned on, when they get to be turned off, all the privacy implications of Canadians as well as our members.”
Sauvé and his members also have other demands for the government and he said he hopes to see them rolled out in the spring budget.
In addition to funding the cameras, the federation has called for the government to spend $ 190 million to increase capacity at the force’s training academy and to accelerate plans to replace officers’ pistols at a cost of $40 million.
Sauvé said the force is graduating roughly 1,000 officers a year, but is losing nearly as many to retirement and attrition. He argued the country needs to double that number to get more officers into the communities that need the additional help.
“The resources on the ground are overworked already, the mandate continues to expand and ... we probably need to focus some more federal police officers into border integrity,” he said. “We only have a net gain of about 100 to 150 cops per year and that’s just not enough.”
The National Police Federation formally became the first union to represent Mounties just last year and has yet to negotiate its first contract with the government.
Sauvé said they believe that higher compensation negotiated in that first deal will serve as a recruitment tool to bring more people into the RCMP and said the force could even look abroad to recruit new officers from other commonwealth nations.
Sauvé said the other desperate area for improvement is with the RCMP’S service pistol, a decades-old weapon, which he argues needs to be replaced.
DATA FROM THIS PILOT WILL INFORM OUR STRATEGY FOR ROLLOUT.
“We’re in a position now where the manufacturers, Smith and Wesson, does not make replacement parts anymore. They’ve been contracted out to third parties,” he said.
He said officers in the field have so far not dealt with weapons that jam or misfire, but the weapons are old and they have to be replaced well before that becomes a possibility.
“We have not had any challenges in the field in service, but there have been challenges in training,” he said. “You don’t need a paperweight when you need a gun.”
He said he is not concerned the government chose to fund the body cameras first and he is optimistic the other items will be included in the budget this spring.
He said it is probably too early for the finance minister to include funding for salary increases for officers, because those talks have a way to go.
“Negotiations are ongoing and they might be ongoing for quite a while.”