DPR 2004-2005
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Summary Information

The RCMP at a Glance

Why We Exist

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is the national police service and an agency of the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, entrusted with keeping Canadians safe and secure. 

Building on a rich history of over 130 years of service to Canadians, we have kept pace with change, evolving into a modern police organization that is responsible for enforcing the law and preventing crime. 

Proud of our traditions and confident in meeting future challenges, we commit to preserve the peace, uphold the law and provide quality service in partnership with the communities we serve. Ultimately, we are accountable to the communities and partners we serve in the use of tax dollars and resources to accomplish our mandate.

Our Mandate

Based on the authority and responsibility assigned under Section 18 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act , in its simplest form, our mandate is: to enforce laws, prevent crime, and maintain peace, order and security in Canada and for all Canadians, and to protect Canadian and foreign dignitaries in Canada and abroad. 

Organizationally, this multi-faceted responsibility includes:

• Preventing and investigating crime and maintaining order;
• Enforcing laws on matters as diverse as health and the protection of government revenues;
• Contributing to national security;
• Ensuring the safety of state officials, visiting dignitaries and foreign missions; and, 
• Providing vital operational support services to other police and law enforcement agencies.

Our Vision

Increasingly, we are being asked to re-evaluate our role as Canada’s national police service. We must explore new options, embrace new partners, and encourage creative approaches as we strive to ensure safe homes and safe communities for Canadians. 

The future belongs to those who think and act creatively, who anticipate change and position themselves to lead it. We are committed to:

• Be a progressive, proactive and innovative organization; 
• Provide the highest quality service through dynamic leadership, education and technology in partnership with the diverse communities we serve; 
• Be accountable and efficient through shared decision making;
• Ensure a healthy work environment that encourages team building, open communication and mutual respect;
• Promote safe communities; and, 
• Demonstrate leadership in the pursuit of excellence.

In the face of these challenging, uncertain times, the vision for the RCMP is to be recognized throughout the world as an “organization of excellence”.

Our Core Values 

The RCMP is committed to, respects and reinforces Canadian institutions of democracy and is guided by the highest professional, ethical and people values – in a changing world, values form the foundation for management excellence. We are guided by the following core values: 

• Accountability
• Respect 
• Professionalism
• Honesty
• Compassion 
• Integrity

The RCMP – as an organization committed to the above mandate, vision, and core values – is inherently practicing the principles of sustainable development. Enabling and supporting community safety and security, demonstrating efficient decision making and accountability in managing resources, strengthening the organization through capacity building, and integrating sustainable business decisions and planning processes demonstrates the organization’s contribution to a future of social stability, economic prosperity and environmental integrity. 

For more information on our mission, vision and values, visit: www.rcmp.ca/html/vision_e.htm

Our Actual Strength

The on-strength establishment of the Force as of March 31, 2005 was:

• Commissioner – 1 
• Deputy Commissioners – 7 
• Assistant Commissioners – 24 
• Chief Superintendents – 52 
• Superintendents – 143 
• Inspectors – 346 
• Corps Sergeant Major – 1 
• Sergeant Major – 6 
• Staff Sergeant Major – 1 
• Staff Sergeants – 742 
• Sergeants – 1,616
• Corporals – 2,928 
• Constables – 10,136 
• Special Constables – 82 
• Civilian Members – 2,605 
• Public Servants – 3,867 

Total on-strength: 22,557

Where We Are Located

To deliver on our responsibilities, we have over 22,000 employees including regular and civilian members and public service employees. We are also fortunate to have over 75,000 volunteers to assist us in our efforts to deliver quality services to the communities we serve across Canada.

The RCMP is unique in the world since we are a national, federal, provincial and municipal policing body, and as a result, the men and women of the RCMP can be found all across Canada. 

Operating from more than 750 detachments, we provide: daily policing services in over 200 municipalities; provincial or territorial policing services everywhere but Ontario and Québec; and services to over 600 Aboriginal communities, three international airports, plus numerous smaller ones.

We strive to fulfill our commitment to you – to keep your homes and communities safe.

We are organized into four regions, 14 divisions, National Headquarters in Ottawa and the RCMP’s training facility – or “Depot” – in Regina. Each division is managed by a Commanding Officer and is alphabetically designated. Divisions roughly approximate provincial boundaries with their headquarters located in respective provincial or territorial capitals (except “A”, Ottawa; “C”, Montreal; and “E”, Vancouver).

Our Strategic Framework

The RCMP has a strategic framework in place that clearly links our operational mandate with our corporate mandate and, in turn, with government-wide objectives.

“Integrated Policing” is the overarching philosophy that permeates our strategic framework. This means working collaboratively with, and in, communities at all levels, and with the broader police and law enforcement community, both domestically and internationally, towards a common purpose and with shared values and priorities.

Ultimately, integrated policing could evolve to a “global strategic focus”, where investigative and enforcement activities and resources in the global law enforcement community are interoperable and leveraged collectively to ensure the best results/outcomes against international criminal threats.

The key elements of integrated policing include:

• Shared priorities, both domestically and internationally – determining the best way to leverage and maximize policing efforts and resources towards common objectives and long-term planning
• Free flow of intelligence – getting the right information to the right people at the right time and use of a broader range of information sources
• Interoperable systems – ensuring that intelligence and information systems are able to communicate across organizations and geographic locations
• Economies of scale – leveraging resources to make the most out of what we can dedicate to policing, and focusing on what we do best 
• Seamless service delivery – eliminating redundant services and activities and the fragmentation of functions

To maximize our effectiveness, we recognize the need to keep pace with global trends including rapid technological progress, an increasingly borderless world, growing concerns for personal security, economic globalization, and shifting values around traditional institutions.

The RCMP remains committed to devoting its efforts and resources in pursuing its five strategic priorities: Organized Crime, International Policing (including Peacekeeping), Terrorism, Aboriginal Communities and Youth. To do this, we work hand in hand with our colleagues and partners in Canada and around the world to deal with common threats to safety and security. 

Our success depends upon our capacity to continually improve, better execute, integrate and support our core functions in every part of the organization. To ensure that we are always on the right track, the RCMP has a strategic framework that clearly sets out our:

• Strategic goal: why we exist and what we are trying to achieve
• Strategic priorities: where we have to concentrate our efforts to achieve the goal
• Strategic objectives: core functions for achieving priorities and the strategic goal

Managing our performance on all of these elements is a key aspect of the framework.

Our Strategic Goal 

Our strategic goal is to work towards safe homes and safe communities for all Canadians. To achieve this, we need to become an organization of excellence, addressing our strategic priorities in a way that is accountable, guided by clear values, intelligence-led and collaborative. 

Our Strategic Priorities

Our strategic priorities are the areas of focus to achieve our strategic goal. They do not reflect everything that the organization does – only those things most important to achieving our strategic goal. 

Our strategic priorities include:

• Organized Crime: The challenges of globalization and technology call for a response based on intelligence, investigation, collaboration with domestic and international partners, and an enhanced technological capacity. We are focused on reducing the threat and impact of organized crime by disrupting, dismantling and preventing organized criminal groups, both domestically and internationally.
• International Police Services (Peacekeeping): We place priority on assisting countries to rebuild policing capacities, preventing importation of criminal activities and collaborating with foreign civilian police forces. We are focused on providing effective support of international operations/initiatives by using modern management and assessment practices to ensure that the services we provide meet the needs of our domestic and international clients and partners, and contribute to the common priorities of combating organized crime and terrorism.
• Terrorism: We are fully supportive of a multi-government response and commitment to border integrity and continental security. We are focused on reducing the threat of terrorist activity by preventing terrorists and extremists from operating in Canada and abroad. 
• Aboriginal Communities: We are committed to the long-term wellness and safety of Aboriginal communities by being involved in initiatives surrounding education, employment, health and cultural development. We are focused on finding ways to prevent and resolve conflict by continuing to build on crime prevention partnerships, restorative justice processes and our holistic and culturally-sensitive approach to problem solving. 
• Youth: We are focused on addressing the root causes of youth crime, establishing community partnerships, taking proactive education and prevention measures, and promoting restorative justice. To accomplish this, we strive to prevent and reduce youth involvement in crime, both as victims and offenders, by implementing a continuum of responses that are consistent with the Youth Criminal Justice Act and are designed to address root causes and enhance community capacity.

Our Strategic Objectives

Our success depends upon our capacity to continually improve, integrate and support our core functions in every part of the organization. The following ongoing commitments are critical to improving our core functions and essential to ensuring we realize our strategic priorities:

• Prevention and Education – We are focused on providing citizens with information and tools to avoid being victims of crime, and to discourage and avert involvement in criminal activities.
• Intelligence – We are committed to the analysis and provision of timely and accurate information on individual suspects, criminals, criminal groups and acts, vital to the RCMP and its partners in pursuing and responding to threats to society.
• Investigation – We are committed to undertaking diligent and detailed activities to establish facts surrounding Criminal Code violations and other offences for presentation in court.
• Enforcement – We are focused on taking action to respond to Criminal Code violations and other offences in order to capture and bring suspects to justice.
• Protection – We are committed to providing Canadian and foreign dignitaries with protective and security services, as well as protecting the traveling public through the Canadian Air Carrier Protective Program.