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The Canadian Police: a Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Brian Chapman
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Extract

THE CANADIAN POLICE SYSTEM IS VERY MUCH A LAW UNTO ITSELF. It does not have the authoritarian traditions of European countries and their successors in Communist regimes. It does not have the same societal involvement of the Japanese and Chinese arrangements. Since Canadians, unlike their southern neighbours, believe it is possible to be whole without being powerful, it does not have the American style cop. It shares many of the attitudes and disciplines of the British, but in institutional terms they are vastly different from each other.

To some extent these institutional peculiarities are matters of history, although not all of them are. Before Confederation each area had its own specific policing characteristics depending upon the time of settlement, the racial origin of the settlers and the characteristics of the country. In the cast the Maritime provinces (as they were to become) largely relicd upon military and naval patrols with provost marshals in the garrison towns, with some nightwatchmen on the civilian side. The countryside was little policed, although some local militias existed who could be called out if neccssary.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1977 , pp. 496 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1977

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References

1 Probably factors of the Hudson Bay Company had known of these deposits for some time and together with the Indian bands had established a monopoly.

2 The RIC had many similarities to the French Gendarmerie but there is no clear evidence of deliberate copying. The Colonial Office used the RIC as a model elsewhere; for example, the British South Africa Police.

3 The federal government retained the power ‘to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Canada’.

4 As it still does in the Yukon and the North West Territories.

5 They sometimes had trouble; they arrested railway gangers for possessing illegal hooch when they were in the territory of British Columbia. They were promptly arrested for false arrest by the BC Provincial Police since it was not an offence under British Columbia law.

6 Detachments had served in South Africa during the Boer War and had added glamour to Edward VII’s coronation.

7 Now responsible to the Solicitor General of Canada.

8 This, of course, excluded Newfoundland which did not join Confederation until 1947. As a Crown Colony it had as its principal provincial police force the Newfoundland Rangers, again reminiscent in many ways of the Royal Irish Constabulary, now defunct.

9 In 1904 there were 18 publicly known opium houses in Victoria, the capital. Vancouver was thought of as a major supply route to North America. Local gossip suggests that most of the imports were for home consumption, but the United States government was going through one of its periodic frenzies, and the Canadian authorities wished to be cooperative.

10 The origins of one of the best known brands of liquor in America.

11 A phrase repeatedly used by Duplessis during the election campaign of 1935.

12 Payments for expenses were paid from a parallel account kept by Me Aubé. One officer was refunded for travelling 300 miles in one day without ever leaving the streets in the near vicinity of police HQ in Montreal.

13 These social conditions favoured the RCMP. They enabled it to recruit men of the highest standards. In 1938 there was still a waiting list for interview of over a year. The only other police force which has been able consistently to impose such high standards of entry has been the Italian Carabinieri.

14 A branch of the Action Française had been created in 1924. On the other hand some of the best operatives in the Special Operations Executive were French Canadians.

15 The passage of the Act to disband the force itself was odd. It was tucked away as Chapter 57 of an Act to amend the ‘Police and Prisons Regulation Act’ (30 March 1950) together with miscellaneous items about pensions, provincial gaols, game wardens and probation officers.

16 It was, however, always wise to be prudent. Some surveillance teams who had neglected to inform the local chief were arrested by municipal officers who had been alerted by the reports of suspicious and zealous neighbours.

17 So named in 1840 to provide a welcoming touch to runaway slaves from southern American plantations seeking a place of settlement, reminding them of the Rio d’Oro in Africa. The climate, however. was different, and after some years they left.

18 A resistance fortified by financial considerations as Montreal’s budgeting for Expo 67 and the 1976 Olympic Games have cast some doubts on the City’s general prudence and capacity for cost control.

19 There was some confusion at first about this. Kidnapping and murder were clearly matters of the criminal law and therefore the responsibility of the provincial government. But Mr Cross, the diplomat, had diplomatic immunity, and as such his safety was the responsibility of the federal government. The Act was formally invoked by the federal government at the request of the City of Montreal and the Quebec provincial government reporting a state of apprehended insurrection.

20 Before the Act was invoked it is not certain that the military had the status of ‘peace officers’. Had arms been used they might have been liable for damages under the civil law, or in extreme cases under the criminal law.

21 The RCMP had consistently taken the lead in providing common services and establishing channels of communication and collaboration available to other police services.

22 As it was in Northern Ireland.

23 The evidence however suggested to an observer that the crime pattern was far more similar to that of Marseilles or Naples than to that of American cities such as New York, Buffalo or Detroit. An interesting example of cultural inheritance.

24 In 1976 the RCMP Fraud Squad charged prominent personalities in Montreal with corruption involving federal funds and Montreal international airport. When the Quebec authorities proposed to proceed by pre-enquête (a form of French law involving private hearings) the RCMP promptly filed charges in Ottawa to bring the cases before Ontarian courts.

25 The capital, Victoria, although a continuously built-up area, still has four municipal forces. The smallest also acts as a reserve fire brigade.

26 Not always successfully: a policy directive indicated drug-pushers rather than drug-takers as the principal priority. The Vancouver City Police promptly arrested thirteen drug-takers.

27 Twenty different ethnic groups celebrated the centenary in 1976 of the founding of St Catharine’s, Ontario, population 120,000, in full national costume with indigenous cuisine and dance.