Canadians’ trust in the RCMP fell 21 percent percent following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to in-house research conducted by the force.
“Focus groups elicited rich and detailed information that helps us understand the reasons behind the Canadian public’s decreasing level of trust in the RCMP,” said the report, “Canadians’ Perceptions Of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” which was first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The report found the number of Canadians who expressed “trust and confidence in the RCMP’s contribution to public safety” fell from 74 percent in 2019 to 53 percent in 2022, before rising to 58 percent in 2023.
“Some were more inclined to trust individual RCMP officers but were generally distrustful of the RCMP as a whole,” said the report. “Often these participants had encounters with officers who displayed helpfulness, professionalism and were able to de-escalate or handle situations sensitively.”
The document also found that fewer than half of Canadians surveyed, 46 percent, considered the RCMP to be accountable. The groups of Canadians the least likely to trust the Mounties included indigenous and black people and rural residents, who had “low levels of confidence in their local RCMP detachment’s ability to respond to calls in a timely manner.”
The report’s findings were based on questionnaires with 26 focus groups. The RCMP paid $236,927 for the study by Ipsos.
The RCMP has been facing recruiting and retention difficulties in recent years. Despite several measures to increase recruitment and retention, the RCMP is short of its recruitment targets by nearly 10 percent, according to a report submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance in 2023.
The force said it had around 18,480 members—which is more than 500 short of its target of 19,000 members. The RCMP added in the report that 1,295 out of the total 18,483 funded regular member positions in the RCMP are currently vacant.
The report was dated April 19, 2023; one month before the resignation of then-RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki. While Ms. Lucki said her decision to step down was a “personal” one, she had faced calls by Conservative MPs and Alberta’s justice minister to resign following her response to the federal government’s invoking of the Emergencies Act.
During Ms. Lucki’s time as commissioner, the RCMP also faced a $1.1 billion class-action lawsuit over alleged harassment of members, and a public inquiry into RCMP misconduct in the 2020 Nova Scotia shooting rampage that left 22 dead.
MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee twice censured the RCMP at the time as evasive and uncooperative in concealing information from Parliament. In 2022, the committee faulted the Mounties for withholding evidence over their use of facial recognition technology and spyware.
“The committee would like to note the lack of cooperation shown by the RCMP,” MPs wrote in a report On-Device Investigative Tools Used By The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “The committee is not satisfied.”