Blackmore shares reasons to keep the RCMP in Saskatchewan

Recently, some have suggested the province should replace the RCMP in Saskatchewan with a new provincial police force.

Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, the commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP, said she’s not worried about that talk, as the province has consistently stated the RCMP is Saskatchewan’s provincial police force and there are no plans to change that.

Blackmore spoke with Gormley on Friday to share her response to an article supporting the idea of replacing the RCMP with a provincial force. In that piece for Postmedia, authors Kevin Lynch and Jim Mitchell argued the Saskatchewan RCMP is controlled by Ottawa.

Blackmore said that’s not necessarily true.

“I provided a lot of information (on) how we deal with policing priorities and those types of things, and how they’re set within the province of Saskatchewan,” Blackmore said.
She noted the authors of the article are located in Ottawa themselves, while commenting on what’s best for Saskatchewan.

“There’s a little bit of irony there for me in that comment on Ottawa controlling the RCMP (not being) good for Saskatchewan, but individuals putting their opinion forward from Ottawa, they seem to be OK with that,” Blackmore said.

Even though Blackmore is in command of the RCMP in Saskatchewan, the police force is still bound to national policies, which is why some support the creation of a provincial police force like the Ontario Provincial Police and the Sûreté du Québec.

The assistant commissioner said her focus is on the policing priorities in Saskatchewan, and said that’s something Ottawa supports.

“That’s the expectation they have; that we have consultation with the province, with the people of Saskatchewan, with the elected officials, with First Nations communities, with RMs and all of the agencies that represent those individuals as we set and enact our policing priorities here,” she said.

“It’s very much on the local level that we do that.”

Blackmore said the RCMP developed detachment plans, which are meant to make sure those priorities are running from the bottom up.

“We’re not telling the people of Saskatchewan ‘Here’s what your policing priorities are,’” she said. “We want to hear from those communities, so we’re reaching out to elected officials, First Nations communities and leaders and saying, ‘What do you see as your policing priorities?’ ”

Blackmore said the ability to call in RCMP officers from other parts of the country is a huge asset that a provincial police force would not have. During the manhunt after a mass stabbing on the James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon during the summer, Blackmore said the Saskatchewan RCMP brought in more than 180 additional officers from across the country to help.

In addition to manpower, she said the RCMP can also bring in experts from around the country to help on complex cases.

“Those major crime investigators, those (forensic) investigators, those blood-spatter experts, they can walk into an RCMP file in Saskatchewan and it’s a seamless transition because they’re trained to the same standard on the same system,” Blackmore said.

Thirty per cent of the policing costs for the province are paid for by the federal government, Blackmore noted, but those in favour of a provincial police force argue Ottawa would still have to contribute financially because of its obligation to First Nations.

“Our First Nation policing is not completely funded by the federal government,” Blackmore noted. “It is still a cost-share arrangement between the federal government and the province.”

Even though the province recently created the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol and is working to create a Saskatchewan Marshals Service, Blackmore said she’s not worried about the RCMP’s future in the province.

She said provincial police agencies like the Highway Patrol work collaboratively with her officers.

“We’ve had incidents where we’ve called on our Highway Patrol counterparts to assist us on certain calls,” she said. “They’re very helpful to us.”