Question Period Note: RCMP Recruitment

CBC published an article in response to the Management Advisory Board’s report on RCMP’S cadet training program.

•The RCMP, like other police organizations and many other sectors, is facing recruitment challenges.
•Recruitment remains a top priority for the RCMP, and they are committed to filling the vacancies across the organization.
•The RCMP is modernizing the recruitment approach to identify and rectify barriers that have impeded Women, Black, Indigenous, and other racialized groups from being successful in the application process. For example, RCMP has amended the residency thresholds for Permanent Residents from ten to five years and continues to deliver the Indigenous Pre-Cadet Training Program (IPTP) and will be launching the Diverse and Inclusive Applicant Experience which provide a hands-on experience at the National Training Academy (Depot) for three weeks, to prepare prospective applicants from equity-seeking communities for success in a career with the RCMP.
•In adopting the recommendations of the 2020 Integrated Assessment of the Recruiting Program and the End-to-End Review of the Recruitment Process, the RCMP has taken and continues to take multiple steps to combat systemic racism. In March 2022, it established a Recruitment Modernization Team to identify and support recruitment modernization opportunities, including targeted investment in both attracting and developing Indigenous talent. One of its significant goals is to empower diverse recruitment by developing culturally relevant assessment methods for Northern and equity seeking applicants.
•The RCMP is working closely with the Management Advisory Board and is taking concrete action to implement their recommendations with respect to how the RCMP attracts applicants, and trains their cadets for modern day policing.

The RCMP serves more than 500 Indigenous Nations and communities across Canada. They recognize the need for tailored approaches for Indigenous communities and for increased representation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in the organization. The organization is working proactively to develop solutions to meet the needs of communities and address challenges with systemic racism and bias through a multi-pronged recruitment renewal agenda.

In adopting the recommendations of the 2020 Integrated Assessment of the Recruiting Program and the End-to-End Review of the Recruitment Process, the RCMP has taken and continues to take multiple steps to combat systemic racism. In March 2022, it established a Recruitment Modernization Team to identify and support recruitment modernization opportunities, including targeted investment in both attracting and developing Indigenous talent. One of its significant goals is to empower diverse recruitment by developing culturally relevant assessment methods for Northern and equity seeking applicants.

The RCMP is making progress on its First Nations, Inuit and Métis Recruitment Strategy, led through an Indigenous lens, which will continue to examine how systemic barriers can be further mitigated and eliminated to successfully support greater diversity and representation among applicants.

A positive initiative piloted in the North in partnership with Makigiaqta is the Assisted Applicant Training Program. This initiative provides Inuit applicants with the literacy and numeracy skills required to be successful in the RCMP assessment process, and comes from an understanding that having Inuit serve as RCMP officers breaks down barriers between the police and the community.

A significant barrier to applicants in terms of time and travel costs was the face-to-face career presentation and proctored entrance exams which have been replaced with using virtual technologies. The new cognitive aptitude assessment that is adaptable, technology enabled, and most importantly, bias reducing has been implemented to assesses candidates’ suitability for employment as police officers. A deterrent to many diverse candidates applying has been the mistrust of the polygraph interview process. They are pivoting to a risk-based approach relying primarily on other evaluation tools to assess suitability. One such example is the modernized Recruitment Evaluation Centre, that is more in keeping with modern, culturally appropriate assessment methods and allows the opportunity to observe the candidates working as a team responding to realistic scenarios.

Along with modernizing the recruitment approach, the RCMP has contracted a Recruitment Market Research company and a Recruitment Marketing Strategy company that will enhance its attraction of candidates from diverse backgrounds and target geographic locations where ideal candidates reside.

Many recommendations from the Management Advisory Board and the Mass Casualty Commission (MCC) reports specific to the RCMP Training Academy align with work that is currently under way. The Cadet Training Program is in a state of constant evolution, not only responding to various recommendations and changes in the law, but also informed by proactive internal review processes.

Following an evidence-based approach, RCMP’s Training Academy collaborates each day to enhance the training curriculum. Over the past three years this has resulted in unprecedented improvements to training standards in areas such as intercultural competence, anti-racism, and unconscious bias awareness; training in police interventions, sexual assault investigation, conflict management, de-escalation, and leadership.

In addition, an independent end-to-end review of the program is underway to enhance cultural issues and diversity considerations within the Training program.

The Academy continues to embrace modern police training solutions through partnerships with organizations such as Defense Research and Development Canada and the National Research Council. These partnerships focus on enhancing de-escalation training to improve police response to people in mental health crisis. The Depot Training Academy has established relationships with Regina, British Columbia, and McMaster universities, and others, and have recently partnered with the First Nations University as the RCMP evaluates reconciliation-based training for police.

The educational elements of the Cadet Training Program contribute to better-prepared RCMP Members, able to serve Canadians by valuing diversity and building partnerships by becoming aware of systemic biases, and empowering members to apply an intersectional lens to their work to be actively anti-racist.

None