Dudley Do Wrong

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, colloquially  known as the RCMP or the Mounties, has played a large role in Canada, since it’s birth 158 years ago. We grew up watching Dudley-Do-Right, loyal, conscientious, yet somewhat dimwitted, who was in hot pursuit of his love interest, Nell Fenwick, from relentless kidnappers Boris and Natasha. The only thing they did get right was the dimwitted part.  

The RCMP, originally the Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP), Canada’s National Police force, were the colonial police utilized to do government’s bidding against the indigenous population. The RNWMP policies were not lost on the newly minted force and it’s not surprising that this violent tradition is still carried out.

The RCMP’s mandate was to uphold and enforce the Indian Act. From the late 1800s to 1996, the RCMP acted as “truant officers, locating and returning runaways to their residential schools known for the psychological, physical and sexual abuse on the students, all known to the RCMP. Complaints from indigenous parents and communities were dropped and left uninvestigated. The RCMP assisted in ripping Indigenous children from the arms of their parents, robbing them of their language, culture, and family.

It was crucial for the nation to assimilate the indigenous population, regardless of the circumstances. The goal was to control radical elements within the Canadian population. Radical elements are thought to be reflected in capitalism (how much more radical can one discover in a tenet that affords everyone at the top everything and keeps those at the bottom with nothing?), but in labor movements, communism, and essentially anything that contradicts capitalism.

The test of the newly minted RCMP’s mandate, was in 1933 during the Winnipeg General Strike in which four coal mine strikers were killed when the RCMP drew fire in Bienfait, Saskatchewan. The strikers and their supporters were on parade to bring attention to public of their grievances – work conditions; fair wages and the monopoly of the company’s general store. There was no confusion what the RCMP’s role was. It was not to protect the rights of Canadians but to protect colonialism. It’s a mandate that hasn’t changed much since.

Spying  on the activities of “radical” groups by the RCMP, including immigrants, have always been a large part of their activities. Shrouded in secrecy, the RCMP was Canada’s premiere Spy Agency until the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was created in 1984 .Anyone thought to be a threat to national interest fell under their purview.

The RCMP was a central figure in Canada’s shameful residential school legacy. From the late 1800s to 1996, the RCMP served as “truant officers”, locating and returning indigenous runaways to residential schools that had a long sordid history of mental, psychological and sexual abuse, as well as homicide. They assisted in ripping indigenous children from the arms of parents, robbing them of their language, culture, and family. Complaints from indigenous parents and communities were dismissed and often unrecorded.

The RCMP was the predecessor of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). CSIS is a formidable Canadian security agency that learned their operational skills from the RCMP.  Spying is as ingrained in Canadian culture as maple syrup is

In the 1930s, the RCMP spying activities focused on domestic political radicalism. This included leftists, socialist and communist organizations, unions ,, feminists, homosexuals, academics, peace activists, and anyone they considered radical. In post-WWII, thousands of Canadians were monitored, and those felt to be a potential threat were interned into camps just as the government had done to the Japanese during WWII.

The program PROFUNCT (Prominent Functionaries), established in 1948, kept the RCMP busy as they built dossiers on notable figures, including Prime Ministers Lester Pearson, John Diefenbaker, and Pierre Elliot Trudeau; Margaret Trudeau; Premiers Bob Rae, Tommy Douglas, and René Lévesque; authors Farley Mowat and June Callwood; and journalist/broadcaster Pierre Berton. Anyone who challenged Canada’s established order were of the RCMP’s interest.

Operation Picnic (1951) allowed wiretapping of alleged spies and subversives with the approval of the federal government. In the 60s, the RCMP set out to identify homosexuals in public service using the “fruit machine” designed to measure the reaction of their subjects to homosexual imagery. This was known as the War on Queers. ¹

The RCMP’s activities continued without challenge or civilian oversight for the span of almost thirty years. In 1977, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau established the Royal McDonald Commission to investigate the RCMP’s   unsavory illegal acts directed against Québec separatists. The RCMP had plenty to worry about and went about shredding incriminating documents.  Out of the commission’s findings, the RCMP was stripped of its domestic security intelligence mandate and placed it in a new founded agency, CSIS. This did not stop the RCMP from their spying activities.

Since then, it has come to light that the RCMP continued to surveil environmental activists, passed on “faulty” information regarding Maher Arar to the FBI, who underwent extraordinary rendition to Syria to be tortured for an entire year, conducted surveillance on journalists two Joel-Denis Bellavance and Gilles Toupin, who wrote about a leaked conversation with a terrorist suspect, has violated the privacy rights of Canadians through facial recognition technology and spyware installed on phones and computers and has shared information (often faulty) with foreign intelligence agencies.

The RCMP has had their  hands slapped, their surveillance agenda removed from the agency’s responsibility, yet their underhanded spying of Canadians has continued. Their failure to act on intelligence in the Air India bombing case, their dismissiveness involving Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), refusal to properly investigate serial killer Robert Pickton, the shortcomings of how the recent Nova Scotia mass shooting case was handled, and their inability to protect government witnesses continue to plague the agency. 

In BC, the C-IRG division of the RCMP, operating openly against Indigenous land defenders protesting natural resource exploitation, was recently rebranded as “CRU-BC.” The unit will “monitor and respond to opposition to major projects—projects that may be pushed through under new legislation B.C. Premier Eby says is necessary to deal with a tariff war launched by Donald Trump” 1.

Rather than disbanding an agency incapable of ceasing its surveillance activities, the RCMP continues to gain power, including surveillance. The scandal driven RCMP is an ineffectual, rogue agency that not only fails to mitigate or solve cases, but fails to uphold the minimal level of respecting the rights of Canada’s citizens.  The government’s proposed legislation will only further empower them. It seems nothing will stop them.

¹ Pasternak, S. (2025, August 21). Controversial B.C. RCMP unit to police opposition to fast-tracked resource projects.Breach Media.  https://breachmedia.ca/rcmp-unit-controversial-police-opposition-fast-tracked-resource-projects/.