Hon. Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety: Senator, first, I’ll assure you that there will be transparency about the ways in which we are enhancing and modernizing contract policing services across this country. As you will you know and others in this chamber may know, the RCMP has recently become unionized, which is to say there’s representation of rank and file in the collective bargaining process that sets out, among other things, how we provide the RCMP with the resources and the tools they need in the communities where the RCMP has been contracted to provide policing services. I’ll just tell you a little bit about how that process is unfolding.

My officials, along with other branches within the government, are engaged directly with those provinces that have contracted through police service agreements with the RCMP. They are also engaged at the municipal level to ensure there is a way forward so that those communities and provinces that contracted the RCMP can recruit and retain the labour force that is necessary to ensure that we are providing public safety right across this country. We will be very transparent about how that process unfolds going forward.

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