ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE (Canadian Mounties)
In May 1873, the Parliament of Canada established a central police force. One hundred and fifty recruits were sent west to Manitoba. The new police force gradually acquired the name North-West Mounted Police (NWMP).
The following summer, Fort Calgary, on the Bow River in Alberta, and Fort Walsh, in Saskatchewan’s Cypress Hills, were established. By 1885, the Force had grown to 1,000 men, but in 1896 the force was reduced and eventually disband.
Support for the Force in the west prevailed, and it gained new prominence policing the Klondike Gold Rush.
Building a Legacy
In 1919, Parliament voted to merge the Force with the Dominion Police, a federal police force with jurisdiction in eastern Canada.
When the legislation took effect on February 1, 1920, the name became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and headquarters was moved to Ottawa from Regina.
The years following World War II saw a continued expansion of the RCMP’s role as a provincial force. In 1950, it assumed responsibility for provincial policing in Newfoundland and absorbed the British Columbia provincial police.
Women were first accepted as uniformed members in 1974. The seventies also brought an expansion of responsibilities in areas such as airport policing, VIP security and drug enforcement.
Today, the RCMP’s scope of operations includes organized crime, terrorism, illicit drugs, economic crimes and offences that threaten the integrity of Canada’s national borders. The RCMP also protects VIPs, has jurisdiction in eight provinces and three territories and, through its National Police Services, offers resources to other Canadian law enforcement agencies.
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