Green is the New Black: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Militarisation of Policing in Canada

Editors’ Note: Stocktaking of an Emergent Field After Five Years of the Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies

“…While private military contractors have become essential players on the battlefield, for example, they neither enjoy a typical state-sanctioned mandate nor exist exclusively to defend a particular state. Further, militaries are increasingly being used in humanitarian aid and emergency relief; in certain nations, meanwhile, the broader issue of societal security falls to the military organisation (Dahlberg & Stevnsborg, 2021;Jensen, 2018;Madsen, 2020). As a result, military research increasingly overlaps with other well-known areas of study such as defence studies, strategic studies, war studies, peace and conflict studies, and security studies.…”

How emergency response teams access tactical armoured vehicles in Canada

“…Black respondents from the Lockwood et al (2018) survey were less in favour of the use of military weapons and equipment when it comes to riot and crowd control compared with issues related to terrorism, drugs and gang violence. Madsen (2020) also shares concerns over perceptions of police militarization towards the general public. He argues that ‘the display of armoured vehicles, green-uniformed tactical units, and military-type assault weapons reinforces the perception of increased militarisation amongst Canada's national police force [RCMP]’ (Madsen, 2020: 123).…”

“…Madsen (2020) also shares concerns over perceptions of police militarization towards the general public. He argues that ‘the display of armoured vehicles, green-uniformed tactical units, and military-type assault weapons reinforces the perception of increased militarisation amongst Canada's national police force [RCMP]’ (Madsen, 2020: 123). These concerns about the perceptions of militarization are consistent with other academic conceptualizations of police militarization, which view ERTs as necessary components of policing, but show greater concern toward the police application of ERTs in comparison with their existence (Cyr et al, 2020).…”

Time to drop the mounted: Reimagining a Royal Canadian Gendarmerie

“…As part of contract policing with the provinces, the RCMP/ GRC regularly deploys its specially trained personnel and paramilitary capabilities in numbers when Indigenous and environmental concerns clash with economic interests and the power of the state in the form of court-issued injunctions (Madsen, 2020). In British Columbia, large-scale protesting of clear-cut logging practices at Clayquot Sound and Haida Gwaii provoked a RCMP/GRC response and for those defying, arrests (Isitt, 2022).…”

“…The Prime Minister and senior officials appear ready to entertain such a course of action that narrows down the scope and size of the RCMP/GRC, long advocated by expert opinion (MacCharles, 2023). The RCMP/GRC's current construct encompasses gendarmerie, national security agency, as well as federal, provincial and municipal police service in one organization with a paramilitary tradition and the attributes of a modern police service delivering high and low policing at various levels (Madsen, 2020). The RCMP/ GRC performs many functions on behalf of the Canadian state, but does so in a less than optimal fashion because of ambiguity about its exact nature and reluctance to acknowledge its fundamental gendarmerie character.…”