Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still using his leverage to fundamentally change Canada’s future despite being replaced as Liberal party leader by Mark Carney on Sunday.
Trudeau announced his “intent to resign” more than two months ago at a press conference on March 6. Rather than call a snap election so Canadians can decide on the nation’s next leader, Trudeau clung to power and triggered a 77-day Parliamentary prorogation while the Liberals scramble to appoint a new leader.
A date has not been set for Carney to be sworn in as prime minister, allowing Trudeau to linger in his position indefinitely. And the embattled outgoing prime minister is using every opportunity he has to get a little more juice out of lemon long since gone sour.
Trudeau told the CBC the duties assigned to the Mounties across Canada need to be revamped to focus less on boots-on-the-ground policing and more on national security, which includes extremists, money laundering, terrorists and the fentanyl crisis — which the Liberals have been minimizing as a rampant issue since President Donald Trump brought it to attention publicly in November.
The RCMP is currently deployed to do local policing in most provinces and three territories, serving in 150 municipalities and about 600 indigenous communities — contracts that would end under Trudeau’s proposal. Provinces and territories pay only 70% of the cost of the local RCMP service, which critics of the restructuring say will be devastating if revoked.
"We know we have an extraordinary institution. But I know from having seen it that the RCMP is strained — we've all seen it — in dealing with the level of threats and the new reality of a much more dangerous world," Trudeau told the state broadcaster in a rare interview published Monday.
“The gap between doing necessary front-line enforcement in a rural community across the Prairies or in the North, to going after the evilest cybercriminals you can imagine who are threatening our kids [is so vast] it’s maybe not the best use of our resources.”
"As politicians, as leaders, we have a responsibility to step back and say, 'But is this fit for purpose in the 21st century?’”
Trudeau is reportedly expected to release a white paper on the matter later on Monday. He claims to have been thinking about RCMP reform “for probably 20 years” — though he’s never mentioned such a notion in his decade in leadership.
"I have been trying to do this since the very beginning. So this isn't me trying to jam something out the door," insisted Trudeau.
"This is me realizing that we're at a moment where we have to bring Canadians, all Canadians, into this conversation."
The white paper, or blueprint, will include a guide to future RCMP policing, including legislative restructuring, budget updates, negotiation processes and a new training academy.
The prime minister’s successor will follow through with his plans “if they want to take national security seriously, if they want to build on the responsibility of keeping Canadians safe,” declared Trudeau.
Contracts provinces and territories hold for RCMP policing expire in 2032. Trudeau’s white paper reasons they should start thinking of other solutions “now."
"I think, quite frankly, that 70-30 split — and the fact that the federal government delivers $800 million worth of value of policing that the provinces don't pay for every year — is something that we're looking to fix anyway," Trudeau said.