This article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Christian Leuprecht and Fred Kaustinen, October 28, 2025
To dismiss Pierre Poilievre’s unfortunate criticism of the putative politicization of the RCMP and its decision-making outright misses the mark on police governance.
In a recent interview with a Canadian podcaster, the Conservative leader accused RCMP brass, particularly former Commissioner Brenda Lucki, of turning a blind eye to the Trudeau government’s scandals, saying that “The leadership of the RCMP, frankly, is just despicable when it comes to enforcing laws against the Liberal government.” After political critics quickly called for an apology, Poilievre walked back his remarks.
The controversy is ultimately rooted in the potential for perception of bias owing to the lack of independent governance of the RCMP.
Across Canada (except Quebec), local police forces are subject to independent police governance by way of police boards (or commissions) whose appointees represent the interests of the community via provincial and local mandates.
In multiple provinces, the legislated role of a municipal police board, and First Nations police boards in federal-provincial funding agreements, is to ensure adequate and effective policing. Canada’s roughly 130 police boards are responsible for ensuring that police actions are aligned with the needs, values, and expectations of the community the police service serves.
Their main responsibilities include setting the overall policies for policing (without interfering in individual police actions), defining a police service’s strategic objectives and priorities (usually in a strategic plan), ensuring there’s enough funding for the service, hiring capable police leadership, and verifying (through evaluations and audits) that the police service is in fact complying with the board’s policies and meeting its goals.
Rather than opportunistically politicizing Poilievre’s comments, the Carney government—many of whose MPs served under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—needs to own them. Section 5 of the RCMP Act states explicitly that the RCMP is under the purview of the minister of public safety. The Liberal government has long resisted making the RCMP subject to independent oversight. This is particularly notable given that even Trudeau, frustrated with the RCMP, issued a white paper on federal police reform in the dying days of his government.
That same government’s 2019 approach to police reform was to bestow on the RCMP a Management Advisory Board. But as an advisory board, it is unable to engage strategically and has no teeth. The Board’s membership is stacked with government loyalists appointed by the federal government. Within months, its first chair, well-versed but ill-experienced in police governance, promptly quit in utter frustration.
Why, then, is the Carney government obfuscating its staunch opposition to the proper and proven remedy to perceived politicization of police? Ostensibly, that would limit the federal government’s political remit.
Whether perceived or actual, the risk of political interference in RCMP decision-making will persist until the federal government finally commits to genuine reform of RCMP governance. Rather than setting the gold standard, the government’s performative approach to reform continues to lag provincial efforts to modernize policing and police governance.
Christian Leuprecht is a professor at the Royal Military College and Queen’s University and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Fred Kaustinen is founder of Governedge, a police governance consulting firm.
