OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, once a proud symbol of Canadian law and order, is now an institution in crisis. Reports that nearly 20 percent of members are off on sick leave confirm what many of us who have served and worked alongside the RCMP have known for years: the force is no longer capable of fulfilling its federal policing mandate.

Instead of standing at the forefront of the fight against transnational organized crime, terrorism financing, cybercrime, and foreign interference, the RCMP is bogged down in contract policing, backfilling gaps with temporary duty assignments, and diverting precious resources to VIP security. What was once a national force is now an overstretched patchwork, trying—and failing—to be all things to all people.

Canada’s experiment with a single, catch-all police service has failed. The RCMP was never designed to simultaneously manage small-town contract policing, high-level financial crime investigations, and the protection of politicians. Today, the cracks are undeniable. Provinces rely on the RCMP because it’s cheaper than funding their own forces, while Ottawa relies on the RCMP to guard VIPs because it has no dedicated protective service. The result? A federal police force that spends its time plugging local holes and babysitting politicians instead of targeting the global networks undermining our sovereignty.

The toll on RCMP members is devastating. With staffing shortages at every level, members are burned out, forced into temporary duty postings, and left unsupported in the face of rising public criticism. Morale has collapsed. Sick leave numbers are skyrocketing. The culture of the force is fraying. A police service that cannot sustain its own workforce is in no position to sustain public confidence.

Make no mistake: Canada is increasingly vulnerable. While the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia maintain specialized agencies to tackle financial crime, organized crime, and protective services, Canada continues to rely on a hollowed-out RCMP. Criminal networks—particularly those with transnational reach—are exploiting this weakness. Money launderers, fentanyl traffickers, cybercriminals, and hostile foreign actors know exactly where the gaps are.

As Sam Cooper reported for The Bureau last week, RCMP leaders — constrained not only by archaic laws but by incompetent and, some argue, politically neutered leadership — have shown a deeply troubling pattern of stonewalling the United States, Canada’s most critical law enforcement partner. This posture has led to inaction and a lack of cooperation on the Falkland superlab case and other major transnational drug trafficking organizations that threaten the national security of both countries. Former DEA chief Derek Maltz called the Falkland case a “major disaster.”

We cannot keep pretending that “business as usual” will fix this. Canada needs a bold new policing structure:

• A streamlined federal force laser-focused on organized crime, financial crime, cybercrime, and national security threats.

• A dedicated protective service agency for VIPs and diplomats, modeled on international best practice.

• A phased withdrawal from contract policing, allowing provinces and municipalities to assume full responsibility for frontline community policing.

This is not about tearing down the RCMP—it is about saving Canada’s capacity to police itself in an era of unprecedented threats. The current model is unsustainable, and tinkering at the edges won’t cut it.

For too long, politicians have lacked the courage to confront the RCMP’s structural crisis. They prefer to paper over cracks, pour money into stop-gap measures, and let the Mounties continue struggling under an impossible mandate. But every year we delay, Canada grows weaker, and criminal networks grow stronger.

It is time for Ottawa to show leadership and face reality: the RCMP, as currently structured, is no longer fit for service. If we fail to act now, we will pay the price in lost sovereignty, compromised security, and shattered public trust. The Bureau’s reporting on the Falkland lab case, and its apparent ties to the Trump administration levying crippling 35 percent tariffs on some Canadian products, demonstrates not only that Ottawa has lost the trust of some offices in Washington, but that the nation’s prosperity is now hanging in the balance of our failed policing and national security postures.

Former senior RCMP officer Garry Clement consults with corporations on anti-money laundering, contributed to the Canadian academic text Dirty Money, and wrote Canada Under Siege, and Undercover, In the Shady World of Organized Crime and the RCMP