Police and Crime Commissioner (Canada)

In the Canadian Republic, a Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC; French: Commissionnaire de la police et du crime, CPC) is an indirectly elected civilian official who is responsible for supervising a police board, which acts as the civilian oversight body and employer of a particular law enforcement agency, usually one of the 13 provincial police. Such police agencies answer to the respective province's Attorney General via their Solicitor General and a PCC.

For example, the British Columbia Police & Crime Commissioner oversees the Chief Constable of the British Columbia Provincial Police (BCPP) on behalf of the Attorney General of British Columbia, who appoints the Police & Crime Commissioner on advice of the Premier of British Columbia.

PCCs regularly meet with the Attorney General and/or Solicitor General of their province and sometimes even the province's premier, thus providing an invaluable link between the management of regular law enforcement and the provincial government and political apparatus.

There is no equivalent office to that of a PCC at the federal level of government; instead the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the federal government's main law enforcement agency, is led by the Commissioner of the RCMP, who unlike a Police & Crime Commissioner is the highest-ranking constable on the force, the RCMP's equivalent of a Chief Constable. The RCMP Commissioner answers directly to the Solicitor General of Canada.