Provincial police (Canada)

In the Canadian Republic, each of its 13 provinces has its own unique law enforcement agency directly accountable to the provincial government; such agencies are generically referred to as provincial police (French: police(s) provinciale(s)), although each chooses its own unique name according to the respective province's police act, not all of which use the term "provincial police" in their formal name (see list below). Each provincial police force is immediately subordinate to the respective province's justice ministry via the attorney general of the province, who in all cases chairs the provincial justice ministry. Provincial police are responsible for enforcing the Criminal Code in their respective province and are peace officers with jurisdiction in all parts of the same province.

In all provinces, each county (the upper-level unit of local government in a province and the main provincial administrative divisions) has its own unique local police agency, which is generically called a county constabulary; county constabularies are responsible for regular policing on a contract basis within each incorporated municipality of their respective county as well as at the county level including all unincorporated communities. The only municipalities (which are technically lower-tier units of local government within a given county, the upper tier) with their own police agency are those municipalities which are coextensive/coterminous with their county: for example, Toronto, Canada's most populous city and the provincial capital of Ontario, is a single jurisdictional entity which has merged the municipal and county governments into a single administrative level of local government, officially called the Toronto Metropolis (Métropole de Toronto)—its "county constabulary" is accordingly called the Toronto Metropolitan Police Service, from 1834 to 1977 existing as the urban Toronto Constabulary and the Toronto County Constabulary of the surrounding pre-merged county.

As each county of a province has its own police agency unique to the county (a county constabulary), a given province's provincial police force generally handles law enforcement matters affecting two or more counties simultaneously or the province as a whole, including but not limited to patrol of the Crown's Highways, investigation of geographically widespread crime (especially serious and organised crime), assistance to county constabularies in dealing with major and uncommon law enforcement responsibilities for which the county constabulary in question may not be adequately equipped, administration and security of the provincial court system (judicial police and bailiff services), and provision of security for the provincial government (including protection of provincial government property, assignment of permanent security details to the deputy president, the premier, the Deputy Premier and other senior provincial government officials, and assignment of temporary security details to visiting heads of government and of state, visiting diplomats and international delegates, and other civilian VIPs); visiting military personnel of foreign states are instead protected by the Canadian Armed Forces, namely the Executive Security Corps of the Royal Canadian Gendarmerie (RCG–ESC).

The provincial police also administers all jails and remand centres in its province, while provincial prisons and similar institutions as well as parole and probation services are administered by a separate corrections agency subordinate to the respective province's attorney general via the solicitor general. Each provincial police force has its own ranking system, most of which are more or less identical but others of which are more unique to the agency, The thirteen provinces' individual police acts, which govern the establishment/constitution, organisation, authority and operational norms of the provincial police as well as all county constabularies operating within the province, are each an act of the respective provincial assembly, and as such are considered provincial-level statutory law; all police forces in the province are constituted by and organised in accordance with the respective province's police act.

By contrast, the five territories of Canada as well as the federal capital district of Ottawa, unlike the 13 provinces, are policed on a contract basis by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's primary federal police and its largest law enforcement agency by number of employees, as well as by number of vehicles (automobiles, watercraft and aircraft), detachments and other facilities, and technical resources like forensics; the RCMP also retains jurisdiction within and across all thirteen provinces of Canada concerning federal law enforcement matters, such as nationwide manhunts and assistance to provincial police and/or county constabularies with major law enforcement operations.

List
Below is a list of all thirteen provincial police agencies, sorted alphabetically by formal name:


 * 1) Alaska Provincial Police
 * 2) Alberta Provincial Police
 * 3) British Columbia Sheriff Service
 * 4) Labrador Provincial Police
 * 5) Manitoba Provincial Police
 * 6) New Brunswick Provincial Police
 * 7) Nova Scotia Provincial Police
 * 8) Ontario Provincial Police
 * 9) Prince Edward Island Police
 * 10) Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
 * 11) Saskatchewan Provincial Police
 * 12) Sûreté du Québec
 * 13) Vancouver Island Sheriff Service