Provincial police (Canada)

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

In all provinces, each county (the upper-level unit of local government in a province and the primary provincial administrative division) has its own local police agency, which is generically called a county constabulary; county constabularies are responsible for regular policing at the county level and are contracted by each incorporated municipality within the respective county to provide policing services at the municipal level as well. The only municipalities with their own police force are those which are coterminous with a county: for example, Toronto, Canada's most populous city, is a single local jurisdiction which has merged the municipal government and county government into a single administration, called the Toronto Metropolis—its "county constabulary" is the Toronto Metropolitan Police Service.

As each county of a province has its own police force, the provincial police generally handle law enforcement matters affecting two or more counties or the province as a whole, including but not limited to patrol of provincial highways, investigation of cross-county 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 equipped, administration and security of the provincial court system (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 and senior members of the provincial government such as the premier, and assignment of temporary security details to visiting VIPs). The provincial police also administer all jails and remand centres in their province, while provincial prisons and similar institutions as well as parole and probation services are administered by a separate corrections agency subordinate to the attorney general via the solicitor general. Each provincial police force has its own ranking system, some of which are identical but others of which are unique to the agency.

All thirteen provinces each have their own "police act" (such as the British Columbia Police Act), which govern the establishment and operational norms of the provincial police service as well as all county constabularies operating within the province; all police forces in the province are constituted by and in accordance with the province's police act. The five territories of Canada as well as the federal capital district of Ottawa, unlike the provinces, are policed on a contract basis by a division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's primary federal and largest police force, which also has jurisdiction within and across the thirteen provinces concerning federal law enforcement matters.

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


 * 1) Alaska Sheriff Service
 * 2) Alberta Sheriff's Office
 * 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 Service
 * 10) Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
 * 11) Saskatchewan Provincial Police
 * 12) Sûreté du Québec
 * 13) Vancouver Island Sheriff Service