Political Security Corps (Royal Canadian Gendarmerie)

The Political Security Corps (RCG–PSC; French: Corps de la Sécurité politique, GRC–CSP) is a provost (military police) corps of the Royal Canadian Gendarmerie, which is tasked with ensuring the political orthodoxy and loyalty of the Canadian Armed Forces to the Government of Canada led by the CPC–ML. All officer corps units and most active-duty regiments or battalions of warrant officers and enlisted personnel have an attached section of between 5 and 15 RCG–PSC officers, known colloquially as "political officers" (officiers/officières politiques). The RCG-PSC is the only corps of the Gendarmerie (or any other service branch) which is made up entirely of members of the CPC-ML; it is also unique in that while it formally reports to the Department of National Defence (DND) along with all other non-civilian corps of the RCG in peacetime, its commanding officers simultaneously report directly to the Military Committee of the CPC-ML Politburo.

The primary responsibilities of political officers of the RCG-PSC are to ensure correct and comprehensive political education of all members of the unit to which they are assigned, maintaining morale via political understanding of the war effort, and questioning and (if necessary) arresting armed forces personnel who may be engaged in actively undermining the CPC–ML military–political line or other, possibly more serious, acts of subversion. Warrant officers of the RCG-PSC assist in the above at the direction of their superior commissioned officers, while enlisted members are tasked with three primary roles, namely providing security for the political officers within their section, arresting and detaining military personnel on political charges, and (only when absolutely necessary, when political theory has all but failed to maintain morale), contributing to barrier troop formations as infantry personnel, who set up closely behind advancing regular Army units, preventing unauthorised retreat on threat of field execution; this latter function has in many cases proved a decisive tactic in emerging victorious in important, strategic battles and even wars.

All personnel of the Political Security Corps can be recognised by their uniform, which is otherwise identical to the field camouflage uniform of other RCG corps, except for a red stripe about one inch in thickness down the outer side of each trouser leg, as well as a red band in the military hat (if applicable) or light-reflective red star on the standard issue RCG combat helmet. The corps emblem of the Political Security Corps, which is located on a red-bordered patch sewn onto the side of the right arm immediately below the shoulder, is also unique in that it is the only such corps emblem to feature communist symbology, namely the hammer-and-sickle symbol topped with a red five-pointed star, with a single silver sword sewn onto the patch seemingly behind the hammer-and-sickle, quite similar to the original shoulder patch of the Soviet Cheka.

The RCG–PSC is one of the smaller corps of the Gendarmerie, consisting of 22,405 personnel as of December 2020. It has its official headquarters and largest offices at CFB Comox, an airbase located within the municipal boundaries of Cape Lazo, Comox County in the Pacific province of Vancouver Island; CFB Comox is otherwise used only by the Aerospace Forces, and is considered the most important Canadian airbase on the west coast. The Political Security Corps also has major offices at CFB Esquimalt, the second-largest Canadian Forces Base used by the Navy according to personnel and warship capacity (after the naval headquarters of CFB Halifax) also on Vancouver Island near the provincial capital of Victoria, CFB Valcartier and CFB Longue-Pointe, both bases used primarily by the Army in southern Québec near the Saint Lawrence, and CFB Mackenzie King, a major naval station in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Canada's third-largest naval station by personnel and warship capacity.