Operational divisions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's primary federal law enforcement agency, divides its activities and responsibilities into 13 operational divisions (French: divisions opérationnelles), each responsible for a particular area of operations and each headed by a ranking Assistant Commissioner.

Of the 13 divisions, ten are called "regional divisions", as they consist of the majority of RCMP personnel and resources within a particular geographical area. Five of these divisions are each individually contracted by Canada's five territories to provide all policing within the territory (at both the territorial and municipal/local level), as the five territories do not maintain law enforcement agencies of their own; these five divisions are the only part of the RCMP which may exercise their law enforcement authority at all three levels of government (federal, territorial/provincial, and local). The other five regional divisions each cover a region consisting of a group of provinces, and are responsible for law enforcement at the federal level within the region.

The last three divisions are the National Division, which is the uppermost part of the RCMP and concerns itself with Canada-wide law enforcement and domestic security matters, also administering the RCMP's police academy and training regime; the Liaison Division, which is primarily responsible for coordinating operations with Canada's 13 provincial police agencies, Ottawa's Metropolitan Police Service and other law enforcement and related agencies in the country, as well as with foreign law enforcement agencies; and the Special Operational Division, which is responsible for counterterrorism and rapid response to other extremely violent events, nationwide manhunts and major federal investigations, including the use of professional behaviour analysts and criminal and forensic psychologists.

List of divisions[edit | edit source]

  1. Western Regional Division (Alaska, BC, Vancouver Island)
  2. Central Regional Division (Prairies: Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan)
  3. Ontario Regional Division (Ontario and Ottawa)
  4. Quebec Regional Division (Quebec)
  5. Eastern Regional Division (Labrador, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI)
  6. 1st Territorial Regional Div. (Yukon)
  7. 2nd Territorial Regional Div. (Northwest Territories)
  8. 3rd Territorial Regional Div. (Nunavut)
  9. 4th Territorial Regional Div. (Greenland)
  10. 5th Territorial Regional Div. (Turks and Caicos Islands)
  11. National Division
  12. Liaison Division
  13. Special Operational Division