The federal Liberals are ponying up nearly $240 million to equip RCMP officers across the country with body-worn video cameras in a bid to improve police accountability, but there are more big tickets asks coming from rank and file Mounties.
The new funding was announced in Monday’s fiscal update and includes $238.5 million spread over six years to buy the cameras and set up a system for collecting video, with an additional $50 million a year for maintaining the system when it is complete.
Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, the RCMP’s new union, said that in addition to funding the cameras, the federation has called for the government to spend $190 million to increase capacity at the force’s training academy and to accelerate plans to replace officers’ pistols at a cost of $40 million.
Sauvé said the RCMP’s service pistol, a decades-old weapon, needs to be replaced.
“We’re in a position now where the manufacturers, Smith and Wesson, does not make replacement parts anymore. They’ve been contracted out to third parties,” he said.
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