2026 Report of the Auditor General of Canada: Recruiting for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss our report on recruiting for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which was tabled in March of this year. I’d like to begin by recognizing that we are meeting on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. With me today is Sami Hannoush, the principal who was responsible for the audit, and Maria Pooley, the director who led the audit team.
The audit found that although the RCMP identified recruitment as a top priority in 2018, it did not know how many police officers it needed to fully staff the force. The RCMP set recruitment targets that fell well short of its staffing needs and did not recruit as many officers as planned. Our analysis of RCMP data found that the shortage had gotten worse since 2023, with at least 3,400 additional police officers needed as of September 2025.
The RCMP also missed its target processing time for 97% of employment applications, making it harder to fill training classes with enough cadets. Successful applications took an average of 330 days to process, and processing times got longer over the audit period. Over the 30 months we examined, the RCMP filled only 18% of its cadet training classes to the maximum capacity of 32 cadets. In other words, the RCMP sent only 2,412 cadets to Depot for training out of almost 3,000 spots. That meant that fewer cadets entered training than planned, limiting the RCMP’s ability to reduce its staffing shortage.
Shortages of front-line RCMP officers were widespread across Canada. As of September 2025, 9 of the 11 provinces and territories where the RCMP provides front-line services had vacancy rates above the force’s critical threshold of 7%. This shortage also limited the number of experienced front-line officers that the RCMP could transfer to fill vacancies elsewhere in the organization.
In 2023, the RCMP introduced the Flexible Posting Plan, which allowed new officers to choose the province or territory of their first assignment. The plan succeeded in attracting thousands more applicants than anticipated. However, the approach also increased chronic vacancies in some areas. In July 2025, the RCMP began phasing out the plan and returned to assigning new officers according to operational needs. Given the high number of vacancies, it will take many years to fully reverse the effects of the temporary approach.
These high vacancy rates pose a clear risk to the RCMP’s ability to maintain operational capacity and deliver effective policing services in all parts of the organization. Chronic shortages also increase the risk of police officer absences and burnout, which could make it more challenging for the RCMP to prevent and investigate crime, maintain peace and order, and contribute to national security.
Mr. Chair, given the significant concerns raised by this audit and because a year has passed since we completed our work, the RCMP is best positioned to answer the committee’s questions on its current staffing needs, application processing times, and any critical shortages in front-line policing. This concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.