The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is both a national and federal police force in Canada, is now facing another challenge. The police organization is now dealing with a 12% front-line officers shortage, leaving detachments severely understaffed and the entire police organization in crisis.

According to the statistics released by the RCMP professional association regarding its vacancy rates for 2017 and 2018, around 17% of officer positions are vacant in the Ottawa region while approximately 14% positions are unfilled in the national division. Moreover, around 5.5% of the RCMP members are either on parental leave or sick leave.

The significant percentage of vacant front-line officer positions is raising concerns and is keeping the Mounties worried not only about their own safety but also on the security of the communities they serve. The shortage in frontline officers also causes burnout and stress among officers. Some Mounties are even planning to quit while others are thinking about leaving for other police forces.

According to the RCMP sergeant and National Police Federation (NPF) interim executive co-chair Brian Sauvé, this shortage of frontline officers is no longer a new item for them since the federal police force has been short in numbers for a couple of years. The only difference with the current shortage crisis is its higher percentage. Back in 2012, the national police force declared that they were 5,000 members short. The fact remains that the HR crisis is the primary problem that greatly affects the police organization.

This problem has been around for years and solving it is not easy. It would take years to recruit new qualified members and to encourage new potential applicants to join the RCMP who can fill the 5,000 vacant police officer positions especially now that the organization is facing a number of issues which are already known to the public.

A single patrol unit in the other police forces in Canada is typically composed of 20 police officers. If one or two of them resign or are on leave due to injury, sickness, broken bone, paternity, maternity or other family-related concerns, they do not have to worry about finding a replacement. They can quickly pull out one or two out of the 200 or 300 officers assigned to the detachment and fill in the vacant position. Unlike the other police forces in Canada, RCMP cannot do such actions. The absence of even one officer can mean a lot for the organization. They cannot even afford to pull out one officer from the detachment to fill in the vacant position because most of their detachments are severely understaffed.

The RCMP union provides contract police services for remote and small towns in the country. That means that their policing area cover hundreds of square kilometers. Most of their area of responsibility includes sparsely populated regions including isolated and dark rural roads. Policing in such areas with just a few officers can be risky for the Mounties. Plus, the outdated radios that the Mounties use do not usually work and if they do, they do not function properly in most of these rural road areas.