OTTAWA— A high-stakes search for a new leader of the RCMP is underway after Commissioner Bob Paulson announced he will retire in June, capping a tumultuous five and a half years as the country’s top Mountie.

Paulson offered no explanation in an internal memo to RCMP employees, other than “the time has come for me to retire. My last day of work will be June 30, 2017 and I am excited to be able to focus on my family.” Paulson has three grown children and a young son from a second marriage.

His tenure as Canada’s top cop has been marked by the force’s inability to eradicate harassment in its workplace, devastating terrorist acts on Canadian soil that led to Criminal Code changes, a Moncton gunman’s rampage that killed three Mounties and wounded two, and a revitalized bid to unionize the RCMP’s more than 16,000 uniformed police officers as their pay and benefits drop.

Whoever replaces him will have to face many of those challenges. The government promises an “open and transparent” selection process for the new commissioner and says it will announce an interim commissioner at a later date, suggesting a decision will not be made by the time Paulson leaves in June.

Among those rumoured as candidates who could be considered for the job are:

Former senior Mounties Peter German, Vern White, Janice Armstrong and Alphonse MacNeil.

Current senior executives Kevin Brosseau, Gilles Michaud and Peter Henschel.

Prominent military leaders Walt Natynczyk, Mike Rouleau and Mike Day.

Raf Souccar, a former deputy commissioner now on the board of CATSA, the airport security agency, said in an interview he’s not running for the job but said the RCMP “needs a strong leader, somebody that will respect and be respected by the men and women of the RCMP, somebody who has lived a life consistent with the changes they say they want to bring.”

He recently attended a Canadian police chiefs’ conference on mental health in Gatineau, and not one RCMP senior executive was there.

Paulson came to the job promising to restore respect in the workplace and end a wave of sexual harassment and bullying complaints that he called his top priority. He had a blunt, plain-talking style, calling himself “just a country cop,” more at ease in English than French.

But Paulson was always an agile political strategist. He successfully lobbied Parliament for more expansive powers for RCMP managers to discipline what he called “bad apples,” and won lower legal thresholds to prosecute or keep tabs on suspected terrorists. He announced a $100-million out-of-court settlement of two sexual harassment class action lawsuits last year, but was unable to resolve the endemic problem of harassment.

Paulson’s decision to retire came as a surprise to many, but follows a weak endorsement last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In fact, the PMO says Paulson had informed the government of his decision to retire “some time ago.”

On Monday, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Paulson “worked extraordinarily hard in the public interest to protect the safety of Canadians.”

“I thank him for that service. I wish him well in his retirement, but he still has almost four months to go and there’s a lot of work that needs to be accomplished in the meantime.”

Under Paulson and the Conservatives, the RCMP — which failed to stop Parliament Hill attacker Michael Zehaf-Bibeau from reaching the front doors and storming Centre Block — nevertheless took over supervision of the newly integrated Parliamentary Protective Services.

Paulson stumbled on small things: having to repay for use of RCMP musical ride members to stand honour guard for his second wedding; getting hauled over but avoiding a ticket for speeding on a B.C. highway, and apologizing for making a twirling gesture with his finger at the side of his head when discussing mental health issues in the RCMP.

Just last week the RCMP was ordered by an Ontario judge to pay $141,000 in damages for its bullying and harassment of Sgt. Peter Merrifield, who once ran and lost as a federal Conservative candidate. Paulson’s testimony at that trial was contradicted by another officer’s recollection, which was supported by notes.

But it’s the big things that count for the front-line officers, like on-the-job safety, pay and benefits.

Morale in the force is low, in part because its members’ pay has not kept pace within the policing community in Canada. RCMP employees don’t have strong workplace representation as their non-union staff relations representation program was disbanded while competing unionization drives take place.

The RCMP is now ranked 72nd out of 80 police forces when pay scales are compared. When compared with eight other large police forces in Canada (Halifax, Montreal, Sûreté du Québec, OPP, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver), its overall compensation package including benefits ranks 15 per cent below the average of the top three.

Brian Sauvé, a co-chair of the National Police Federation that is vying to certify as the bargaining agent for Mounties said, “Many members across the force, many Canadians and many Parliamentarians realized that it’s time for a change. And that change needs to start at the top with new leadership.”

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Sauvé said the government should widen its search for Paulson’s replacement to include “fantastic” leaders within other Canadian police forces and the military “that have proven their ability to lead in challenging environments.”

Sauvé said there are many possible replacements, and even suggested the government could look beyond Canada to the U.K., the U.S., New Zealand or Australia.

“We are hopeful that this is the beginning of meaningful change for the RCMP,” said Rob Creasser, spokesperson for the second organization trying to unionize the Mounties, the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada. “The process that determines how our Commissioner is chosen must change. It can no longer be simply a choice by the Prime Minister of Canada.”

“The membership of the RCMP deserves to have some say in who leads them. That has never been the case.”