2013-2014 Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is Canada’s national police force. It provides federal policing services to all Canadians and policing services under contract to eight of the provinces and to the territories, as well as to more than 190 municipalities, 184 Aboriginal communities and three international airports.

In 2013–2014, the RCMP received 1,730 requests, representing about 2.9% of requests received government-wide (fifth institution in terms of requests received). This is a 42% increase from the previous year.

The RCMP was able to complete more requests in 2013–2014 (1,706) than in the previous reporting period (981). Overall, 73.2% of all requests in the inventory were completed, compared to 66.7% in 2012–2013.

The RCMP‘s performance was below the government-wide results, especially in terms of completion time. Results achieved in 2013–2014 were also lower than in 2012–2013. According to the RCMP, this is due to the large backlog of requests outstanding from the previous reporting period that were completed in 2013–2014.

Members of the public were the primary source of requests received in 2013–2014 (70.6%), followed by the media (18.4%).

According to the RCMP’s annual report, requests received in 2013–2014 covered various subjects including contracts/program costs and expenses, security-related issues and other information regarding the management of the RCMP and operational file material.

Table 1. Workload

The number of pages processed significantly decreased in 2013–2014 compared to the previous reporting period, as the average number of pages processed per request completed went from 1,522 to 360 pages in 2013–2014.^{Footnote 1} Most of the requests completed (73.7%) required the processing of less than 100 pages.

Timeliness

In general, requests in 2013–2014 took more time to complete requests than in 2012–2013. The RCMP took on average 58 more days to complete a request (173 days) compared to the previous reporting period (115 days).^{Footnote 2}

In 2013–2014, the RCMP completed 500 requests within 30 days or fewer, representing about 29% of completed requests (compared to 35.5% in 2012‒2013). The proportion of requests completed that required more than 120 days in 2013–2014 (44.67%) was significantly higher than the previous year (24.4%).

Requests closed past their statutory or extended deadline also represented a higher proportion in 2013–2014 (65%) compared to 2012–2013 (56.9%). This rate represents a “red alert” grade.^{Footnote 3} In comparison, this proportion government-wide was of 14% in 2013–2014. Workload was identified in 90.4% of the late requests.

Extensions

Traditionally, the RCMP has not made an extensive use of extensions. In 2013–2014, only 123 extensions were applied to complete 1,706 requests, a ratio of 0.07 extensions per request completed.

About 23.6% of the extensions taken in 2013–2014 were for 30 days or less, compared to 36.5% in 2012–2013.

Figure 1. Length of extensions (2011–2012 to 2013–2014)

Text version

Figure 1 is a bar chart with vertical bars, representing the length of extensions taken by RCMP during each reporting period between 2011–2012 and 2013–2014. The results are as follows:

Reporting period	30 days or less	31-60 days	61-120 days	121-180 days	181-365 days	More than 365 days
2011–2012	46.36%	19.09%	24.55%	4.55%	5.45%	0.00%
2012–2013	36.47%	14.12%	30.59%	12.94%	3.53%	2.35%
2013–2014	23.58%	31.71%	23.58%	17.89%	3.25%	0.00%

About 105 of the extensions taken in 2013–2014 (123) were for section 9(1)(a) representing 85.4% of the extensions taken in 2013–2014. Of note, the RCMP took 7 extensions under this section (used when the request would require the review of a large number of records or necessitates a search through a large number of records that could interfere with the institution’s operations) which yielded no responsive records.

Disclosure

Of the requests completed in 2013–2014, 12.02% were disclosed entirely, which represents a slight decrease compared to 2012–2013 (13.35%). About half of the pages processed were disclosed (53%), a decrease compared to 2012–2013 (61.4%). A significant proportion of pages disclosed were released entirely (67%).

The majority of information released was done on paper (63.5%).

Exemptions/Exclusions

In 2013–2014, a total of 2,254 exemptions and 28 exclusions were used to withhold information, representing a ratio of 1.34 exemptions/exclusions per request completed. This proportion was higher in 2012–2013 (1.36).

Most common exemptions applied in 2013–2014 included: law enforcement and investigations (883 times), personal information (732 times) and protection of information obtained in confidence (287 times). 

Table 2. Performance

Other activities

Nothing to report.

Complaints

Complaints against the RCMP^{Footnote 4} increased by 48%, from 125 complaints in 2012–2013 to 185 in 2013–2014. More than half of the complaints for both of these reporting periods (55%) were administrative complaints, mostly related to delay (deemed refusals).

Of the complaints received in 2013–2014 that were completed (28 were still pending as of April 2015), 85 were well-founded, 29 were not well-founded, 5 were settled and 38 were discontinued.