RCMP in Leduc stage summer recruitment efforts as interest in policing careers wanes

Leduc's RCMP detachment is holding recruiting events as a way to help the public gain an interest in joining the police force as the number of applications is down.

One young man is hoping to make his dream come true by joining the Mounties.

Mustafa Osman, 19, moved to Edmonton from Somalia four years ago. He dreams of wearing a red RCMP uniform one day.

"Whenever I see a police officer wearing a uniform, that’s my role model and that’s who I want to be in the future," Osman said Monday.

Osman has already submitted his application to join the RCMP, and his resume is filled with past experience at youth police camps.

He says it's a difficult job but wants to give back to the country he now calls home.

"You’re going to scary situations, but policing is not only about that," he said. "It’s about innocent people who need help. Not everyone is perfect in this world."

That mentality is the reason behind the Leduc RCMP hosting recruiting events throughout the summer.

A new report by the Alberta RCMP shows the number of applications to join the police force in the province has gone down the last two years, from 1,803 applications in 2020-21 to 1,425 in 2022-23.

Alberta RCMP applicants graphic (CTV News Edmonton)"You can look at people’s personal situations, suitability, (other) reasons, but policing as a whole across the country, the numbers are down," said Const. Cherri-Lee Smith, community services and victims services liaison for the Leduc RCMP.

The lower recruitment numbers by RCMP and other police services don't come as a surprise to University of Alberta criminology professor Temitope Oriola.

"Societal expectations about the police and policing have changed," said Oriola, who also serves as the president of the Canadian Sociological Association. "The RCMP has been slow to recognize that shift."

Some of those expectations have changed over time because of significant events involving the police, such as the 2020 George Floyd murder by an officer in Minneapolis.

"I believe it is down to a crisis of confidence and legitimacy," Oriola said. "This is a combination of both internal and external factors. At the external level, you have all manner of public manifestations of police misconduct, depending on how far back you want to go, but most recently George Floyd and the social movement after that.

"With institutions like policing, misconduct somewhere is often viewed by the public as misconduct everywhere, so an action by an officer who is unconnected with a particular police service would be viewed as evidence of issues within that field. Therefore, this poses great problems for organizations such as the RCMP, that generalized perception of decadence and misconduct within their ranks."

Oriola says members of 'Generation Z' and millennials are prioritizing their mental health when it comes to careers.

Last year, a class-action lawsuit claimed the federal government 'mishandled' the mental health of RCMP members.

Oriola told CTV News Edmonton that the RCMP has "failed to execute significant structural changes that are now overdue," but that cultural shifts and resulting changes in expectations of policing "goes way beyond" just them.

"Policing has lost its 'cool' factor,' and it's hard for any particular police service to regain that, but the way you can do it if you were RCMP, is to do a very serious and sober analytical soul-searching," Oriola said. "'What is the mission of this organization? How is it performing in that mission?'"

Still, the Leduc RCMP hopes recruiting events will help bring people like Osman into the force.

"As a community policing officer here in Leduc, it's been rewarding to get out and have those conversations with people in the community who may not know what it takes to be an RCMP officer, what it's like to be out in the community every day as a police officer. Just sharing with them my experiences with the little more than eight years I have as a police officer and all the opportunities I've had to work with the RCMP in different places in Alberta."

And that recruitment effort is something that seems to be working for some people, including Osman.

"One day, I’m going to wear that hat," he said. "That hat will belong to me, and the uniform, too."