Gazette - The RCMP's newest Commissioner

Q & A

William J. S. Elliott shares his thoughts

In July 2007, the RCMP welcomed its first Commissioner from outside the force: William J. S. Elliott. A former lawyer and senior-level bureaucrat with extensive experience in public safety and security issues, Commr Elliott recently met with Gazette writer Caroline Ross to discuss his background and some upcoming challenges for the RCMP.

Courtesy Rod Booth, RCMP22nd Commissioner William J. S. Elliott took office in July 2007.

Has your non-policing background helped or hindered you?

A bit of both. I obviously don’t bring the same knowledge and skill sets to the job that my predecessors did, and that means my learning curve is steeper. On the other hand, I’ve dealt a lot with ministers and government decision-making and I think that’s very helpful. We have lots of business that we need to do with the support and participation of others, including the Minister of Public Safety and the government as a whole.

You were the Assistant Deputy Minister for Safety and Security at Transport Canada during 9/11. What did you learn from those events?

The importance of teamwork. We really hadn’t planned for these unprecedented events, but we made up for that, in part, because of very strong interpersonal relationships — I’m thinking initially of our relationships with other federal departments and agencies. It was important and very useful that we had people at Transport Canada who knew people at Nav Can (Canada’s civil air navigation service), at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and at the RCMP. We can’t forget that at the end of the day, our organization and other organizations are just collections of people.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for the RCMP on the international front?

Capacity. We continue to have challenges in relation to our demographics — it’s not quite a perfect storm, but we have a fairly significant chunk of the organization who are at or approaching retirement age and we have a big chunk of people with very few years of service. We’re bringing people into the RCMP in record numbers, but those record numbers of recruits aren’t keeping pace with the number of people going out the door and the expansion in our service requirements.

How are you addressing that challenge?

(One) thing we’re doing is formally working with other police services. In a couple of days, for example, I’m going to Haiti to meet with our members who have been serving there and attend a United Nations medal ceremony. I’m attending along with the Director General of the Sûreté (Quebec’s provincial police) and the Director of the Montreal city police. We have officers from those two forces, as well as a number of Canadian municipal forces, serving alongside us, providing training and other assistance in Haiti.

What do you see as the biggest threat to Canadian security, and how will the RCMP help address that threat?

I think that the increasing sophistication of organized crime groups and the international nature of terrorism really underscore (the need for) an integrated effort. It has been said with respect to terrorist networks that in order to combat a network, you have to have a network. We are certainly much better off now than we were in 2001. Our relationships, information sharing and infrastructure, which reinforce joint operations, are much better. But we’re a long way from having a fully integrated effort.

What have you learned about the RCMP since you became Commissioner?

The organization is much more diverse, with a much broader and complicated mandate, than I understood before. During just one day last week, in British Columbia, I met with the mayors from municipalities in the Lower Mainland that are served by the RCMP, and we talked about contract policing (in some of our smallest and largest detachments). I visited a district office located in one of the roughest, toughest neighborhoods in Canada. I met with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team. And I met with the folks who are preparing for the Olympics. Just in one day, the diversity and sophistication of what we’re dealing with is quite mind-boggling.