Canada faces a series of 'crises' that will test it in the coming years, RCMP warns
The "crises" rocking nation‐ al and international affairs are likely to get worse over the next few years and could have a significant ef‐ fect on the federal govern‐ ment and Canada's federal police force, says an inter‐ nal report prepared for the RCMP.
"The global community has experienced a series of crises, with COVID-19, supplychain issues, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine all send‐ ing shockwaves throughout the world," says the report, entitled Whole of Govern‐ ment Five Year Trends for Canada.
"The situation will proba‐ bly deteriorate further in the next five years, as the early effects of climate change and a global recession add their weight to the ongoing crises."
The report was prepared by the RCMP's three-member
Strategic Foresight and Methodology Team, a special section set up in February 2022. The report was shared with management at the RCMP's federal policing sec‐ tion, RCMP spokesperson Ro‐ bin Percival said in response to questions from CBC News.
The report was obtained through access to informa‐ tion law by Matt Malone, an assistant law professor at Thompson Rivers University, who shared it with CBC
News.
The heavily redacted ninepage report looks at shifts "in the domestic and interna‐ tional environments that could have a significant effect on the Canadian government and the RCMP." Percival said it was written between March and December of 2022 "for situational awareness and to inform decision making" over the five years following the report's completion. It has not been updated since then.
The report says it is based on "open source, foresight material, horizon scans and environment scans from law enforcement agencies, gov‐ ernment agencies and pri‐ vate entities, both domestic and international."
The report paints a bleak picture of what the RCMP and Canada - could have to face over the next several years.
"The geopolitical, economic, social, technologi‐ cal and environmental shifts presented here are complex and continue to evolve," the report warns. "They can dis‐ rupt or redefine law enforce‐ ment work and operations in unexpected ways. Both mi‐ nor and major shifts have the potential to cause multifaceted disruptive change across the organization."
Climate change will have a significant impact, the report predicted.
"Over the course of the next five years, environmen‐ tal scientists expect that in‐ creasingly violent and even concurrent storms, worsen‐ ing drought, floods and per‐ sistent heat waves all over the globe will reduce the global output of a variety of commodities," says the re‐ port.
"Law enforcement should anticipate that these destruc‐ tive weather patterns will af‐ fect all facets of government, including damage to critical infrastructure, increasing pressure to cede Arctic terri‐ tory, and more."
The report predicts that more frequent extreme weather events could have "a disproportionately adverse effect on Indigenous commu‐ nities because many of them are located in areas that are warming faster and the weather events could take place at the same time as other major crises that re‐ quire RCMP resources.
"Emergency management planning should be consid‐ ered by law enforcement de‐ cision makers to ensure con‐ tinued levels of service deliv‐
ery. Capacity building through the attraction and retention of qualified staff re‐ mains a challenge to law en‐ forcement."
Sliding living standards and polarization
Political polarization and re‐ sentment, coupled with the threat of an economic reces‐ sion, will also present a chal‐ lenge, the report predicts.
"The coming period of re‐ cession will also accelerate the decline in living stan‐ dards that the younger gen‐ erations have already wit‐ nessed compared to earlier generations," says the report.
"For example, many Cana‐ dians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live. The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference be‐ tween the extremes of wealth is greater now in de‐ veloped countries than it has been at any time in several generations."
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Populists have been capi‐ talizing on a rise in political polarization and conspiracy theories and tailoring their messages to appeal to ex‐ tremist movements, the re‐ port says, adding that au‐ thoritarian movements have been on the rise in many lib‐ eral-democratic countries.
"Law enforcement should expect continuing social and political polarization fuelled by misinformation cam‐ paigns and an increasing mistrust for all democratic in‐ stitutions," says the report.
New information tech‐ nologies, including AI deep‐ fakes, quantum computing and blockchain, could also present challenges, says the report.
"Law enforcement should anticipate that criminals will leverage technological inno‐ vations to gain profit and in‐ fluence," the report says. "Law enforcement should al‐ so continue to contribute to policy change related to the privacy of personal informa‐ tion, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, quantum computing, digital ledger technology and more."
The COVID-19 pandemic may have faded but, in 2022, it continued to have an im‐ pact on Canadian society, says the report.
"The damage to the economy and to the social fabric of the nation is on‐ going, and there is an estab‐ lished opposition to existing and potential public health measures and other restric‐ tions," it says, citing a univer‐ sity study indicating there is more than a 10 per cent chance of another pandemic spreading in the near future.
While the report says it covers geopolitical factors, references to geopolitical challenges appear to be among the passages redacted. Two pages of the report are entirely blank, with the exception of a picture of a globe.
Michael Kempa, University of Ottawa associate profes‐ sor of criminology, welcomed the report and the existence of the special unit, saying the RCMP has been "struggling to meet its federal policing re‐ sponsibilities."
"They've now got this spe‐ cial body that is sort of scan‐ ning major trends and threats to federal policing type issues, presumably with a view to positioning the
RCMP to dealing with these types of challenges down the line. So that's positive."
Kempa said the report correctly identifies the chal‐ lenges the RCMP and the government are likely to face.
"The only thing that I would think that they under‐ estimate is the urgency with which the RCMP must prepare … to address these challenges," he said.
Kempa said the RCMP doesn't have a lot of time to make necessary changes, such as recruiting people with the skills needed to ad‐ dress these kinds of prob‐ lems.
"This report underesti‐ mates the severity of the challenges," he said.
A 'disconnect' between threat and preparation
Christian Leuprecht, a Queen's University and Royal Military College professor who specializes in defence and security, said the section of the report on the chal‐ lenges posed by new infor‐ mation technologies - and the suggestion that law en‐ forcement should "contribute to policy change" in response - stood out for him.
"That's a highly unusual statement," said Leuprecht. "This is a hint that clearly there is a sense that the policy framework in this country is not adequately set up for the challenges of everything from safeguarding personal information ... artifi‐ cial intelligence, the connec‐ tivity of the Internet of Things … the privacy challenges and others presented by quan‐ tum computing and blockchain technology, and the accelerant that has proven for all sorts of crimi‐ nal activity in this country."
Leuprecht said the report also points to some threats that are often overlooked, such as problems with global supply chains and the need to improve emergency man‐ agement planning.
"What we see is some of the disconnect between the strategic threat assessment ... and the resources, capaci‐ ties, capabilities and political will to posture Canada effec‐ tively for what is clearly going to be a very difficult future for this country," he said.