Whats the difference between the RCMP and the VPD?

Question

im not from Canada so forgive me for being ignorant. When i listen to the news, they often mention the rcmp or the vpd, so from my understanding they are two different police forces right? Why is there two, and what are the differences. Do they work together?

Answer 1

The RCMP is a national force that provides policing in jurisdictions that don't finance their own police forces, most often because they're lightly enough populated or small enough that there's not a lot of point to a local force. Therefore, you'll find RCMP all over Canada in small towns and rural areas. It is also a national force in the sense that it deals with national policing for the country as a whole. VPD would be Vancouver Police Department, for that city. Ontario has a provincial police force, OPP, and Quebec has a provincial force too. I don't believe any other provinces do. Any place that doesn't have its own force will have RCMP present. I'm sure I've simplified it and missed things, but you can google RCMP for more details.

Answer 2

The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is the national police force for Canada. This would be equivalent to the FBI in the USA. However, they are also the Provincial Police for most Canadian provinces (equivalent to US State Police). Ontario has it's own force, the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police), and Quebec as La Securite d' Quebec. Newfoundland has the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, but they are mostly in St. John's, and I believe the RCMP are considered the provincial police there.



Most small towns and villages outside of Quebec and Ontario will have an RCMP detachment. Here, they act as the town police force. However, larger towns, and especially cities are required to have their own forces, and Vancouver, being a large city, has the VPD (Vancouver Police Department).



The VPD will work in Vancouver, and the RCMP can work pretty much everywhere.

Answer 3

Its worth knowing that the VPD only operates within the city of Vancouver. They do work with the RCMP quite a bit just because all of the surrounding cities (which are almost indistinguishable if you don't know the area) are under the RCMP jurisdiction. There is also overlap where the VPD doesn't have the resources to handle a particular area... a good example being laboratory forensics. I'm pretty sure the VPD doesn't have an extensive forensics lab whereas the RCMP do have one in the greater vancouver regional district (the surrounding cities around vancouver are known as the GVRD).

Answer 4

In Metro Vancouver (the area that encompasses all the municipalities within 100 km of Vancouver), there are 5 police forces - VPD for Vancouver city, New Westminster police dept. for New Westminster, West Vancouver PD for West Vancouver, Abbotsford PD for Abbotsford, and the RCMP cover all the other municipalities (Surrey, Tri-Cities, Richmond, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Langley, Aldergrove,) and the smaller communities, under a municipal policing agreement with the municipalities. In the Metro area, the RCMP and local departments work together on major crimes and as part of the integrated gang task force, among other things. VPD officers are paid directly by the City of Vancouver, they have a different training institute, and only work within the city (as do most local forces). The RCMP are all trained at one location (Regina, Saskatchewan), and can be assigned anywhere in Canada, or even internationally.

Answer 5

One thing to note is that the VPD have a higher education standard, are unionized, and most constables make a base salary over $100000 plus all the over time available for events and police work so most make between $130-$160K. They have the exact same policing powers and authority as the RCMP within the province of BC and can obtain police officer status in other provinces if working a file if signed off by that provinces solicitor general.