OTTAWA – A federal audit says the Royal Canadian Mounted Police bet wrong on the number of recruits needed to fully staff the force, contributing to a growing staff shortage and heightened risk of burnout for front-line officers.
Auditor General Karen Hogan says the force set recruitment targets that fell far short of its needs and also failed to recruit as many officers as planned.
Hogan’s audit finds the federal police force is short some 3,400 officers as of last fall, and is staffed unevenly across the country.
Lengthy bureaucratic processing delays affected most of the applicants who wanted to join up, forcing the RCMP to cancel some of its training classes because it didn’t have enough bodies to fill seats.
Recruitment policy changes made in 2023 let new officers choose where in Canada they could carry out their first assignments, leading to thousands more applicants sending in their resumes than RCMP brass had anticipated, the auditor reports.
But Hogan adds the RCMP was forced to end its flexible-posting policy last year because it produced “chronic” vacancies and uneven staffing levels across the country — with vacancy rates higher than seven per cent in nine provinces.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2026.
