Policing Canada's century

by Greg Marquis

Although the RCMP is often identified as a national symbol, Canadian police history is largely the story of municipal and provincial police forces who have had little influence on popular culture but considerable impact on the lives of Canadians. Municipal police forces predate the Mounties by a generation and first began to articulate their concerns through the Chief Constables' Association of Canada (CCAC) in 1905. The development of this little-studied, non-governmental organization, known since the 1950s as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), has been a crucial part of our criminal-justice history. The CACP/CCAC story mirrors the social and intellectual history of policing in twentieth-century Canada. Beginning with an overview of nineteenth-century policing and the conditions that led to the establishment of this first police lobby, Policing Canada's Century is a chronicle of police reaction to social change and the rise of new institutions, reform movements, and