RCMP Force In Canada

Women become members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
On the 8th of March 2013 I was assigned to write a reflection on a topic of my choice chosen from a timeline of Canadian highlights that was passed out at the beginning of the year. I chose the topic of the event when women were allowed to join the RCMP forces. This topic struck my eye because its year is surprising to me because of the women’s rights act year. The RCMP commenced in 1873 originally to regulate the trading’s of alcohol for buffalo hides, then to protect the aboriginal people from the white’s. The RCMP branch continued to grow from there, with the exception of one year when Canada was under new governing and the RCMP force was cut down in numbers. Now for years we have
seen more women joining the forces of the RCMP as choice of a career. This choice is only fairly new for women, Sept 16th 2009 was the 38th anniversary of the occasion when women were allowed to be part of the RCMP force. Today there are 69, 539 RCMP members, men and women. When did women get the right to become officers? Were they a part of the RCMP at all before they were allowed to be officers? How soon did this action happen after the women’s rights laws came into effect? This is what I wondered, so I chose this topic. Throughout my research I did not find many answers that I would have wished to find, I’m still left wondering how the idea of letting women join the forces came into play and if there was a specific woman who pushed to allow women to join the forces. Though what I did come up with was very interesting. I found out that the applications for women to join the RCMP were created and sent out in the year of 1974 within the month of September.
From September 1974 to March 1975 the first 32 women joining the RCMP were in training to become members of the forces, these women were branch name “Troop 17”. Women had always been a part of the RCMP just not directly on the field work, on patrol, or have proper training with weapons and have the same role as the men did. Early on in the 1890’s the RCMP force had employed females to work as matrons and be the gaolers to deal with the female offenders as well as be part of the escort team when female prisoners were being transferred to another place. Then in the early 1900’s before women had the opportunity to become part of the field RCMP team they were behind the scenes filling positions as fingerprint and lab technicians. The First Female Mountie was appointed in 1946, this woman was the Force’s very first Honorary Surgeon who had been the director of the lab in Saskatchewan within the years 1922-1942. This woman had been associated with the Force for many years in the fields of medical science, forensic medicine and pathology prior to her given title. From 1977- 1982 women were battling with their equality to men, the “Women’s Rights Associations”. In 1977 all basic rights were given to everyone equally with no discrimination according to sex, men and women alike, then in 1982 feminist groups managed to be formed and were provided
equality to all women. What I noticed was that women had already been given a great privilege of being able to be a part of the RCMP even before the Women’s Rights Acts came into effect but only after all province’s allowed women to vote in 1940, when Quebec finally gave the women the right to vote were women able to become RCMP Force members. So in between these two years, 1940 and 1977 women received an honourable role to be able to be part of the Canadian Forces and continue to do so today. The amount of women RCMP Force regular members has gone from 32, in 1975 to 3, 755 in 2009, there are 11, 726 female members of the RCMP in total. I couldn’t find what exactly moved the decision of letting women become part of the RCMP members or why it came into effect so late after the Force’s had been formed. Out of assumption the move towards Women’s Rights is why women were finally able to become RCMP officers, I also couldn’t find if women even tried to become officers before the 1974 movement.
What I did come up with about this topic was interesting to me because I always thought that it wasn’t until after the Women’s Rights Act that women could become part of the RCMP Forces members.
Though I was proven wrong since the acts became more prominent with answers toward feminism in 1977, nearly two years after the first branch of 32 women had become RCMP Force members. My personal opinion is that I’m glad women are able to be part of the RCMP Force members, just I think it should have happened sooner than what it did. Throughout my research I learned when and why the RCMP were originally formed, it is amazing to me to see how such a small reason can turn into something that became effective country wide and last for so many years and be ongoing, with the exception of when they RCMP almost lost their Forces in the late 1800’s. The RCMP in general started out as just a few members and grew into a force with over 60,000 members of both genders male and female, just as did the female branch going from only 32 women to now having over 11,000 officers and over 3,000 official members of the Force. This was a great project, filled with information that I had no prior knowledge
about.