Editing Royal Canadian Mounted Police (section)

===Role in the colonization of Canada===
{{Main|Colonial militia in Canada|French and Indian Wars}}
{{Further|Canada under British rule|European colonization of the Americas|New France}}

As the federal police service of the [[Government of Canada]], the RCMP has had an expansive and controversial role in the [[colonization of Canada]]. One of the RCMP's two preceding agencies—the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP)—had enjoyed a relatively positive relationship with the [[Indigenous peoples in Canada|Indigenous peoples of Canada]], buoyed by their role in restoring order to the [[Western Canada|Canadian West]], which had been disrupted by immigrant settlement, and the stark contrast between Canadian policy and the ongoing [[American Indian Wars]] in the late 19th century.<ref name=TCErnwmp/> After the signing of the [[Numbered Treaties]] between 1871 and 1899, however, the service generally failed to provide Indigenous communities with police services equal to those provided to non-Indigenous communities.<ref name=TCErnwmp/>

American historian Andrew Graybill argued the RCMP historically resembled the [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Rangers]] in many ways: each protected the established order by confining and removing Indigenous peoples; tightly controlling the [[mixed-blood]] peoples (the [[African Americans]] in Texas and the [[Métis]] in Canada); assisting the large-scale ranchers against the small-scale ranchers and farmers who fenced the land; and breaking the power of [[Labor unions in the United States|labor unions]] that tried to organize the workers of industrial corporations.<ref>Andrew R. Graybill, ''Policing the Great Plains: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American Frontier, 1875–1910'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) [https://www.amazon.com/Policing-Great-Plains-Mounties-1875-1910/dp/0803260024/ excerpt and text search]</ref>
[[File:Nunavut-Feierlichkeit (01-04-99).jpg|thumb|A Mountie standing with an [[Inuit]] group in [[Kinngait]] to celebrate the establishment of [[Nunavut]], 1999]]

From 1920 (1933, with respect to the ''[[Indian Act]]'')<ref>{{citation| url=https://caid.ca/RCMP-IRS2011.pdf| last=LeBeuf| first=Marcel-Eugène| title=The Role of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police During the Indian Residential School System| page=35| year=2011| publisher=Royal Canadian Mounted Police| location=Ottawa| accessdate=17 May 2023}}</ref> to 1996, RCMP officers served as [[Truancy|truant]] officers for [[Canadian Indian residential school system|Indian residential schools]], including through the transition of students from federal residential to provincial day schools after 1948,<ref>{{harvnb| LeBeuf| 2011| p=23}}</ref> assisting principals, staff, [[Indian agent (Canada)|Indian agents]], relatives, and members of the communities in bringing truant children to the schools,<ref name=report2>{{harvnb| LeBeuf| 2011| p=2}}</ref> sometimes by force,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.grc-rcmp.gc.ca/indigenous-autochtone/resident-schools-pensionnats-eng.htm|title=Indian Residential Schools and the RCMP|website=Royal Canadian Mounted Police|date=23 July 2019 |access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref> as per the ''Indian Act'',<ref name=report2/> and as was common for truant non-Indigenous children through the same period.<ref>{{citation| url=https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2005251-eng.pdf?st=pWo2Pkf4| last=Oreopoulos| first=Philip| title=Canadian Compulsory School Laws and their Impact on Educational Attainment and Future Earnings| date=May 2005| pages=8–11| publisher=Statistics Canada| location=Ottawa| isbn=0-662-40421-1| accessdate=17 May 2023}}</ref> Marcel-Eugène LeBeuf stated in his report for the RCMP that records and oral histories indicate the force "was responding, in its most traditional police role, to a request to protect children"<ref>{{harvnb| LeBeuf| 2011| p=6}}</ref> and that [[Canadian genocide of Indigenous peoples|abuses within the residential school system]] were largely unreported to the RCMP at the time.<ref name=report2/>

During the federal government's imposition of municipal-style elected councils on [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] people, the RCMP raided the government buildings of particularly resistant traditional hereditary chiefs' councils and oversaw the subsequent council elections—the [[Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council]] was originally referred to as the "Mounties Council" as a result of the RCMP's involvement in its installation.<ref name=MountiesCouncil>{{cite web|url=https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/the-meaning-of-elections-for-six-nations|title=The Meaning of Elections for Six Nations|website=Briarpatch Magazine|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref>

====Role in land disputes====
[[File:RCMP ERT member points suppressed rifle at unarmed Wet'suwet'en protester..png|thumb|[[Emergency Response Team (RCMP)]] member points suppressed rifle at unarmed Wet'suwet'en protester in November 2019.]]
In 1995, the RCMP intervened in the [[Gustafsen Lake standoff]] between the armed Ts'peten Defenders, occupying what they claimed was unceded Indigenous land, and armed ranchers, who owned the land and had previously allowed Indigenous people to use part of it on the condition they not erect permanent structures. The RCMP's response included 400 tactical assault team members, five helicopters, two surveillance planes, and nine [[Bison and Coyote armoured vehicles|Bison]] [[armoured personnel carrier]]s on loan from the [[Canadian Army]]<ref name="Bison APC" >{{cite web|url=https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/tspeten-1995/ |title=Bison APC at Ts'Peten, 1995 |website=warriorpublications.wordpress.com |date=February 13, 2011 |access-date=2022-06-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210823165212/https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/tspeten-1995/|archive-date=2021-08-23|url-status=live}}</ref> and sparked international controversy over the RCMP's use of unusually broad press exclusion zones.<ref>{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=William |title=RCMP Should Avoid Waco-Style Shootout In B.C. |work=[[Montreal Gazette]] |date=August 29, 1995 |url=http://www.nationnewsarchives.ca/article/rcmp-should-avoid-waco-style-shootout-in-b-c/ |quote="Perhaps it's the old newsman in me, but I'm uneasy about the reporting. Journalists have been kept away from the scene by the RCMP & the native occupiers could not tell their side of the story because Mounties have cut off their means of communication".}}</ref> One of the members of the Ts'peten Defenders was later granted political asylum in the United States after an Oregon judge found that the RCMP's reporting of the incident—marked by an RCMP member's off-hand comment to media that "smear campaigns are [the RCMP's] specialty"—amounted to a "disinformation campaign."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.straight.com/news/rcmp-history-of-smear-campaigns-warrants-skepticism-about-violent-confrontation-with-coastal|title=RCMP history of smear campaigns warrants skepticism about "violent confrontation" with Coastal GasLink workers|website=The Georgia Straight|date=17 February 2022 |access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref><ref name=Globe>{{cite news |last1=Makin |first1=Kirk |title=U.S. judge won't extradite native activist |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/us-judge-wont-extradite-fugitive-native-activist/article22500327/ |access-date=1 December 2020 |work=The Globe and Mail |date=23 November 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201201030620/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/us-judge-wont-extradite-fugitive-native-activist/article22500327/ |archive-date=1 December 2020 }}</ref>
[[File:Wet’suwet’en solidarity banner on oil tank car February 15, 2020 02.jpg|thumb|A [[Haudenosaunee]] flag and a banner that reads ''RCMP off Wetsuweten land'' on a petroleum gas tank car during a solidarity protest against the [[Coastal GasLink Pipeline]] in [[Vaughan]], 2020.]]

Between January 2019 and March 2020, the RCMP spent $13 million policing and periodically enforcing [[injunction]]s against Indigenous [[Coastal GasLink Pipeline#Protests|protesters blocking the construction of a pipeline]] across what the protesters asserted was unceded Wet'suwet'en territory.<ref name=CBCWt /> Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs Na'moks and Woos complained about the armed RCMP presence, as the police moved down the road, kilometre-by-kilometre, over days, dismantling fortified checkpoints and making arrests.<ref name=CBCWt>{{cite web|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/rcmp-wetsuweten-pipeline-policing-costs-1.5769555|title=RCMP spent more than $13M on policing Coastal GasLink conflict on Wet'suwet'en territory|website=CBC News|access-date=August 12, 2022}}</ref> The RCMP's enforcement of a court injunction against the occupiers in 2020 sparked [[2020 Canadian pipeline and railway protests|international controversy and protests]]. As of 2022, sporadic occupations and protests have continued at the site.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}} There have also been attacks on infrastructure and work camps, allegedly by outside groups unaffiliated with Wet'suwet'en and other local people.<ref>{{cite news|title=Masked group attacks gas pipeline work camp|journal=[[The Globe and Mail]]|author=Nancy MacDonald and Brent Jang|page=A9|date=February 19, 2022}}</ref>