A drone flown by an RCMP officer in Windsor, Ont., hovers over the Detroit River, on March 7.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The Mounties are preparing to expand the use of drones, which are already being used in some provinces to scan buildings for threats in advance of SWAT teams and to find missing persons, the RCMP chief told a parliamentary committee.
Drones have already been used in investigations in several provinces and regions, including in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ottawa, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme told the Senate national security committee on Monday evening.
Commissioner Duheme told the committee, which also discussed Arctic security and foreign interference, that the Mounties are planning to hire more civilian technicians to operate drones that can scout an area before a police car arrives.
The RCMP has already expanded the use of drones to police the Canada-U.S. border, as part of the federal government’s $1.3-billion investment to reinforce the frontier, with civilians monitoring video for suspected illegal crossings.
Conservative Senator Claude Carignan said it was important that national security be taken into account when buying drones. The senator told The Globe and Mail that Canada needs to be careful not to buy drones from China or Russia, as they could be used by foreign states to collect data.
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Alberta’s use of drones followed a pilot project in Lac La Biche, Red Deer and Stoney Nakoda First Nation last year. They placed drones on rooftops in different neighbourhoods.
After calls to police came in, including about assaults, fires and suspicious persons, the device was activated by a “pilot” within a local RCMP command centre.
Commissioner Duheme said the scale of drone use in provinces varied, although they were being used widely in Alberta and in Saskatchewan. He said “when we’re looking for somebody who is lost, drones save a lot of time and personnel.”
“In Alberta we had sent the drone to a location before the police car went, and a person just knelt with their hands in the air,” he said. In addition, police SWAT teams often send in tiny drones before entering a building.
He said civilian technicians operating the drones remotely complement police work on the ground.
The use of drones by the RCMP began in 2010 when one was used for the reconstruction of collisions, and there are now more than 1,000 in operation across Canada.
They are used in major crime scenes, search and rescue, for chemical and biological spills and for emergency response, the RCMP said in a statement.
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It added that drones are used as a cheaper alternative to helicopters and planes and that all drone pilots are licensed by Transport Canada.
At the Senate national security committee meeting, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said planned federal budget cuts would not hit RCMP front line services.
Federal cabinet ministers were asked during the summer to find ambitious internal savings ahead of the November budget. The government wants to cut operational spending by 7.5 per cent for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
Minister Anandasangaree told the Senate committee that reductions could hit the Mounties’ head office and areas that didn’t affect front-line policing.
“Our objective from the outset, is making sure that front-line officers are not impacted,” he said.
Asked by senators about disinformation and foreign interference, Mr. Anandasangaree said “the emerging trend of distrusting institutions is quite problematic.”
Daniel Rogers, director of CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, was asked about interference in Canada by foreign powers, including Iran.
In August, CSIS warned that threats from Iran’s theocratic regime could increase this year and Tehran will continue to use members of criminal gangs to target its critics in Canada. CSIS told The Globe it is investigating death threats in Canada orchestrated by Iran.
Mr. Rogers told the Senate committee that “transnational repression from Iran against the community in Canada is core” to CSIS’s mandate.
He said where the spy agency detects activity “that might threaten the physical safety or well-being of an individual, that’s where we work closely with the RCMP who can provide services like protective services to the individuals that are under threat.”
The Globe reported late last year that Iran allegedly plotted to assassinate Irwin Cotler, a former Liberal justice minister.
Separately, when the CSIS director was asked about Russian interest in the Arctic, he said Russia is “a very Arctic-focused state,” and “unlike many others, they’re quite prolific in their militarization of the Arctic.”
“CSIS is conscious of Russia’s interest in the Arctic,” he said, adding “that there are the occasional bits of intelligence that show us that there are things that we need to be very vigilant with and concerned by.”
“We will try and make those public when we can. Sometimes they’re shared by other foreign intelligence partners and they are not ours to disclose,” Mr. Rogers said.
Minister Anandasangaree said he had already spoken to the CSIS director “in terms of CSIS presence in the Arctic.”
He said there is “critical work that needs to be done” on Indigenous involvement in Arctic security and “it needs to have representation in a very, very meaningful way.”
Mr. Anandasangaree said over the next few months he expects each of the agencies “to provide what that looks like.”