February 1, 1920: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Are Formed

February 1, 1920: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are formed. It is the result of a merger between the Dominion Police, which was responsible for federal law enforcement, intelligence, and parliamentary security; and the Royal North-West Mounted Police, which had been responsible for colonial policing in the Canadian West.

The new police service inherited the paramilitary, frontline policing-oriented culture that had governed the RNWMP, which had been modelled after the Royal Irish Constabulary, but much of the RCMP's local policing role had been superseded by provincial and municipal police services.

The RNWMP, founded in 1873, just 6 years after Confederation, were the original "Mounties," and had the red jackets and the familiar campaign hats, the Stetson "Boss of the Plains." But they never used the motto "The Mountie always gets his man," made famous in the movies.

They were honored in popular culture through characters that were usually upper-class gentlemen, doing their moral duty in serving the British Empire on the fringes of civilisation (as the British and the Canadians would spell it). This was embodied in such characters as Corporal Connor, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Nelson Eddy's 1936 Rose Marie character Sergeant Bruce, and the cartoon character Dudley Do-Right.

As police services are the constitutional responsibility of the Provinces and Territories of Canada, the RCMP's primary responsibility is the enforcement of federal criminal law, and sworn members of the RCMP have jurisdiction as a peace officer in all Provinces and Territories of Canada. However, the service also provides police services under contract to 8 of Canada's 10 Provinces, all except the 2 largest, Ontario and Quebec; all 3 of Canada's Territories, more than 150 municipalities, and 600 Indigenous communities.

In addition to enforcing federal legislation and delivering local police services under contract, the RCMP is responsible for border integrity; overseeing Canadian peacekeeping missions involving police; managing the Canadian Firearms Program, which licenses and registers firearms and their owners; and the Canadian Police College, which provides police training to Canadian and international police services.

The Mounties are a fully modern police force. Although they still wear Stetson hats, much like most American States' State Troopers, the Red Serge -- red jackets, black pants, high leather Strathcona boots and black gloves -- is now a dress uniform only, and they wear what Americans would recognize as standard police uniforms, or even plainclothes. The use of horses were discontinued from regular field use in the late 1930's. Women were not appointed as RCMP officers until 1974.

A modern RCMP officer and his car

Despite its modernity, the RCMP retains its "Royal" name, as Canada retains its place in the British Commonwealth. With Canada's dual-language system, the Mounties are known in French as le Gendarmerie royale du Canada, or GRC for short, or la police montée.

It would be easy to think of the Mounties as Canada's version of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). But it isn't. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is the country's primary national intelligence agency, both domestic (which makes it equivalent to the FBI) and abroad (which makes it equivalent to the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA). The RCMP and the CSIS certainly work together, but they do not have the same function.

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February 1, 1920 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.