"Scott Weiser" wrote:
Unfortunately for Canadians, you don't have the same degree of separation of
powers that we do, so provinces are much more under the control of the
federal government up there. For example, here in the US, we don't have any
"national police" equivalent to the RCMP. Each state has its own system, and
some have "state police" with statewide criminal jurisdiction, and others,
like Colorado, don't, and rely instead upon the county sheriff as the
primary law enforcement official of the county.

Same in Canada. The RCMP only has national jurisdiction in some areas, like narcotics, and crimes in airports. (I'm sure there are
a few more.) Really a very narrow jurisdiction. In some places, the RCMP do highway patrol and even city policing, but in those
places, the provincial and/or municpal governments have hired the RCMP to be their police forces. And if they wanted to, they could
form their own and be rid of the mounties.

When I lived in Ontario, the only place I ever saw RCMP was at airports. Ontario has its own provincial police for highway patrol
(as does Quebec), and small towns that don't want to form their own police hire the OPP rather than the mounties.

-Paul