The federal government says it wants the RCMP to ban the use of two crowd-control tools that forces across the country say they have in their arsenals: sponge rounds and CS gas.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino's office confirmed that it wants the measures outlawed, even as the RCMP declines to say whether or not it will comply with that instruction.
The letter directed the force to stop using three use-of-force methods: the "carotid control" neck hold, rubber bullets and tear gas. That came as news to Sauvé and other experts, who say that the decision is a departure from existing policy, since police forces across the country and around the world have such crowd-control methods in their arsenals.
Public disclosures show that the RCMP used CS gas 102 times in 2021, and it used extended-range impact weapons 86 times. "I'm not sure why those terms would be used if the government was serious about looking at less lethal alternatives."
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