The confirmation that the federal Liberals want the tools banned comes after The Canadian Press raised questions about a mandate letter Mendicino gave to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki last year.
It confirmed that it considers the milder CS gas and extended-range impact weapons, which fire foam rounds, to be the operational terms for such tools — meaning that it does want the RCMP to stop using them. It added that its extended range weapons, in use since 2017, “provide an officer with more time and distance from an individual being responded to in order to better enable de-escalation and communication, when tactically feasible.”
He said tear and rubber bullets are “very inflammatory terms,” bringing up images of coups d’etat, or of police attacking people who had been marching for Black civil rights outside Selma, Ala., in 1965. But he would not answer questions about why the RCMP seems to be defying his instructions, walking away from reporters when the question was posed.