Thank you for that question. I'll try to be brief.
Essentially, contract policing exists in eight of the ten provinces. With the exception of Quebec and Ontario, we are the provincial police force in those provinces. We share that role with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, of course, in Newfoundland; it's the only province that has two provincial police forces. We're also the contract police force in all the territories. It essentially means that we do front-line policing, municipal policing, response-to-call policing, and provincial police duties, all policing activities.
I think the feature of the new contract that might be of interest to the committee is the new accountability measures that we're deploying to address concerns that were uncovered—or, I guess, emphasized—during the negotiation process. In other words, our contracting partners, who are contributing an important amount of money towards this service, are naturally interested in having some active say in the priority setting and the deployment of some of these resources, so there is a rather robust accountability scheme in the new contract to account for the expenditure of all of these funds.
We've had a couple of meetings now with the contract advisory management committee, comprising all of the officials from the territories and provinces. We're beginning to lay that track of responsiveness to their interests, and of accountability, opening up the books, as it were, to demonstrate that, and also, not just in money, but in service standards. I think it hearkens a new era of accountability for the provinces and territories and an ability for the RCMP to continue to serve Canadians.