Thank you for the question.
We often have this discussion in the world I live in, the international community, because we talk about the UN's desire to have more women police. My colleagues in the international police world say the same thing, “If only we had more at home, domestically, to provide to the UN”. As a matter of fact, I believe the Secretary-General of the UN, when he was in Canada recently, said we need more women police, and the commissioner said, “Well, so do I”.
The RCMP's objective is 30% at this point. As of 2015, the percentage and composition of regular member police in the RCMP was 21%. In the most senior ranks, women represent about one-third of the commissioner's senior executive committee. Female officers lead five out of 15 of the RCMP divisions.
Do we strive to achieve more? Absolutely. When I look at the start of my career, one of our goals was to get to 20%, and we really didn't think that was realistic. We've passed that. It takes time, but it takes consistent energy to try to recruit more people and to retain them.
Sometimes we focus a lot on the numbers. We also need to focus on the positions and the roles and importance of what those people actually do.