Our stories
Welcome to our stories!
Find out more about the successes of our institution, our team, instructors, course participants and alumni through their stories below!
You can also read testimonials from our community.
Métis Red River Cart on CPC Campus
Armand Jerome is a Metis craftsman, who grew up in Roblin Manitoba. It was in the late 1990s that he started researching his cultural roots and heritage. He refers to these years as the "Métis resurgence" of Métis culture, which included music, dance, beadwork and the Michif language.
Mr. Jerome was introduced to the story of the Red River Cart by an older Métis man in St. Norbert in 2000. It was through a friend's suggestion that the Métis got involved in the 2002 Indigenous Games that the first Red Rivers Carts saw the day. With his friend, he built Red River Carts using traditional methods and rode them to the 2002 Indigenous Games. Even though their journey was laden with breakdowns and accidents, they arrived at the games on time. This trip was only the beginning of a 20-year journey of creating Red River Carts, using them on historic trails, and visiting historic sites. All of it in celebration of Métis culture.
Over the years, Mr. Jerome built close to 50 carts, committing and dedicating his life to recreating the closest replica of the unique Red River Cart from the Métis homeland. Quite a vocation! Each cart takes about 200 hours to construct – 400 if you include the time needed to gather the materials. He also personally delivered them to different locations through challenging journeys, one of the trips taking up to 9 weeks.
Ten years ago, he met his wife Kelly, who is of Ukrainian heritage. She has became his biggest supporter, devoting her life to his involvement working on Red River Carts and its teachings. Nowadays, the couple are building fewer carts but are still committed to sharing their knowledge of Métis Red River Carts and their symbolism with younger generations to that the Métis heritage lives on. The CPC is proud to exhibit a Red River Cart and a story to share in celebration of the Métis culture.
45 years of excellence in specialized and advanced police training
This year, the Canadian Police College (CPC) is celebrating 45 years of excellence in specialized and advanced police training and leadership development. The CPC officially opened its doors on November 10, 1976, providing training to all Canadian and international police personnel with a focus on addressing the growing threat of national and transnational organized crime. In 2010, we expanded our services and started offering training in other aspects of law enforcement.
The CPC continuously innovates to stay at the forefront of constantly changing criminal trends so that we can provide the law enforcement community the very best learning and tools to combat crime.
Today, after nearly two years of delivering training with the new realities brought by the pandemic, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Serge Côté, who assumed command of the CPC in 2018, talks about the CPC and its transformation plan.
- Q1. With some 487 Canadian agencies and 170 international agencies attending training in this institution over the past 45 years, the CPC has become a significantly credible institution in Canada and abroad. What are the main factors that contributed to this success?
I would say definitely the people. Employee engagement has always been the foundation to the College's success. From the operational and educational personnel to the support staff, they are firmly committed to helping police communities.
The CPC also strengthens its training standards by constantly leveraging the law enforcement community to bring in subject matter experts.
- Q2. How has the CPC evolved since its inception?
The CPC changes along with the law enforcement communities it serves. We now offer 55 different specialized and advanced courses. In the beginning, the focus was on training related to organized crime, but we have now grown into areas of explosive, forensic identification and investigative technique training. We also launched a Professional Development Centre for Indigenous Policing to support the indigenous police services and non-indigenous officers. Our Technical Crime Learning Institute addresses the evolving threats from cyber crime and more recently has embarked on a new digital strategy driven by the new realities brought by the pandemic.
- Q3. What makes the CPC unique?
As a national institution, we have the opportunity to establish national standards that bring commonality in training and collaboration. We bring specialists together and create a knowledge hub environment where relevant and innovative practices can be exchanged.
The CPC also has an international mandate that offers training and capacity building to foreign police partners. Over the last 45 years we have played a key role in building vitalinternational relationships and cooperation help police services across the country. This has become even more important with the rise of borderless organized and cyber crime.
- Q4. The CPC is a place that offers the broader law enforcement community the opportunity to interact, network, and share best practices. How does this contribute to effective policing?
The CPC offers more than training; it provides course participants an opportunity to create networks, communities of practice and knowledge hubs that allow them to work together after their time here. In return, these groups often influence the evolution of our programs.
- Q5. Going forward, what can the law enforcement community expect from the CPC?
The pandemic made us quickly transform our training. While we will continue to offer some in-person training, we now offer more virtual options making it easier to get into courses without long wait times. In the last 15 months, we implemented a regional training delivery program, bringing courses to police services in their respective regions. The new program was implemented through an equity, diversity and inclusiveness lens that addresses barriers and makes specialized and advanced training more accessible to police and law enforcement personnel.
Finally, we are very proud of our fast-growing Adjunct Faculty Program that builds on existing partnerships and formally recognizes the contribution of subject matter experts and instructors from police services through tuition fee credits applicable to CPC courses.
We are excited for the future and look forward to supporting the leaders and specialized investigators of tomorrow.
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