When it comes to enforcing Canada’s security along the border that stretches 9,000 km, “things happen quickly,” says the RCMP’s head of serious and organized crime and border integrity.
Mathieu Bertrand, chief superintendent and director general of serious and organized crime and border integrity for the RCMP, said the force has been assessing the force’s border capabilities since 2023, which was what allowed them to move quickly on leasing the Black Hawks.
He added the RCMP already had an existing number of nine helicopters, six of which were for patrolling the border, but the Black Hawks will increase their speed.
“Things happen quickly on the border,” he said. “As you can imagine on a 9,000-kilometre border there are some situations where we need to move our resources, we need to move our resources quickly. These choppers give us that ability.”
The RCMP had confirmed to Global News this week that two of the Black Hawk models would be operational as of Friday, with Staff Sgt. Rob Tan from the RCMP’s emergency response team telling Global News they would be conducting border patrols between Canada and the U.S. starting Sunday.
“A lot of the austere environments and places we can’t reach conventionally, we’ll be able to observe them and deploy into those areas.”
However, Tan added that the Black Hawks allow those on board to fast-rope down without the helicopter needing to land, giving them the ability to extract and hoist to remove people as well.
He said officers have undergone training in preparation for using the helicopters, which will also allow for more people to operate on board or to have more people if enforcement is needed.
That capacity on the helicopters is a benefit, according to Sgt. Matthew Wells, National Emergency Response Team coordinator for the RCMP.