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Among car people, buying a used police car is a well-known hack to get a running and uniquely durable set of wheels for not a lot of money. Canada's federal law enforcement, however, has been crushing its retired cruisers instead of selling them, much to the chagrin of some taxpayers. But the reason behind this procedure is darker and less bureaucratic than you might think.
Across two days in April 2020, a 51-year-old man went on a shooting spree in Nova Scotia, killing 22 and injuring three before being killed by officers. He carried out the attack dressed as a police officer, driving a retired Ford Taurus police car he obtained through an auction, modified to resemble an on-duty RCMP cruiser. RCMP, by the way, stands for Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In January the following year, Canada's public safety minister Bill Blair suspended the sale of decommissioned RCMP vehicles, saying in a statement, "During this moratorium, the Government of Canada and the RCMP will examine the policies that are currently in place and work towards long-term solutions that further ensures these vehicles are not improperly outfitted or otherwise misused. It remains illegal to impersonate a police officer and we will take every step possible to prevent such crimes from taking place."
Millions of dollars per year
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According to Global News, as of early 2025, the RCMP was still destroying police vehicles it no longer needs. New public safety minister David McGuinty hinted at lifting the ban for off-road vehicles like ATVs, but said police cars, SUVs, and trucks will continue to be crushed. As of September 2026, the moratorium remains in place, per the Investigative Journalism Foundation.
The RCMP is said to operate the biggest law enforcement vehicle fleet in all of North America, running about 12,000 vehicles and retiring 1,600 every year. A regional director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told Global News that, before the ban, the RCMP recouped "$6-8 million" by auctioning off retired vehicles. What's more, a lot of money is apparently being spent on holding the decommissioned equipment before it's destroyed, with storage said to be costing more than $1 million per year. "Taxpayers can't keep paying for this and we can't just keep crushing cars when they could be sold," said the Federation director.
What's more, Global News visited one of these lots in Manitoba and found that some of the to-be-crushed vehicles are barely used, specifically pointing out late-model boats, SUVs, ATVs, and snowmachines tagged with low-use letters, and an unmarked Ford Econoline van with just 18,600 miles (30,000 km) on the odometer. At the very least, it seems like they could sell the low-mileage engines to recoup some of the cost.
The police don't like it either
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To be clear, the RCMP itself is not the organization that issued the moratorium on selling the cars, and the law enforcement agency has repeatedly asked the government to lift the ban. Apparently, having to store retired vehicles instead of just selling them off creates delays when it comes to prepping new police vehicles. "Day-to-day fleet operations are affected as stored vehicles cause a disruption to the flow and timeliness of the vehicle up-fit process due to the lack of space and pressure on existing resources as the vehicles need to be shuttled to off-site storage facilities. Both impact the timely replacement of vehicles used in policing operations," the RCMP said in a statement to Global News. Public Safety Canada, the organization that actually ordered the moratorium, deferred all questions to the RCMP.
Bill Blair, the public safety minister who enacted the ban, has one of the more interesting CVs in Canadian politics. He was a Toronto police officer for 40 years and served as the city's police chief for the final 10 of those, presiding as the top cop during the whole Rob Ford crack video fiasco. After retiring as a lawman, he got into politics, was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party in 2015, was made public safety minister in 2019, served as the Minister of National Defence for a couple of years, and is now the country's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Pretty wild place to land for a kid who started out busting Toronto drug dealers.
In the immediate wake of the 2020 tragedy in Nova Scotia, shutting down RCMP vehicle auctions was probably the prudent and sensitive thing to do. Six years, millions of taxpayer dollars, and a whole bunch of perfectly good Ford Explorers crushed later, one can't help but wonder if there's a better, less wasteful way forward.