Former Nunavut RCMP officer honoured by Governor General

A former RCMP officer in Nunavut is a new member of the Governor General’s Order of Merit of the Police Forces.

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon honoured Supt. Marie-Claude Côté in a ceremony at Rideau Hall Wednesday.

“You have consistently gone above your role when needed — acting as community ambassadors, social workers, paramedics and more,” Simon said in her opening remarks of the 47 officers honoured that day.

Côté’s policing career spans 30 years. She served as the officer in charge of criminal operations in Nunavut from 2021 to 2023, after returning from close to a year in Iraq training local police in gender-based violence.

“I went from plus-32 to minus-52,” she said of the change in climate she experienced, in an interview after the ceremony.

Côté said her time in Iraq directly informed her work in Nunavut. Her experience taught her to be culturally sensitive and remove “western eyes or western glasses.”

Whether it is in Iraq, Nunavut or the Congo (where she has worked for the past year), there is an inherent distrust of authority, she said.

As an outsider, people want to know, “Why are you here, what are you doing?”

Côté said her goal is to change that, wherever she works. In Nunavut, the key was understanding why people distrust police and working to change perceptions.

“You have to understand the culture and why things are happening,” she said.

That might mean taking a less traditional approach to policing. If you get the desired result, that’s what matters, Côté said.

In Nunavut, she created what she called “gender policing.”

She noted that girls are often overlooked because they aren’t seen as “trouble-makers.”

So in the fall of 2022, Côté had all 25 detachments create activities for women and girls, coupled with community outreach to get closer to people.

To make things work, she said she knew that female officers had to take the lead. If a detachment didn’t have a female officer, she would send one.

Côté said she has taken what she learned in Nunavut with her to the Congo, where she is in charge of Canadian police on a United Nations stabilization mission in the region.

She has four more months in the Congo, after which she said she isn’t really sure what she will do.

“I’m a free agent,” she said.

Côté noted her daughter now lives in Iqaluit, so she will be back to the city to visit.