I submit for your consideration that the article isn't necessarily about not encrypting, but rather sharing the comms between agencies. CPOs and bylaw outfits throughout the province are complaining about not being able to communicate as easily with the RCMP as they did pre-AFRRCS. I'm in the same boat. My local detachment for the past several commanders has actively encouraged my FD to get on their PACS channel and talk with them if we are on a job with them (or on a job we think they should be involved in). Listening to that PACS channel, that procedure/expectation was clearly shared with all the other fire agencies (and EMS agencies, when they had VHF capabilities) in the detachment area as well. Comms between fire agencies and RCMP made significant differences in some calls. That's all gone now. The RCMP radios don't scan and the officers don't monitor the common event talkgroup on a regular basis, so if you want to get hold of the RCMP, it's not as easy as it was in the past. What the other peace officers/bylaw officers are complaining about is a different tier of the argument altogether. A lot of these guys are out and doing things like traffic enforcement in their towns. Up until AFRRCS came along, they were on the PACS channel with the Mounties (or had access to it), and could know when problems were happening i.e. pursuits, BOLOs, etc. Now, since RCMP are not involving other policing agencies in their comms, CPOs are worried that they're going to blunder into something dangerous that they would've known about in the past. I have heard this directly from active law enforcement officers.
I believe that CPOs and etc would be happy to have some kind of coordinated shared communications between them and RCMP, that would be more reliable than calling out on the CETs and hoping that someone might be listening. The article isn't about letting random members of the public listen in to RCMP comms, it's about other law enforcement agencies being able to interact with the RCMP when they need to.