The RCMP is gathering aerial photographs and blueprints of thousands of schools across Canada as part of its plan for responding to school shootings, which it unveiled Thursday.

RCMP officials said at a news conference in Ottawa they intended to release the plan at the start of the next school year, but decided to bump it forward after the shootings that left 33 dead on Monday at a university in Virginia.

RCMP Insp. Rick Shaw announces the School Actions For Emergencies program in Ottawa Thursday.
(CBC)

Under the School Action For Emergencies (SAFE) program, the RCMP plan to map out every elementary and secondary school in the force's areas of operations by September — a total of 4,700 schools.

The RCMP provides police services to the three territories, eight provinces (all except Ontario and Quebec), more than 200 municipalities, and 165 aboriginal communities.

"After it has been deployed nationally, SAFE will provide an integrated, standard approach to emergency response in schools policed by RCMP and other police agencies who have adopted the SAFE … response or other initiative programs," said Insp. Rick Shaw, as he introduced the program.

The goal is to ensure that, in the event of a shooting, the first officers on the scene don't have to waste time learning where things are.

Although it's a massive project, the officials said they are confident the force can have the program up and running by September.

After that, the RCMP plans to do the same for universities and colleges across the country.

The officials said the basic plan is to get as much information about every school as they possibly can and then put it in every police cruiser — either in printed form in a binder, or as a CD for the car's laptop computer.

The Mounties have already started to visit schools to obtain floor plans, electrical plans and other blueprints that show how fire alarms, water sprinklers and public-address systems work.

They are taking photographs of areas such as parking lots, cafeterias, and stairwells.

They are also using aerial-survey photos taken from different angles to plot out possible entry routes, exits, observation points, perimeters and checkpoints.

"This plan could provide the exact location of the video-surveillance camera in the school, provide the name and phone number of who's responsible for camera system," said Chief Supt. Mike Woods. Officers on their way to the scene could call and possibly determine the location of the person in the school even before they got there, Woods said.