Bob Paulson expected to get Mountie's top job

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to name a new RCMP commissioner on Wednesday.

CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife tweeted late Tuesday that Harper is expected to name Deputy Commissioner Bob Paulson to the post.

He would replace William Elliott, who steps down this month to take a job with Interpol at the United Nations.

Paulson is a former soldier who ran the RCMP's organized crime and terrorism operations.

According to a biography posted to the RCMP's website, Paulson spent nearly seven years in the Armed Forces before joining the RCMP in Chilliwack, B.C., in 1986.

Paulson served in various departments in the province, including homicide, aboriginal and community policing, and organized crime.

In 2005, he transferred to the RCMP's national headquarters in Ottawa where he has served as the executive director of the major and organized crime intelligence branch, the director general of national security criminal operations, assistant commissioner of national security criminal investigations, and assistant commissioner of contract and aboriginal policing services.

Paulson was appointed to his current post, deputy commissioner for federal policing, in 2010.

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  Bob Paulson, Chief Superintendent and acting Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP, talks with the media following his appearance before the Commons Public Safety committee looking into the Bernier affair on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Tuesday June 10, 2008. (Tom Hanson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)