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Municipal police chiefs say Nova Scotia RCMP expansion counters national trend
Municipal police chiefs say Nova Scotia RCMP expansion counters national trend

CBC

time16-07-2025

  • Politics
  • CBC

Municipal police chiefs say Nova Scotia RCMP expansion counters national trend

Municipal police chiefs in Nova Scotia say the province's decision to expand the RCMP moves in a direction opposite the rest of Canada and could lead to less effective services for residents. A Deloitte review into the structure of policing in Nova Scotia released last month suggested that Nova Scotia should create a provincial police force offering both special services and local policing to better serve the public. In response, the PC government is expanding the RCMP to operate as the provincial service, rather than create an independent force like the Ontario Provincial Police or Quebec's Sûreté. The review said there is room in such a model for municipal forces that can meet provincial standards. But the province said municipal forces that need access to special services — like emergency response or dive teams — to meet those standards must pay for the RCMP to supply them in new contracts. Chief Ryan Leil of New Glasgow Regional Police, speaking on behalf of the municipal chiefs' caucus in the Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association, said they are concerned this new requirement could come with a major price tag, forcing towns with their own departments to switch to the RCMP. "Why is the province taking that autonomy away from the municipal police agencies to be able to collaborate and support one another?" Leil said Monday. He said municipal agencies provide high-quality policing in urban areas where residents are used to seeing response times of just a few minutes, while the Deloitte review noted people in rural areas — which the RCMP usually police — complained of slow response times. "We think that we are well represented in our communities, and we want to invest in what is working … the models that we have currently in our municipalities are working," Leil said. He said it makes sense to have multiple forces with special services to offer across the province as contingencies, so there are other options if an RCMP service is tied up. The review recommended starting with the RCMP as the provincial police service, because this would mean "fewer costs and risks" due to current RCMP agreements with the federal government. The current RCMP contract policing agreements with provinces, territories and municipalities expire in 2032. But the review also said the province could eventually move to an independent provincial police service that would allow for more oversight and control. The policing review was recommended by the Mass Casualty Commission, which was highly critical of the RCMP response to the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting that claimed 22 lives, and called for organizational change. Leil said he understands that an independent provincial force would not be a "light lift," and would be very expensive to set up with the need for new training facilities and infrastructure, but it has become the trend across Canada. Besides established models in Ontario and Quebec, Alberta announced in April it was moving to create a provincial police entity. Just before leaving the prime minister's office earlier this year, Justin Trudeau said provinces should transition away from the RCMP as contract policing. Within the Atlantic region, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary recently took over territories from the RCMP following concerns the Mounties were not providing enough resources. "Our province, our country has been through some very unfortunate experiences, and we've seen grave impacts to public safety over the past number of years," Leil said. "We shouldn't shy away from doing the right thing, even if it is the most amount of work and the greatest amount of investment we have to make." Scott Feener, police chief for the Town of Bridgewater, said they created their own police dog unit and other services years ago, because it would take days for the Nova Scotia RCMP to send requested resources. Feener said he's concerned the Mounties will take years to scale up to the staffing levels needed to properly police their current areas and ensure they have the special services that can support an entire province in a timely manner. "My vision would be our municipal servicing the way it is, or services growing in size," Feener said. "If they move away from it, there will be a decrease in service … our public safety within town will deplete." Justice Minister Becky Druhan said in an interview Tuesday that she has confidence in the Nova Scotia RCMP's "ability to step up and deliver what we're asking them to do." She said the Deloitte review's recommendations, like bringing in one record system for police, and increasing the number of special constables rather than sworn police members, will improve the quality of policing in Nova Scotia. When asked about the national trend toward independent provincial forces, Druhan said that "would take significant extensive resources" and Nova Scotia would have to first expand the RCMP model into a provincial force, even if it wanted to go in that direction. "Our focus is really on Nova Scotians and our provincial landscape in Nova Scotia around policing is very different than the other provinces," Druhan said. "Nova Scotia is unique in a variety of ways — both the way in which policing has unfolded historically, also our geography and our population." When asked about the province's requirement to have municipal forces contract new special services from the RCMP, Druhan said it is a "reflection" of the review's point that a provincial service is the best way to provide consistency. Audits on all municipal forces and the RCMP on those provincial policing standards begin this fall, and Druhan said the province will work with municipalities "to determine next steps following that." Druhan had a meeting with the Town of Bridgewater on Tuesday that included the mayor, chief administrative officer and chair of the town's police board, but not the police chief. The minister said she will meet with the rest of the municipalities served by their own police departments in the next few weeks about their policing needs, and what a new funding formula will look like. A statement from Druhan said her office appreciates the Nova Scotia chiefs' perspectives, and while her current focus is on meeting with municipalities, she plans to reach out to chiefs in the "near future."

‘That's the $64,000 question': National Police Federation questions where Alberta will find staff for new provincial agency
‘That's the $64,000 question': National Police Federation questions where Alberta will find staff for new provincial agency

CTV News

time14-07-2025

  • Politics
  • CTV News

‘That's the $64,000 question': National Police Federation questions where Alberta will find staff for new provincial agency

National Police Federation Prairie Director Kevin Halwa speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the government's plans for a provincial police agency. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: How big a step forward is this in the actual creation of a provincial police force? Kevin Halwa: That's unfortunately still yet to be seen. This is still a plan that has a lot more questions than it does answers, and people are starting to ask those questions. Whether it's the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, or Alberta Municipalities, or the people actually paying the bills, a lot of the framework around it has not been explained, and rightfully so there's still some more questions. I don't really know yet because they have not explained that very well at all. In the entirety of Canada there's only about 64,000 police officers policing all over the country. That's a very limited pool of people that are interested in doing this sort of work to begin with. Where is the province is going to find a bunch more people to start up a new service? I don't know. That's the $64,000 question. MH: How challenged do you expect the government to be to staff up? KH: We can use the Surrey police transition as an example. They expected that to go very smoothly and to be staffed up very quickly. We're now in year seven, still not completely staffed up, and they were only looking for 800 there. We're looking for way more than that here to police this new agency. Grande Prairie's also going through a transition, they're yet to be fully staffed up. Their due date is coming very quickly, March of next year, and I highly suspect that they won't be ready for March 31 and will need an extension. MH: What will it take to draw your members away from the RCMP and embrace more permanent roots in Alberta with a change in uniform? KH: The chance of our members moving over to a new agency is very slim. There will be some that decide to take it on as a second career after doing a full career with the Mounties. Take a pension and then take another paycheck working for somebody else, that's fine. But to get Mounties, or at least a large number of them, to leave the red serge and to go over to a new and unproven agency, is highly stretched to suspect that would happen. That's what they believed would happen, and not what we believe, but that's what the City of Surrey believed would happened there. That's what the city of Grande Prairie decided would happen here, and they it's just not happening in the in the huge numbers that they expected it to be happening. So to expect any different when we're talking about a provincial police service or a sheriff's service, whatever we're calling this independent agency, I'm not buying it. MH: Let's say they do staff up, they do become operational. What's the expectation for how this provincial police service and the RCMP will coexist within the current law enforcement environment in Alberta? KH: That's something that hasn't been laid out. We always welcome collaboration when it's genuine and in the best interest of public safety, but that being said, there's been a consistent lack of clarity and transparency around what this proposed service would actually look like. Without a concrete plan, it's really difficult to understand how we would work together, existing with other agencies. Albertans deserve answers and not uncertainty, and so far, all of you've got is uncertainty. MH: The RCMP is contracted to provide police services in Alberta, a contract that extends to 2032. To what degree do you expect the build out of this new agency to draw on the financial resources that fund the RCMP contract? KH: It's hard to say. The previous federal public safety minister has made it clear that there's full intention to renew that contract. He sent letters to every single provincial contract division in the country explaining that. To suspect that the Mounties are going anywhere come 2032, I think it's ridiculous to think that at this point. There's only so many ways you can split it all. I suspect the money in the province will become tight. MH: Where do you think all of this will leave municipalities, given they're being presented with the option of contracting this new police agency as a replacement for the RCMP locally? KH: It's been said before by municipalities that when we're talking municipal budgets, we're counting pennies, not dollars. Every nickel really does make a difference when we're talking municipalities. So far from the municipalities that we've spoken to, they're not seeing any bigger bang for the buck when changing. There is great savings and policing with the Mounties due to the size of the operation. There's costs to be saved there and to start all over again with something else, I don't see any savings there unless you're going to start with a drastic cut in services, MH: Where do you think this leaves relations between the RCMP and the Alberta government with just under seven years left in the contract? KH: That's hard to say. We would know better if they were willing to speak with us more.

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