Transition to Municipal Police Force

[RedFive]

I’m not certain the amputation happened, but it was seeming likely from what I read. There was a big fundraiser floating around police forums a while back.

He kept his leg complete, still battling with a full recovery however.

 

[RedFive]

BC Government need "additional information" before decision on Surrey police Service

I braced myself for a go decision, and a no-go decision.

This is somehow worse, as I and my colleagues will just continue to circle the drain, waiting for somebody to make a decision so we can get on with our lives and careers.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The irony here is all the people in the GVRD who are gung-ho to spend big bucks on rail transit and who blanch at the cost of local police.

 

[RangerRay]

I don’t live in the community, but I have mixed feelings. I thought that this whole project of McCallum’s was odd to begin with, then add all the other political shenanigans that kept piling up in relation to the transition. Fast forward to present with the SPS further along with a new mayor and council wanting to go into full reverse. Now that is making me feel uncomfortable since Surrey appears to be beyond the point of no return and transitioning back to RCMP would seem to be needlessly disruptive and expensive, to add to the needless, disruptive and expensive transition experienced up to this point. McCallum shit the bed on this and now Locke appears to say “Hold my beer”.

 

[Booter]

I don’t live in the community, but I have mixed feelings. I thought that this whole project of McCallum’s was odd to begin with, then add all the other political shenanigans that kept piling up in relation to the transition. Fast forward to present with the SPS further along with a new mayor and council wanting to go into full reverse. Now that is making me feel uncomfortable since Surrey appears to be beyond the point of no return and transitioning back to RCMP would seem to be needlessly disruptive and expensive, to add to the needless, disruptive and expensive transition experienced up to this point. McCallum shit the bed on this and now Locke appears to say “Hold my beer”.

How is undoing 200 officers and 15% of required infrastructure less disruptive than the other way around? I’m actually for the transition- but I find this sentiment interesting because I see it as completely opposite. I feel for R5 over there but I’m not following this story anymore- I’ve come to see it as a game. Elected officials saying big stances and dragging their feet- allowing for a slow death one way or the other so they don’t have to make a decision

When you look at operating budgets the 150-250 million lost on the failed transition settles into the difference between the higher cost of SPS and RCMP. So in a year that cost is evened out. But the longer the decision takes the larger that cost is.

One way or the other. There’s some sunk cost fallacy stuff in there in my non-expert eye.

Now police work shouldn’t just be measured in money. There is better service and “less better” service. But money IS a consideration

 

[RangerRay]

Like I say, I don’t live there so to me it looked like a clusterf@&$ at the start of this and looks like a clusterf@&$ to put the toothpaste back in the tube, so I appreciate your perspective.

Either way, it sounds like a lot of people have to put their lives on hold.

 

[QV]

There is a reason the RCMP policing very large municipalities is the exception and not the rule.

 

[Booter]

There is a reason the RCMP policing very large municipalities is the exception and not the rule.

I’d love to hear your opinion on why that is.

 

[RangerRay]

There is a reason the RCMP policing very large municipalities is the exception and not the rule.

And it seems to be a BC only phenomenon. Only communities in the Vancouver and Victoria areas, with the exception of Nelson and Lilooet First Nations, have municipal police. Having grown up and lived all over the province, I don’t know why that is. I also don’t know much about the history about how that transpired. My guess it’s a hangover from when the BCPP was disbanded, but I don’t know.

 

[Dale Denton]

In your minds, what should the future of the RCMP look like?

With staffing issues chronic and responsibilities growing in a landscape that is increasingly aware of the costs of policing, is it not prudent for the RCMP (and therefore gov't policy) to offload some responsibilities to the provinces and municipalities? I don't understand why our provinces can't take ownership of their law enforcement responsibilities to form their own 'OPPs'.

With these critical staffing shortages I'd have thought the RCMP would be happy to redistribute members from Surrey or larger cities into other detachments.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

It's the same pool of people though, just in different uniforms for at least the first 5 years.

 

[Booter]

In your minds, what should the future of the RCMP look like?

With staffing issues chronic and responsibilities growing in a landscape that is increasingly aware of the costs of policing, is it not prudent for the RCMP (and therefore gov't policy) to offload some responsibilities to the provinces and municipalities? I don't understand why our provinces can't take ownership of their law enforcement responsibilities to form their own 'OPPs'.

With these critical staffing shortages I'd have thought the RCMP would be happy to redistribute members from Surrey or larger cities into other detachments.

Because senior rank RCMP officers would be in charge of less things or have less profiles that they have led change in on their resume. They’d rather “be in charge” of 1000 vacancies rather than have them handled elsewhere.

We absolutely should be carving off as much contract policing as they will take from us. Even the fed government should be incentivizing it somehow. Some Financial relief for so long etc.

But like CP said- competing for the same people from the same shrinking pool.

 

[brihard]

In your minds, what should the future of the RCMP look like?

With staffing issues chronic and responsibilities growing in a landscape that is increasingly aware of the costs of policing, is it not prudent for the RCMP (and therefore gov't policy) to offload some responsibilities to the provinces and municipalities? I don't understand why our provinces can't take ownership of their law enforcement responsibilities to form their own 'OPPs'.

With these critical staffing shortages I'd have thought the RCMP would be happy to redistribute members from Surrey or larger cities into other detachments.

Bear in mind that it’s provincial statute that defines policing services. Although the RCMP is a federal organization, they are also legally the “provincial police” in several provinces. A municipality that doesn’t have its own service defaults to RCMP under provincial contracts.

A contract with the RCMP comes with significant federal subsidy- 10% for larger communities, and I think as high as 30% for small ones. It also gives potential access to supporting resources from the rest of the RCMP, depending on need. There’s also economies of scale for training, infrastructure, procurement, IM/IT… Just how much that saves is very much open to debate of course.

It’s easy at first glance for a municipality to look at mounties (or OPP, or Sureté du Quebec) and to think “well, we want police with our city’s name on the shoulder”. Absolutely fair. It gets harder as soon as that means an immediate budget hit for loss of subsidy; for the municipality to have to procure guns, cars, and radios; and for the municipality to have to build its own records management infrastructure. It can absolutely be done; if Brockville or Corman Park can have their own police, they Surrey or Richmond or Moncton could too. It’s just a big pill to swallow, fiscally.

I think the RCMP, internally, is opening up a bigger gulf between federal and contract policing (probably to protect the former from the latter in terms of human resources), but that’s a far cry from the organization deciding they no longer want to police towns. That would probably be a decision at federal cabinet level, with a ten or twenty year timeframe.

Minor but real issue- an RCMP departure from contract policing in the provinces would still likely leave a residual need to provide uniformed policing for the territories, unless the feds threw each territory a bunch of money and support for its own service… But good luck staffing that.

 

[Booter]

A new territorial service would be needed, how you’d factor recruiting retention god knows.

The RCMP also float the majority of First Nations policing in the country, and in a secondary way they also float other First Nations police services in a support nature, there are several small to mid sized FN police forces that would fold trying to fill in the gap,

The contract policing issue is getting more complicated rather than less, and the more municipalities that pull their RCMP contracts- the more complicated the issues in other places get, but we are presently kicking the can down the road.

 

[QV]

I’d love to hear your opinion on why that is.

Am I wrong? Should the RCMP police all major municipalities across Canada?

I don't have an opinion on the subject.

 

[mariomike]

There is a reason the RCMP policing very large municipalities is the exception and not the rule.

What is that reason?

 

[QV]

What is that reason?

You tell me.

 

[Remius]

You tell me.

You were the one that stated there was a reason why it’s the exception and not the rule.

 

[mariomike]

You tell me.

You are the one who said, "There is a reason..."

 

[Booter]

Am I wrong? Should the RCMP police all major municipalities across Canada?

I don't have an opinion on the subject.

No You’re not Wrong. In my experience with large municipal contracts the RCMPs systems don’t scale up well- municipalities at a certain level are better off with their own, more expensive systems.

It’s not so much quality or practice operationally, but the way the systems interact. If police services were engines- the RCMP engine accomplishes the same things- but with a hundred pieces instead of 50. Each is better for different applications- if each was a net- the size of the holes would be different- that changes what the net is best for I guess.

So information is moving out and across reporting to structures and people and places that are unnecessary- because the nature of the system is oversight- but not in the community.

So a large municipal detachment will essentially have all the same pieces as a municipal service. And something like a chief of police- but that officer is answering to other external rcmp
Officers and structures. Even if only reporting to them- that energy is energy lost out of the system.

So at a certain point, and I don’t know exactly where it is, the benefits of a community owning the system become large enough that they should. But there is also a size and type of community that is better served by the RCMP contract model.

I’m just always curious what someone who is outside of knowing the system would see it. That’s all.

I’m not expert or authority. Just a guy with an opinion that may not be anymore educated