Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: A Kamloops Police Service is becoming more of a possibility

Jul 22, 2023 | 7:45 AM

KAMLOOPS POLICE SERVICE. Has a nice ring to it.

But is it what we really want? With the decision finally being made in Surrey to switch from RCMP to a municipal police force, and talk at the federal level of dramatically changing the RCMP’s role, advocates of a Kamloops municipal police force will undoubtedly take heart.

It’s still up to Kamloops City council whether to continue contracting the RCMP for policing or establish its own police force instead, but that choice could soon be taken away.

In Surrey, the issue has been debated for years. The City council that was elected last year decided to stick with the RCMP instead of continuing a transition to its own Surrey Police Service but this week Solicitor General Mike Farnworth took it out of their hands. Surrey, he decreed, will be policed by the SPS and the RCMP phased out.

It’s a typical top-down decision from an NDP government that believes, like a stern parent, it should tell municipalities how to live. (Its recent decision to disregard planning and zoning by civic governments and impose its own housing development rules being another example.)

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A study by Surrey showed that switching to the SPS will cost taxpayers there $31.9 million more per year than the RCMP. That’s based on a strength of 734 members. It comes out to $4,346 more per member to get the questionable benefits of its own force.

I’m no mathematician but it looks to me that if those numbers held true in Kamloops, taxpayers here would be in for another $600,000 or so in taxes. (Of course, every community is different. At around $30 million a year, policing is already one of the biggest parts of the City’s budget.) Plus, the huge transition costs for new equipment, uniforms, etc. and recruitment. This has cost Surrey hundreds of millions even before the new police force has taken over.

What would Kamloops get for it? Supposedly, more accountable and, therefore, more effective policing. But not really.

The RCMP detachment in Kamloops has already made itself accountable, reporting regularly to the council and its committees, and to the community. Whenever a major police incident occurs, the mayor is immediately notified. When a new top cop is hired, the City has representation on the interview committee.

Because the RCMP are mostly funded by city taxpayers and not federally, staffing levels must be approved by City council at budget time, so there’s already local budget control.

A municipal force would have a civilian police board to deal with policing priorities and budgeting. That board would be made up of members of the public. But is local civilian oversight of what the police are doing such a good thing, or would it be subject to political influence?

A local police force would be attractive to some officers who don’t want to be moved around to different communities but that doesn’t seem to have been a recruitment issue for the RCMP. The issue is that more new officers are needed each year than the training depot can turn out.

RCMP detachments have the benefit of accessing services — such as ERT, the integrated anti-gang squad, federal and organized crimes, bomb disposal and others — that are beyond the scope of most municipal police.

Others will no doubt point out that the Kamloops RCMP are far from perfect and often too slow to answer calls — and federally the force has been beset by scandals and criticisms — but such issues won’t automatically be resolved with a KPS. There will still be a shortage of officers, as there is across the country.

An alternative to a rat’s nest of municipal police forces serving every city and small town and struggling with jurisdictional disputes is to re-create the B.C. Provincial Police. The “provincials” served B.C. from 1858 to 1950, when the provincial government of the day decided to change to the RCMP. Why? The RCMP were cheaper.

A new BCPP is an option that’s being put on the table, especially in the wake of a Toronto Star report this past Monday that the feds are considering ending the RCMP’s role as a contractor for local frontline police services and turning it into an FBI-style agency that would focus on “national security, terrorism, financial crimes, cybercrime or organized crime.”

News reports this week quoting Premier David Eby suggest he might be anticipating the removal of the RCMP from frontline policing in B.C.

Losing the Mounties as our national police force in its current form, with its red serge and all its history, would be a shame. But the day might be coming when Kamloops will be faced with a different choice — a B.C. Provincial Police unit or the Kamloops Police Service.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.