DECISION 2018: Policing and Addictions

Oct 19, 2018 | 5:30 AM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops RCMP detachment has seen some big changes recently, from a new superintendent to the ever growing challenge of mental health and addictions issues. 

The issues that the RCMP face are a reflection of the community they police, and a concern for whoever is elected mayor this Saturday, Oct. 20. 

In our fourth installment of our mayor’s series we take a look at policing and the overdose crisis. 

It’s a topic that comes up in almost every municipal election, crime and the strategies to reduce it. 

 

In Kamloops, the RCMP detachment has a full complement of officers for the first time in years. 

Incumbent mayor Ken Christian is outlining his priorities for local police. 

“Gangs and keeping them out of Kamloops, organized crime and the drug industry is something that we constantly have to be on.” 

Like many community policing agencies, Kamloops RCMP have the added pressure of dealing with social issues, such as mental illness. 

Christian says he is a big supporter of the Car 40 program that sees mental health nurses partner up with local officers. He’s also interested in bolstering other policing tools in the city. 

“I’ve been supportive of increasing the presence of CAP teams,” Christian said. “I’ve been supportive of having by-law officers work with police to be extra eyes and ears in the lane ways, in the alleys, on the streets of the cities to make sure we still have a shopping experience and a tourist experience that people are going to want to come back for.”

While Christian supports supervised consumption sites he admits they have attracted some criminal activity to the city. 

“Our police superintendent has been monitoring, I think they call them atoms, of crime in and around these facilities,” he said. “There’s certainly a lot of litter and behaviours that are inconsistent with what we would expect as a city. That’s the downside. We have to rationalize that in light of a crisis that’s taken out far too many lives in Kamloops.”

Christian says the harm reduction measure of needle disposal and recovery needs to be revisited to ensure public safety and the safety of drug users. 

“I think that they need to look at particularly the recovery of sharps, we don’t want to see them in areas where children are accessing, and we also don’t want to put a value on them,” Christian said.

“This notion of refunds and that is really just serving to have people breaking into sharps containers and in fact increase their risk rather than reducing it.” 

We reached out to Christian’s challenger, William Turnbull, to discuss his viewpoint on a range of election issues. He declined to participate in this series.