The recent public outcry about the 40 hour delay by the Richmond RCMP before releasing any details about the shooting in the Dover Park area of the City only underlines the need to review whether or not the RCMP is the right police force for the City.
Virtually no hard information was released in the press conference held 40 hours after the incident. More information was provided to the Richmond public via the Vancouver Sun coverage the next morning, than the RCMP cared to provide. There is no method for the City to require the RCMP to be more timely and forthcoming in their response. They are a law unto themselves and this relatively small operational matter is a good example.
I spent 23 years at city hall trying to deal with the RCMP and was therefore pleased to read the announcement from the Mayor’s office that the City of Richmond was still examining establishing our own police force. Apparently documents in to City research thus far will be released this fall and hopefully a public input process completed before City Council reaches a decision.
Historically the development of the RCMP was as a paramilitary force to keep the peace in the West. This morphed into a police force focused on small and rural town policing across parts of Canada plus federal jurisdictions such as airports and national security. All larger cities across Canada created their own police forces which focused on city policing challenges such as drugs, robbery, gangs, homicides, fraud and traffic. For some reason the cities of metropolitan Vancouver did not follow this nation wide trend. Virtually all cities the size of Richmond across Canada have their own police forces.
Metro Vancouver has five municipal forces and eight RCMP detachments, which is a patchwork that no one would ever deliberately design. Personally, I would prefer a metropolitan police force with local precincts but knowing the byzantine political structure that is greater Vancouver, that will not happen, and therefore I can only deal with what is best for Richmond at this time in our history.
Imagine having a police force in your city that has a 20-year contract that was negotiated between the provincial and federal governments and that the City has no say in. Imagine a contract that states the City has no say over costs such as salaries, cars, guns, radios, computer equipment and buildings. Imagine an employer that has no say over the number of members you have in your City. The numbers can be increased or decreased without your consent but you pay all the bills. You have no say about how long an officer stays in Richmond. It could be a few months or a few years, without an officer really getting to know our neighbourhoods and problems. Imagine having a situation where City Council votes to hire new members for a bike squad and an extra beat patrol but when the additional members arrive they are reassigned to drugs or homicide without Council’s knowledge or consent. Imagine where Council votes to set up community police stations and hire the additional officers necessary to staff them but when the stations are established there are actually no officers in them. They are staffed by hardworking volunteers. The City cannot hire or fire members, and as exemplified by the 40-hour delay incident, there is no accountability to the City to answer questions. Unlike cities who have their own police forces, there is no police board made up of local citizens and city council members to give overall policy direction, set budgets, hire and fire and choose a police chief.
This is directly opposite to the present RCMP model in which the entire structure gets its directions from Ottawa.
If the City of Richmond is going to have a discussion about what type of police force we are going to have, it is first necessary to identify that we now have a problem. If our citizens are not aware that there are serious shortcomings with the existing RCMP model, they will naturally support the status quo. I hope that over the next few months the pros and cons of the municipal police model vs. the RCMP model will be aired and discussed fully so that we can get the model that works best for our City.
We must also remember that this discussion is not about the individual police members who serve our community. Whichever model is chosen, the men and women who staff the police force will be the best they can be. This discussion is about the model that works best for Richmond.
Greg Halsey-Brandt is a former mayor of Richmond, MLA and city councillor.
