After growing up in Edmonton and rising through the RCMP ranks in Alberta and Ontario, Staff Sgt. Vishal Mathura had never heard of the Sunshine Coast.
But when he saw the posting for commander of the Sunshine Coast detachment and checked out the place, he liked what he saw. Then he did some research.
“I looked at all the detachments nationwide and I ranked them based on different attributes. The Sunshine Coast was number one for me,” Mathura said in an interview Monday. “So, coming here was my dream spot.”
Asked why, he said: “First of all, weather.” Other factors were the cost of housing relative to the Lower Mainland and proximity to Vancouver.
“In my mind it has a really good mix between small-town policing and the accessibility and amenities of the Lower Mainland,” he said.
“People might gripe about that ferry, but the ferry’s a really good thing. It keeps the undesirables out. If there was a road between here and the Lower Mainland, all this community would become is a suburb of Vancouver. It really has a nice feel to it.”
Mathura took over command of the Sunshine Coast detachment last month, replacing Sgt. Mike McCarthy, who was acting commander following the retirement of Staff Sgt. Herb Berdahl last summer.
Born in Guyana, South America, Mathura was five when he moved to Edmonton, where he attended university and served with the Canadian Forces, working in military intelligence.
His 14-year RCMP career began with rural policing in Fort McMurray, followed by postings in the Greater Toronto area.
“In Toronto I was in the air marshal section,” he said. “Not a lot of people know that we have air marshals in Canada. It’s a very, very small unit, and for the longest time it was a very covert unit.”
After three and a half years with the air marshals, Mathura served in the commercial crime unit in Newmarket, Ont., and then was posted again to Fort McMurray, this time as a rural NCO (non-commissioned officer), court liaison, training NCO and operations NCO.
His last post before transferring to the Coast was Calgary, where he investigated high-level fraud and organized crime.
Under the RCMP’s revamped promotional system, Mathura’s exam score, which put him in the top five per cent nationally, “opened up the doors nationally for me to compete,” he said. “That’s the reason I’m here.”
A bachelor in his 30s, Mathura said he believes he is the youngest staff sergeant in E Division, which serves all of B.C. and contains 127 local detachments.
Among his policing priorities, Mathura lists highway safety as his “big thing,” and said he would like to look into having more reflective posts around curves for increased visibility as well as measures to make some road surfaces less slick.
“Police solutions should be the last effort or the last thing we should do,” he said. “It’s a finite resource.”
Graffiti is a pet peeve, for which he advocates covering over unsightly tags as quickly as possible. “From a deterrent standpoint, the best way is to deal with it right away.”
Generally, Mathura said, he wants crime prevention to reduce the need for police.
“Can we lower crime with, say, lighting, neighbourhood patrols, a crime prevention blitz? We should explore those options before only approaching the police,” he said.
“There are solutions to some things that only police can deal with, but community participation and problem solving and crime prevention will be great, and I think that’s what we always should strive for. I’m an idealist and in my dream world all our crime prevention would solve all the crimes.”
