Sechelt Mayor Darnelda Siegers says she had an opportunity last week to hear more about how broader changes at the RCMP are likely to effect the Sunshine Coast detachment.
Under the funding arrangement for the RCMP in B.C., municipalities between 5,000 and 15,000 people, like Sechelt, pay 70 per cent of the cost directly. The balance is covered by the federal government through the RCMP budget.
Mayors from communities that pay directly for RCMP in E Division, which covers the Sunshine Coast and Metro Vancouver as well as communities in the Sea to Sky corridor and Fraser Valley, met Dec. 3.
It was the first gathering of the mayors’ group since the last municipal election.
In a report to council Dec. 4, Siegers said one of the biggest issues on the horizon is the unionization of RCMP members. A union has been certified, but has yet to negotiate its first collective agreement.
Siegers said the agreement is expected to include retroactive pay, which will add to costs for local governments but also make it easier to attract officers to fill vacancies.
“There are impacts from that. One is it’s hard for recruitment, they’re not paid as well as many other police forces across the country, so people are going elsewhere,” Siegers said. “We will be seeing an increase in the cost. We don’t know when it’s going to come or what the amount is going to be, but there will be an increase.”
The Sunshine Coast detachment is a blend of municipal and provincial, with Sechelt, by virtue of its size, paying directly for about 11 officers, while the rest of the detachment’s complement, around 24 officers, is funded by the province though a policing tax paid by property owners in Gibsons and the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s rural areas.
Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish also attended the Dec. 3 meeting because the Town will soon fall into the 5,000-plus population category, and speaking Dec. 5 on Eastlink Community TV’s Talk to Your Local Government, he said council is expecting a report from its police services select committee, which has been looking at what the Town will do when it has to start paying directly for policing.
Beamish also said on the TV program that the mayors discussed the impact of Surrey’s proposed switch to its own municipal department on other communities policed by RCMP.
“It could be very disruptive in the near term,” Beamish said, noting that some RCMP officers will join the new force, and other municipal police officers from around the Lower Mainland who live in Surrey but work elsewhere may also want to take positions in Surrey.
Siegers said as well as the issues that are of concern throughout E Division, she had an opportunity to talk with RCMP brass about the need to not only fill vacancies at the Sunshine Coast detachment, but potentially increase its complement to help deal with more demands for service.
She said she’ll be working with Staff Sgt. Poppy Hallam on an analysis of population, call volumes and when the last staffing increase was authorized, “to look at whether or not we should request more staff.”
“We are pushing it, we are advocating for the community… We know it’s an issue, they know it’s an issue, and we’ll do what we can,” Siegers said.
