It should never happen and it’s a wasted effort to consider the alternative.
No matter how much time and money (at least $150,000 so far) the City of Red Deer spends on studying the possibility of replacing the RCMP with a municipal force, the logical end result will be the same.
The funding, training and implementation of an equivalent municipal police force will cost more than what the city pays for its contract with the RCMP.
And gone will be some of the shared-cost regional, provincial and even national resources now available though the RCMP.
Consultants are doing a study of crime prevention and policing for the City of Red Deer.
Last week, they attended a local open house, speaking about how a triage system could help redirect low-priority calls from RCMP to bylaw officers and other departments. This would help reduce the Mounties’ heavy workload and allow them to focus on more serious matters.
The consultants are also recommending the city hire a permanent crime prevention co-ordinator, increase the number of community peace officers, adopt a city-wide community approach to ensure the downtown is effectively policed and direct more resources to crime analysis to spot trends.
But the most important and the most controversial aspect of their report — whether the city should create a municipal police force and dump the RCMP — won’t come until the fall.
Downloading policing responsibilities to cheaper alternatives will result in exactly that: cheaper services — you get what you pay for.
Case in point, the city’s special traffic enforcement unit.
The city created the traffic enforcement unit several years ago. It is comprised of peace officers, not Mounties.
I seldom see anyone from the traffic enforcement unit on the city routes I mainly travel — 32nd Street, 67th Street, 30th Avenue, Ross Street, Delburne Road — yet I could call in a driving infraction every time I drive on local streets.
One dark early winter day on 32nd Street, I was startled to come upon a member of the traffic enforcement unit actually parked on the median, no lights on, very little distance between traffic on either side. He was more of a traffic hazard than solution.
The City of Red Deer just advertised a full-time peace officer position. The pay is $31.59 to $33.25 per hour (75 hours every two weeks), which is about $61,000 annually, and the officer would belong to a union, Canadian Union of Public Employees.
A rookie RCMP officer makes about $48,000. After three years, this increases to $78,000.
The portion of the 2011 City of Red Deer policing budget for RCMP staffing is about $16 million for about 130 officers.
Surrey, B.C. — with about five times the population of Red Deer and the largest RCMP detachment in Canada — determined that it would cost $2 million more each year to have a municipal force. In Red Deer, that would translate into putting another 16 RCMP officers on our streets.
Or, to look at it another way, if the city had the same amount of money to spend on a municipal force as it does on the RCMP, we would likely see reduced policing in Red Deer.
I suspect the consultants will tell us in the fall that the RCMP represents the best policing scenario for Red Deer, augmented by other types of policing to deal with less serious policing matters.
The RCMP has served this city well. In fact, we have one of the top officers in the country managing our local force. Why fix something if it ain’t broke?
To spend more money to establish and run a municipal police force when there are so many other pressing needs in this community — such as recreation and arts and culture facilities — makes no good sense.
Mary-Ann Barr is the Advocate’s assistant city editor. She can be reached by email at barr@www.reddeeradvocate.com or by phone at 403-314-4332.