The provincial government and municipalities will have more say in how the RCMP is run in B.C. now that a new 20-year contract with the Mounties has been signed.
The federal and provincial governments renewed the RCMP's B.C. policing contract here in Surrey on Wednesday, during a special ceremony at Canada's largest detachment.
Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and B.C.'s Minister of Justice and Attorney General Shirley Bond signed off on the new contract, following four years of negotiations.
"This contract gives us new management and oversight ability that will allow us to contain costs and take a more direct role in determining what police services will look like in our province," Bond said. This will largely be the role of a new UBCM local government contract management committee, which will replace the current contract advisory committee.
Toews said the new contract will afford B.C. "increased input into issues affecting the cost, quality and standards of contract policing" before the feds make any decisions.
The RCMP polices a majority of the province, including 2,700 kilometres of coastline. It has more than 200 municipal contracts across Canada and 60 of those are in B.C.
Burnaby's current agreement expires on March 31. The new one, like the one it's replacing, still contains a clause where any city or municipality can opt out with two years' notice.
Cities like Burnaby will have until the end of April to go over the local contract before they sign on or decide to opt out. Burnaby councillors and staff received the contract last week for review, and staff is poring over the contents.
It will be reviewed every five years.
Under the new contract, basic cost-sharing formulas remain the same, with smaller municipalities and cities with populations between 5,000 and 15,000 people paying 70 per cent of their contract costs, while cities with populations over 15,000 will keep paying 90 per cent.
Burnaby-Deer Lake MLA Kathy Corrigan told the Burnaby NOW on Wednesday morning that she had not seen the document yet, but from what she's heard, she still has concerns.
"The local governments haven't signed off on it yet," said the NDP's public safety and solicitor general critic. "As I understand it, the province is signing off on their end and local governments will be looking at it, and it's a 'take it or leave it deal' for local governments."
Corrigan said one of her biggest concerns is that municipalities don't have much protection from rising policing costs.
"I don't think there's a way for cities to stop rapidly increasing policing
costs. ... The person paying the bills needs to have some ability to control
the costs," she said, adding that the provincial government missed an
opportunity last year when negotiating with the feds.
"I would have liked to see a costing out of what it would have cost to go to
a provincial policing (service)," she said. "That was an alternative we could have looked at."
SFU criminologist Robert Gordon told the Burnaby NOW on Wednesday afternoon that after looking at the backgrounder and press release concerning the new contract, he was not surprised.
"Lots of rhetoric, the entire focus on cost containment ... I don't see a whole lot different from what's in the current contract," said Gordon.
Corrigan, who's married to Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, said her husband was given details of the contract, but he had not looked at it prior to Wednesday's signing ceremony.
Derek Corrigan was in a GVRD meeting on Wednesday morning and both he and Kathy flew to Mesa, Arizona Wednesday for a scheduled sister city visit.
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