By Lyonel Doherty
Oliver’s police commander says any measures to deal with a budget deficit within the B.C. RCMP will have little or no effect on this community.
Sergeant Blaine Gervais was asked about a report that rural detachments are being urged to cut operational costs to help offset a multi-million-dollar deficit.
“There has been notification of a deficit, but no specific cost-cutting measures directed at the Oliver detachment,” he said.
He noted that any impact on operations would be minimal if cost cutting were to take place.
The Vancouver Sun reported the RCMP in B.C. is cutting more than $10 million from its provincial policing costs. This includes small, rural detachments. It was further reported that RCMP Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Strachan sent out an email to detachments stating that cuts to overtime and travel budgets were needed to address the deficit.
Strachan said the RCMP has not had a substantive increase to its budget to correspond with the rising cost of policing.
Concerns have been expressed about these cuts impacting future police investigations.
Oliver Mayor Martin Johansen said he heard about the directive to cut costs, which concerns him.
“Particularly around cuts to overtime, as the operation statistics for Oliver show we are second only to Penticton in overtime hours.”
Johansen said he has a meeting scheduled with Sgt. Gervais to discuss the impacts.
“However, I’m confident community safety is a top priority and the RCMP will continue to deploy the resources necessary to address crime in Oliver and surrounding area.”
Johansen said the two key areas of focus for the new crime prevention committee are intervention (as opposed to reaction) and enhancing the effectiveness of policing. He noted the impact of these two areas will reduce the current RCMP workload in terms of calls for service.
Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth acknowledged the deficit’s impacts are becoming increasingly difficult for the RCMP to manage. But he said the government is working with police to address these pressures and find solutions that do not affect public safety.
