(Canadian Press) – The future of the RCMP as the local force in Moncton, N.B., should be decided by city council next week, and while money will be the major factor in the decision the debate has led some to fight an old battle.
The history of the Mounties in Moncton is contentious, born out of a decision by the former government of premier Frank McKenna to disband a municipal force that was rife with fights between union and management.
The RCMP’s Codiac detachment now covers the communities of Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe — a decision that was imposed on Moncton by the province.
Twelve years later Moncton is unhappy with how much the RCMP cost, and the New Brunswick Police Association has used the renewal of the contract to argue the city would be better off with its own police force again.
Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc says the city doesn’t like the funding formula, which has left Moncton paying an unfair share of the cost when compared with the two neighbouring communities of Riverview and Dieppe.
“People for the most part are very satisfied with the policing here, and at the same time they want the City of Moncton to get the best bang for the buck,” he said in an interview.
The formula is based on the number of calls to police for service.
“Moncton should be paying somewhere in the range of 64 to 66 per cent,” LeBlanc said. “In fact, Moncton is paying about 75 per cent, and when you’re talking about a budget of about $25 million that’s a fair bit of money.”
He said a gentlemen’s agreement between the three mayors and the RCMP over the last couple of years has reduced Moncton’s share, but it’s not enough.
LeBlanc’s also upset that Moncton doesn’t get a discount that’s given to municipalities that signed on for RCMP coverage before 1996.
The current contract with the Mounties expires March 31, 2012, and Moncton council served two years’ notice that it could withdraw from the deal.
That leaves council with three options: the status quo; a stand alone RCMP detachment just for Moncton; or the creation of a new municipal police force. Whatever the city decides has to be approved by the provincial minister of public safety.
The New Brunswick Police Association has made its argument for a municipal force in newspaper and radio ads.
Dean Secord, the association’s president, said the people of Moncton need to know that a municipal force would cost less and be subject to greater local control than a national force that answers to Ottawa.
“The issue comes down to cost and what say the mayor and city council have,” Secord said.
“We’re just trying to show the mayor and council and the people of Moncton that going back to a municipal force is a cost savings for the city and they also get more officers on the street.”
Secord said based on a comparison between the Moncton RCMP and a similar sized municipal force in Fredericton, the association believes Moncton could save about $5 million per year.
Both LeBlanc and Codiac RCMP Superintendent Wayne Gallant said they don’t understand how Secord arrives at that figure.
One of the association’s ads suggested that members of the Codiac detachment were not from the area. The RCMP rebutted the ad, issuing a statement that of its 145 members, 110 are from the Maritimes, with 96 of those from New Brunswick and 71 of them from the Moncton area.
Gallant said the force has provided the city with all the facts, including the cost of a stand alone detachment, but he personally supports keeping the force as is.
“A regional police service presents economies of scale, a level of seamless integration across all three communities that is going to benefit all three communities, both from a cost perspective and from a service delivery perspective,” Gallant said.
The debate is no surprise to Nova Scotia author Paul Palango, who wrote the book “Dispersing the Fog,” which is critical of the RCMP’s record on community policing.
“The RCMP is a very expensive police force,” Palango said in an interview. “The cost per officer is about $160,000 per year to put a man on the street, while municipal forces in most Canadian municipalities is about $105,000 per year.”
He said the force is designed for rural and territorial coverage — not municipalities — and numerous reports have criticized the RCMP as having structural problems.
The head of the Air India inquiry, John Major, used his final report this month to say the RCMP may be spread too thin.
“Perhaps the time has arrived to reassess the role of the RCMP in providing contractual services in many provinces,” Major wrote.
But LeBlanc said there’s no issue in Moncton about the quality of the coverage they get from the Mounties — a factor he said would play an important role in council’s decision.
“We do enjoy one of the safest cities in the entire country and I certainly want it to stay that way,” LeBlanc said.
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