Quote:
Originally Posted by gasman
Provincial contracts are negotiated the same way, and the policing priorities are set by the province in that case.
If the ministers don't want the RCMP in force, because whatever reason they have. Then the RCMP is likely to sit back and let a bunch of little stuff go until it escalates and goes out of hand. Which is exactly what happened.
This is caused by poor decisions at the government level not likely the RCMP.
|
When I was in junior high the province amalgamated a number of municipalities into one (1 city, 6 towns and the county) forming the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
When that happened, the city police forces also amalgamated into one. However, the county was still serviced by the RCMP.
There was debate about which police force to continue with. The RCMP or the city police? Ultimately the decision was made to stay with the city police service and terminate the contract with the RCMP.
My fuzzy memory on the issue, the ultimate decision boiled down to: direct control over the police service versus the massive resources of the RCMP which could be leveraged in a time of need.
Again, my fuzzy memory on the issue.
As I understand it, if there is a major incident, part of the benefit of having the RCMP is they have the resources to rapidly deploy in any area in the country if need be.
I don't recall the Premier of Nova Scotia requesting the RCMP to increase their presence in Inverness when people flocked there like crazy during the Chase the Ace phenomenon.
I don't recall the Mayor of Moncton requesting increased service when Justin Bourque went on a shooting rampage.
Now, in both of those cases, it very well may have happened.
I very well could be misremembering.
Intuitively, if a detachment is worried about being understaffed during an incident (which was stated by an RCMP spokesperson explaining why they didn't make arrests - 'if you have a mob 200 people and 12 officers, if you arrest someone you remove that one person but also 2 officers leaving 10 to police the mob' <--paraphrased) then I would think the force would send more resources to the area.
Wouldn't it be similar to if an incident happened in North West Calgary, that the CPS would divert attention and officers to the area from elsewhere in the city?
This isn't a normal issue, where normally the detachment would be fine with 12 officers, they're facing an emergency. I can't imagine the RCMP wouldn't sent additional resources in time of an emergency; I can't imagine the RCMP are withholding resources to demand increased payment; I *would* imagine the contract states their job is to keep the peace.
Now, I'm totally open to hearing otherwise. I would think my posting history demonstrates my desire to learn and engage in good faith. That said, I'm not saying you're wrong, I want to learn.
Edit: Re-reading the thread, I can see that what I said about understaffing the detachment was ambiguous. By understaffed I mean understaffed for an emergency such as protests/riots. All else being equal, during a normal time, I would imagine the detachment is staffed appropriately. Yes, it would be up to the municipality/province whomever contracted the RCMP to determine the amount of staffing for the detachment. What I mean is there is an emergency, I would be expected the detachment to be staffed properly for an emergency.