Courtenay RCMP tee’d up for a 10th consecutive contract increase

The City of Courtenay plans to pay more for RCMP next year, capping off an 80 per cent increase since 2010.

Council approved a plan “in principle” to fund 3.5 per cent pay raises and $3,000 body cameras in next year’s RCMP contract. It’s the latest in a series that rose Courtenay’s policing contracts from $3.9 million to $7 million over 14 years.

Council’s approval is unofficial but signals that final approval will come before May of next year.

Councillor Melanie McCollum told the Record that the city approves contract hikes because of necessity. Council is not happy but feels it depends on RCMP to keep the community safe.

“It’s very difficult to do policing under any other system,” said McCollum. “It’s very frustrating because we as a municipality have no control over costs, and we are just told what the cost is.”

Council similarly approved hikes that came down the line in the previous nine contracts leading to RCMP’s current deal. Pay raises for each RCMP member were factored in, alongside other expense increases.

“It’s basically this escalating cost that’s increasingly unaffordable.”

To pay for next year’s change, the city would need a tax increase of 0.67 per cent, according to a city report. The change would push costs over the city budget that was published in April.

The budget had already included an increase to residential property taxes of 8.6 per cent. Policing was noted as a leading cost in the books, comprising roughly one-fifth of operating expenses faced by the city.

Local and national pay raises

While costs increased for nearly a decade locally, the city also recently caught a bill from Ottawa.

Last year, a negotiation from the federal government took-effect. It made Courtenay responsible to pay seven years of mostly back-dated pay raises.

As a result, the city’s contract with RCMP saw a year-over-year increase tripling that of the year before. The contract grew by roughly $740,000 without raising the number of officers.

Courtenay council in April said local governments would be forced to make difficult decisions to accommodate the change.

Examples given were the possibilities of “cutting essential services, reducing policing levels, raising property taxes significantly, and/or cancelling work on local infrastructure,” council said.

Since 2010, the RCMP allotment in Courtenay has grown by three RCMP members (to allow a maximum of 31.4). In recent years, however, the detachment has seen vacancies of between 4 and 5.

The Record connected with Comox Valley RCMP for comment, but the media relations officer did not have any comment.

Crime in Courtenay

Policing costs aren’t the only thing that rose in recent history.

Between 2011 and 2021, the city saw an increase in criminal offences that closely resembles the contract hikes.

Offences in Courtenay rose 64 per cent between these years, according to data from the Province of B.C. The numbers are the most recent from the province to show crime trends in the area.

The Record created a graph to show the data. It contains the history of crime in Courtenay and its neighbour Comox, which this year was reported to have one of the lowest per-capita policing costs and crime rates in the province.

ALSO: Property crime in Courtenay’s downtown spiked in 2023 quarter