Vaughn Palmer: Costly switch to B.C. provincial police won't be an NDP priority
Opinion: Transition in Alberta is expected to cost hundreds of millions. The B.C. NDP have higher priorities for their spending
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VICTORIA — The legislature committee that recommended replacing the RCMP with a provincial police force said next to nothing about what the sweeping transformation in policing would cost.
“Members recognized that such a move will have fiscal considerations for provincial and local governments,” was as close as the committee’s 96 page report came to even acknowledging the problem.
In fairness to its members, they were given a broad-based mandate from cabinet to consider police reforms, not an assignment from the Finance Ministry to cost out their recommendations.
Still, the call for a provincial police force was the most newsworthy of the 11 recommendations and 30 sub recommendations from the committee.
Cabinet can scarcely ignore the recommendation. It was unanimously supported by the six New Democrats, three B.C. Liberals and one Green MLA, on the committee.
At the same time, the committee’s call for a provincial police force — plus amalgamated regional forces in major urban centres — is already drawing criticism from local government leaders.
One of the most pointed exchanges occurred in the capital region.
Ben Isitt, left-leaning member of Victoria city council, tweeted his support for the committee’s call for provincial and regional police forces.
Langford Mayor Stew Young promptly fired back that he and his council had no intention of listening to Victoria on the issue.
“I don’t put much weight on what Victoria says,” said Young. “We don’t agree with any of that. Langford is well served by the RCMP.”
The initial response from the two cabinet ministers most concerned with policing suggested the New Democrats are in no rush to respond to the committee.
‘These aren’t minor decisions,” said Attorney General David Eby, referring to the recommendations as a whole. “It will take some time for government to work this out with key stakeholders and key governments, including First Nations and municipalities.”
Overseeing those consultations will be minister of public safety and solicitor general, Mike Farnworth. He says the government will be discussing the recommendations with Indigenous leaders, community organizations, policing authorities and others “starting in late summer.”
None of those consultations will tackle costing.
But costing has a way of injecting a dose of reality into committee work and consultations alike.
Happily, in the case of a proposal to replace the RCMP with a provincial police force, the preliminary work has already been done in Alberta.
Establishing a provincial police force was a recommendations Premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel, released in June 2020.
The Kenney government then hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to provide a comprehensive analysis of the “operational requirements, processes and costs” of transitioning from the RCMP to a “fully independent Alberta Provincial Police Service.”
The final PwC report, released last October, indicated that the shift would cost the province hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ottawa would no longer be paying its 30 per cent share of policing costs as it does under the RCMP contract. Alberta would have to pick up the almost $200 million loss in federal funding just to maintain services at the current level.
The province would also have to absorb more than $350 million in transition costs, ranging from capital expenditures to the carrying costs of maintaining two police forces for several years.
The report lays out a six-year transition The province would advise Ottawa of its intentions regarding the RCMP this year, terminate the contract next year, launch the provincial force in 2024 and complete the transition in 2027.
Pointedly, PwC was not asked to recommend whether or not the government should pursue the creation of an Alberta provincial police service.
Kenney remains enthusiastic about breaking away from the heavy hand of the federal government on policing services.
“I think it would be awesome in principle to have a provincial police force where girls and boys can dream of becoming a police officer and serving in their community for the rest of their lives, a community that they understand,” he said at one point.
Kenney has also addressed concerns of local government leaders that they’ll be stuck with a share of increased policing costs.
The switch won’t cost municipalities “one cent more,” he pledged.
Despite that commitment, the Edmonton Journal reported that month that municipal leaders meeting in the Alberta capital “voted overwhelmingly” to oppose the policing plan laid out on the PwC report.
Alberta’s opposition New Democrats seized on the cost issue. The party’s justice critic, Irfan Sabir, says the NDP has “absolutely no intention” of proceeding with a provincial police force if it wins the election scheduled for next year.
Kenny’s determination to use the policing issue to distance Alberta from Ottawa won’t figure in the calculations of the John Horgan government here in B.C.
But the B.C. New Democrats could be swayed by costs, same as their counterparts in Alberta.
Health care, child care, housing affordability and public sector bargaining are all higher priorities for the Horgan government than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on setting up a provincial police force.
B.C. has more population, more RCMP detachments and officers, higher policing costs and different needs than Alberta.
So the PwC costing for Alberta would not map directly into an analysis for B.C.
But it could provide a starting point for ruling out a B.C. provincial police force before too much time is wasted on the notion.
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