Halifax’s board of police commissioners has voted to have the Halifax Regional Police and Halifax District RCMP present written policies on extra-duty and off-duty employment, and to make those policies public.
Commissioner Lindell Smith brought the issue to the board Wednesday because some people were complaining over the summer about a Halifax grocery store paying for police officers to help combat theft from the store.
That was done through the long-standing extra-duty policy. The policy is required under the Nova Scotia Police Act.
The board’s policy manual says it will continue to approve any extra-duty policy, and Smith said this seems like a good time to do a review.
Commissioner Carole McDougall said the board approved the HRP policy and made it its own as required under the Act because it was extensive.
Commissioner Harry Critchley said it seems that the current policy that is on the board’s website is “insufficient” and doesn’t meet the requirements of the Act, such as defining words.
“Our policy says we endorse in full another policy that isn’t accessible to the public,” he said.
“I think it would be valuable…to know what the existing policies are in relation to off-duty and extra-duty employment.”
Halifax police chief Dan Kinsella said the department is working on a “policy refresh” to identify policies that can be made available to the public.
“We want to remain flexible,” he said. “Since the discussion came up around this, we have looked at the policy. It is a little dated, but certainly it was recognized as being very comprehensive.”
He said it last came to the board in January 2021, when it was adopted by commissioners.
“This is certainly one of the policies we can provide — we can make public-facing,” he said. “We can probably refresh it fairly quickly, particularly with the interest I’m hearing from the board.”
He said the off-duty policy has a set of occupations that the department and board of the day identified as ones that officers could participate in, such as process servers and security guards, but the same list is not part of the extra-duty policy.
“That might be something the board wants to look at,” Kinsella said. “Say, maybe we have to consider whether we will have officers engaging in extra duty. I know there has been a lot of talk between me and you as the board about the impact of all this extra work that officers are doing.”
The commission also asked Halifax RCMP to report on whether it has policy for extra and off-duty employment.
Once the board has received the policies, it will review them along with its own. Kinsella said the policies should be to the board by next month.
The board cannot dictate a policy to the RCMP, however. That discussion would have to happen with the federal Treasury Board.
Kinsella said that after the policies come to the board they could be quickly available to the public.
“That meets the transparency part. The other part, about the who and which ones can purchase the service, we can collectively have a deeper dive into it, …and the board can digest what’s in there and then make a determination on any kind of review that might be desired.”
