'We're getting there': The signs B.C.'s biggest cities are inching toward regional policing

RCMP officers are seen on a street in Metro Vancouver.

While the will-they-or-won’t they discussion around keeping the RCMP or transitioning to Surrey Police has monopolized discussions around policing in B.C., the province appears to be quietly moving towards regionalizing police agencies in the biggest metropolitan areas. 

Two former cabinet ministers who oversaw public safety and the courts, and are still dialled in to those issues as well as the political arena, have seen signs that the NDP government is inching towards merging police forces in the wake of the Surrey Police Service recommendation last week.

“They want to divide the province up into three areas of regional policing,” said former attorney general and supreme court justice, Wally Oppal, who has also chaired on the Surrey transition committee and has been a longtime advocate of transitioning to regional and provincial.

“I think they have to have a police force that’s accountable to local authorities,” he said. “The RCMP is accountable in Ottawa, and that’s the weakness of the RCMP.”

Kash Heed, a former police chief for West Vancouver Police and former solicitor general, agreed that when it comes to a regional police force, “we’re getting there” – and that’s a good thing.

“We will have this conversation, I believe, to a greater scale,” he told CTV News. “I think the (provincial) government have been very strategic in what they've done here, I think, not only from a political point of view but as what works best for British Columbia and I think this is something that will perpetuate our desire to have police reforms that we need.”

For his part, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth told reporters “there are no plans” for regionalization, adding it wouldn’t be part of the fall’s legislative agency, leaving the door open for spring 2024 or subsequent sessions.

B.C. REMAINS A POLICING AND MUNICIPAL OUTLIER

In the greater Vancouver area, a patchwork of 21 RCMP and municipal agencies are responsible for policing. 

Heed pointed out that Metro Vancouver, which is overseen by a Mayors’ Council representing all the member communities, already handles Lower Mainland-wide issues like drinking water, sewer infrastructure and treatment, some industrial and agricultural land matters, and transit service through Translink. He also believes communities with municipal forces can merge together more easily than those with RCMP detachments and their federal infrastructure. 

An all-party committee that presented a report to the legislature last year on recommended reforms to modernize the police act emphasized that while criminals don’t observe municipal boundaries, police agencies and investigations have issues when crossing into another jurisdiction. It also recommended regional and provincial police.

Metro Vancouver, the capital region around Victoria, and the central Okanagan around Kelowna are all earmarked for regional forces.

SMALL STEPS TOWARDS BIG CHANGES

During last fall’s municipal elections, CTV News asked the minister responsible about the possibility of amalgamating Metro Vancouver into one city, like Edmonton or Toronto, and he was clear that any such changes would have to come from mayors and their councils. 

But with a new premier sworn in months later, it appears increasingly likely that David Eby has seen opinion polling supporting amalgamation and that the former attorney general sees the benefits that other cities started seeing years ago when merging with their suburbs. 

After all, if transit, water, sewer, air quality, and policing are all run regionally, why keep separate city halls when a single mayor and ward system works for everyone else? 

The timeline could also be much sooner than sceptics might anticipate, given the interest some municipalities have had in police transition money the province has offered to Surrey.

“I think the simple question to them is, ‘do you wish to transition away from your current model of policing?’” said Heed. “If we get them to agree to it, I think we can move the amalgamation and the metro-ization of these police services along a lot sooner than later.”