All-party committee calls on B.C. to replace RCMP with provincial police force
An all-party committee of B.C. MLAs is looking on the province to do away with the RCMP within the province and substitute it with a provincial police drive.
The advice comes because the committee grapples with addressing issues of racism related to policing within the province.
“The committee’s imaginative and prescient for policing and public security contains: making certain equitable entry to police and public security providers with constant oversight, governance, coaching, and insurance policies,” the report reads.
Within the report, the committee emphasised that transitioning to a provincial police service shouldn’t be a mirrored image on the work of particular person RCMP officers.
“It’s a reflection of the challenges with governance and accountability with the present federal mannequin,” the report states.
The report additionally focuses on making certain all policing is attentive to and knowledgeable by the group in addition to constructing belief by shifting the tradition and construction of police providers.
The province has not but responded to the suggestions.
As a part of shifting in the direction of a provincial police drive, the committee is looking for the amalgamation of police providers on a regional foundation the place there are alternatives to deal with fragmentation.
“The committee recommends {that a} new provincial police service take over providers previously contracted to the RCMP,” the report reads.
“As with the present mannequin, municipalities would nonetheless have the chance to ascertain a municipal police service, contract with the provincial police service, or enter into an settlement with one other municipality or Indigenous group that has a neighborhood police service to fulfill their policing wants.”
Adopting the report’s suggestions would contain the legislature passing a new Group Security and Policing Act to manipulate the supply of policing and public security providers.
The objective could be to create a police drive based mostly on values of decolonization, anti-racism, group, and accountability.
This would come with making certain Indigenous peoples and nations, and municipal governments, are engaged within the drafting of the laws.
“Over the course of their session, it turned clear to committee members that the Police Act shouldn’t be assembly the wants of British Columbians, and that transformative change is required to modernize policing in B.C.,” the report reads.
“By together with “Group Security” within the title, the committee emphasizes the objective of making certain that each one British Columbians really feel protected of their communities and the way constructive and collaborative relationships between the group and the police enhance public security.”
